IT downtime cuts enterprise profit by 9%, says study

Downtime cost large enterprises an average of $200 million annually, cutting 9% from yearly profits, according to a study commissioned by Splunk. And while ransomware accounts for a relatively small proportion of that total, enterprises should really be budgeting more for it.

For the study, titled “The Hidden Costs of Downtime,” Oxford Economics quizzed executives from Global 2000 companies about the causes and costs of downtime in IT systems. They counted any service degradation or unavailability of critical business systems due to cyberattacks as well as technical and operational failures as downtime.

“The true financial impact and nature of downtime are hard to pin down,” said Gary Steele, general manager, Splunk in the report. “Researchers often focus only on downtime caused by traditional IT issues, overlooking incidents brought on by cybersecurity failures, while also leaving secondary economic ramifications out of the equation.”