Last month, the UK slipped from 31st to 35th place in the global broadband league tables, behind 25 other European countries.
Unfortunately this has been a growing trend – in 2014 the Citizen’s advice bureau conducted a survey of small businesses and found that 30% experienced problems with their broadband which resulted in loss of service and incurring significant costs to the business, and it seems to be getting worse each year!
If you are using broadband at the moment, you need to ask yourself – how would your business cope if you lost internet access for a day, a week or more? Many business owners think this will never happen to them, but we have seen it time and time again where a broadband connection has been faulty and the company hasn’t been able to access the internet for several days.
If you are like the majority of companies, where many of your business is done via email or online, having no internet access can cost you thousands of pounds. Yet many businesses put their trust in a broadband connection costing less than £360 per year, and if it goes offline it can cause them a huge loss in revenue.
It seems crazy, but this is what many business owners do – you might be turning over £300,000 per year, yet they are relying on an internet connection costing less than £250 per year. If that connection goes down, then they could easily lose £1000, £2000, or more each day in lost sales!
So what can you do to prevent your business from grinding to a halt when you have no internet?
The most reliable way your business can connect to the internet is using a dedicated leased line connection. This type of connection comes with a guaranteed uptime, and usually has a service level agreement guaranteeing a same-day fix time if the line is faulty.
A dedicated leased line might cost significantly more than a broadband connection, however you should ask yourself what would be the cost to your business if you didn’t have a guaranteed internet connection? In most cases the potential loss in revenue in a business far outweighs any additional costs that this service might incur. For example, would you think investing 1% of your annual revenue in a guaranteed internet connection would be a good choice? If it meant your business was never disrupted, of course you would!
Unfortunately, most business owners are still risking their £20,000+ revenue per month, on a £20 per month broadband which may fail at any time. It seems like a false economy, especially if it goes wrong!
At nxcoms, we not only help businesses who struggle with poor unreliable broadband connections, but we help them get good quality internet access which is suitable for their business needs. There’s lots of alternative ways to connect to the internet and if you want to ensure your business doesn’t risk loosing revenue from faults and downtime, then why not contact us or call 0161 711 1100