The Effects of a Power Outage on a Business

It’s no secret that businesses depend on power every day to run their operations, but when the power goes out, unplanned downtime can occur that can cost thousands and thousands if not even millions of dollars. Unexpected outages can lead to situations that may even be difficult to recover from and ultimately lead to closing for good. Making sure your business is protected with automatic standby power will help your business mitigate the potential losses such as:

• Lost Customers and Revenue
  • When power outages occur, sites may go down and result in lost customers and lost revenue. When customers cannot access your website, they may have no way to purchase your products which result in buying from your competition. Customers can ultimately perceive your company differently and result in a damaged reputation creating additional marketing expenses to acquire their business again.
• Unturned Inventory
  • During a power outage, the speed at which you sell your inventory will decrease.
• Decreased Employee Productivity
  • Downtime as a result of power outages has an impact on employee productivity. Employees may not be able to complete their tasks when key equipment is down. Also, IT employees may need to work overtime to resolve problems or professionals may need to be hired to help recover lost data and get systems running again.
• Stored Computer Data Loss
  • Power outages are one of the top reasons data loss occurs. Computers and operating systems are complex and need to be shut down properly, but when an unexpected power outage occurs, files you are working on can be lost and damage to hard drives which affect their lifespan occur.
• Damages to Equipment
  • The most common reported damages to equipment are caused by electrical surges when power is restored. Midwest Electric and Generator can supply your business with the proper backup power supply to implement protection from these electrical surges. Not having this protection will lead to unanticipated expenses to replace equipment.

Monetary Loss During a Power Outage 

Downtime from power outages can cost your business a significant amount of money impacting your bottom line and ongoing business operations. Although every business is different, monetary losses vary based on the industry, length of the outage, time of the day, and the number of people. The average power outage cost is $100,000 in the United States based on organizations that experience only one hour of downtime! Yikes!

To calculate the cost of your business’ downtime per hour, add labor costs each hour to the revenue lost each hour. Your labor costs per hour will take into account factors such as revenue, number of employees, number of hours worked per week, average annual employee benefits, and the percentage of the workforce affected by the outage. The revenue lost per downtime hour will factor in your daily revenue and the percentage of your revenue affected by the outage.

Contact Midwest Electric and Generator today and take the first step in preparing your business to face the challenges that come from power outages. Automatic standby generator systems and surge protection is a must in today’s unstable power grid.