The cost of 77 minutes of downtime during the Christmas Festive Season Sale

Enormous amounts of data are being created and managed by organisations all over the world. As you read this, you may not even be aware of how much of your own data has been collected, stored and used today, this week or this month.

The increasing importance of data adds three very real risks to companies – downtime, compliance and security. Over and above these risks, operating off clean and safe datasets has a direct impact on the much-touted innovations of the fourth industrial revolution: artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning. Intelligent handling and analysis of data in real-time is a given requirement for modern business in an increasingly competitive environment.

Let’s look at India specifically. Every day on our city’s roads one cannot help but notice another delivery vehicle or motorcycle delivering goods from various online retailers. This a testament to the rapid uptake of online services in this country. Indian e-commerce is growing seven times faster than total retail at an annual revenue rate of 51 percent. The fast-expanding market is set to be worth $84 billion in 2021 and the country is expected to be Asia’s third-largest market, as retail as a whole grows to be worth $1.2 trillion.

Consumers await the shopping season to get their hands on steal deals. With Christmas and New Year around the corner, retailers are banking on the opportunity by serving irresistible deals and discounts to the consumers of the online platter. In this context, what can consumers expect from retailers this year?

Consumer interest within the online shopping space during the festive season is growing with the increase in smartphone usage and internet penetration across Indian semi-urban and rural segments with 85 percent of consumers willing to shop during the ongoing festive season. As a result, the web traffic during the festive sale season soars to newer heights, generating an unprecedented amount of data. During such peak season, businesses must ensure that their IT service is up and running to handle the barrage of customers visiting online.

Let’s look at the risk of downtime and the implications it could have on retailers during this critical trading period. The 2019 Veeam Cloud Data Management Report found that that on average, businesses said that their organisation had experienced six unplanned outages in the last 12 months, lasting an average of 77 minutes. The same study also found that 73% of organisations admit to not being able to meet consumer demands for uninterrupted data access and services, which costs the typical company $20 million a year. This astounding figure highlights the devastating effect business downtime can have on productivity, competitiveness and consumer confidence.

Consumers just don’t care about things such as load-balancing servers and uptime percentages – what they care about is a seamless experience from browsing, through ordering, tracking and fulfilment of the transaction. They need to have confidence and trust that services will work as they are supposed to, every time, all the time – while protecting their personal data. If a site is not available when a customer wants to make a purchase, chances are he or she will simply move on to the next one. And with new e-commerce platforms taking on incumbents, competition is heating up.

An hour of downtime can have dire consequences on a retailer’s bottom line any day, but during the festive sale season, the impact is even more severe. The same is true for transport and distribution companies, with demand for next-day and even same-day delivery services significantly higher than average.

If organisations have an outage, they need to restore data with a sense of urgency. We have already established that consumers need, and demand, an always-on service that works. The recovery process needs to be able to protect personal information so that the company remains compliant, all the while protecting the organisation and its processes from security threats, such as malware or ransomware.

Given the growing importance of the December festive season, the stakes are too high for retailers to sit on their laurels when it comes to safeguarding their online infrastructure. Retailers must look at what investments they need to make in their digital platforms to ensure they are open and available at all hours during the festive sale season.

Data is vital to a modern competitive organisation and so any investment in the cloud must focus on reliable data availability and mechanisms to protect data. The intelligent use of data unleashes a superpower of competitiveness. On the other hand, downtime, non-compliance and security threats pose a very costly risk to businesses.

Sandeep Bhambure, Vice President and Managing Director, India & SAARC, Veeam Software