Infrastructure failures rarely occur in isolation. Instead, they trigger a cascade of effects that can bring operations to a halt, make customers unhappy, and cause substantial financial loss to the business. For example, downtime caused by a failed electrical transformer can cost an organization thousands of dollars per minute. The problem is never just the broken piece of equipment. There’s almost always a ripple effect of costly consequences.
It’s possible to develop a contingency plan to keep your business running in case of an infrastructure breakdown. But first, it’s crucial to understand exactly why infrastructure preservation should be prioritized.
Minor disruptions can escalate fast
Cascading failures are failures that increase in size and severity over time as the initial impact spreads across various systems, causing more failures along the way. Usually, the failures will grow exponentially until there is human intervention.
This type of escalation follows predictable stages, where affected systems either fail or underperform, creating stress on all other interconnected systems. The result is exponential failure that has to be addressed on multiple levels at once. It’s not just a matter of A causes B, which causes C. It’s more like A causes B, C, D, E, and F, which causes G-Z, all at the same time.
What may seem like a minor disruption can quickly become the catalyst for a cascade of failures. For example, say you own a small manufacturing facility and a sensor malfunctions on the production line. This seemingly simple inconvenience can trigger a cascade of escalating problems.
The faulty sensor might provide incorrect data to the main control system, which automatically adjusts the manufacturing process to compensate. These adjustments, which never should have happened, cause product quality issues, requiring you to remake all the affected products and manage production delays. Meanwhile, you’ll have to overload your storage area with the faulty products, which leaves you with no space to receive regular or planned shipments.
While it’s convenient to have intricately connected systems, there are serious consequences when those systems fail. One way to protect against this escalation pattern is by implementing advanced monitoring systems to detect minor issues before they grow. It also helps to have operational redundancies and regularly test potential failure scenarios to ensure your response is effective.
Financial consequences promise a difficult recovery
Recovering after a serious infrastructure breakdown isn’t easy, and sometimes it’s impossible. The financial loss associated with infrastructure failure extends far beyond equipment repairs or replacements. Unplanned downtime will inevitably result in lost revenue, but also the following losses:
- Compensation the business must make to account for service interruptions.
- Premium pay for staff members working overtime to help with recovery.
- Contractual penalties that must be paid to clients or customers.
- Premium fees for hiring professionals on no notice.
Losses triggered by downtime can add up fast. According to the data, downtime can cost businesses more than $100,000 per hour after accounting for all financial losses.
The customer impact can create a massive ripple
The impact of downtime on a business is hard enough, but some infrastructure failures can negatively impact customers and ruin a business’ reputation. Today’s consumers expect constant availability/uptime, and even short disruptions can result in lost sales, a drop in customer confidence, and potential migration to competitors.
While a business is down, customers trying to make a purchase will be unhappy, which may cause them to post negative reviews or say bad things about the business in online spaces. Potential customers may avoid buying from that company based on bad reviews and complaints.
Lost productivity
When an infrastructure failure impacts a team’s ability to get their work done, they’ll be forced to use workarounds or stay idle. In either case, they’ll be getting their usual paycheck, which creates a further strain on the company’s finances. When the infrastructure problem is finally fixed, teams will have to scramble and work even harder to catch up with backlogged work, but the company will still be out all the money paid to employees while they couldn’t do much.
Compliance violations
Compliance violations are some of the hidden consequences of downtime. In industries that have strict uptime or data availability requirements, downtime can lead to fines, audits, and increased regulatory scrutiny.
Strengthen infrastructure to reduce the risk of breakdowns
Some breakdowns are unavoidable, but many can be prevented through regular maintenance, self-audits, redundancies, and a comprehensive disaster recovery plan. The potential cost of cascading system failures is too great to ignore.
