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Downtime is inevitable but that doesn’t mean it has to interrupt production and cause widespread panic.

You can be prepared for downtime and even shorten how long business is “down,” by being proactive. Doing this will also reduce the financial impact.  Just imagine how different the scenario would be if you had an action plan to refer to and an established relationship with a certified service provider in the moment you needed it the most? 

These are great proactive steps, but unfortunately, you still need something else. Money. A service budget is important to have set aside to respond appropriately when you’re experiencing downtime.

THE IMPORTANCE OF HAVING A BUDGET LINE ITEM FOR MAINTENANCE & REPAIR

Too many businesses don’t have service plans or backups. Often, they go with the “roll the dice” strategy because they believe in the durability of their software, hardware, machinery, and other operational components. There is the feeling of saving money in taking this approach. Truth is, while you may have saved yourself a little up-front cost by skimping on maintenance or service plans and backups, when something breaks, you’ve created a MUCH higher financial impact.

The cost of fixing what’s broken at the time of emergency results in higher spending than if you had budgeted for repairs and maintenance initially. Consider when your sump pumps out and there’s water in your basement. Because you don’t have a reserve pump, you call a plumber – any plumber. Whoever can come the fastest and the earliest. The result: it costs you a lot more.

Your IT department is already buying maintenance plans on servers and firewalls and other things related to the network and productivity that help with preventing downtime. You need to push this down to your operational components – your bar code scanners and printers, etc. Have the money you need for repairs already saved; you’ll save yourself more money in the long run.

CREATING THE BUDGET

Go back to the beginning when you were assessing all parts and pieces to your business operations and processes. Look at your machine and process inventory. You had noted all the various parts and components (software and hardware) involved.  Which of these do you have maintenance plans on already? What are those costs? Write them down. Which don’t you have a plan on? For those you don’t, is there one available and what’s the cost? Write these down, too.

Identify which items warrant having a backup immediately available on-premise. If you were to purchase these backups, what’s the immediate cost attached? Next, consider your average repair costs for each component.  With working numbers now in hand, review the top priorities – those items you want to tackle (or purchase) immediately and those that you think are less an immediate risk but would be good to budget for the future.  Turn your facts, findings, and figures into a digestible budget and summary.

NOW WHAT? 

Work with your service provider to review the various items you’ve included in your budget to see if they agree or have recommendations. Then, make this available to your superiors and key stakeholders for review and discussion. You’ll need their buy-in before doing anything. With their signal, go after those items you identified as top priority.

Set aside the emergency repair and replacement bucket so that it is there if/when disaster strikes so you know where you’re pulling the money from. If able, purchase those maintenance plans that would best serve you NOW and put their dates for renewal (or updates) on the calendar so you don’t lose track of them. Also put on the calendar the next time you need to review and update this budget for the next fiscal year. Going forward make sure there is a maintenance, services, and repairs allocation as a part of the regular operational budget.

There’s no time like the present.

There’s no reason to wait until the last minute or when the situation is urgent. Understand the importance of being financially prepared for these inevitable instances and get key stakeholders on board. Take the time now to review what you need, get your budget created, put the money aside, ensure your maintenance plans are current, purchase those you don’t have and take care of backups.   Work with a service provider to ensure you’ve covered all details and thought of all expenses. Not sure who that is, try us: Contact us here.