Gabriel Gambill, Senior Systems Engineer for EMEA Quorum says: "In terms of having a solid business continuity (BC) plan in place, there is no more of a crucial time for the retail industry than the run up to Christmas. In the UK alone, approximately £810 million was spent on Black Friday last year - this is equivalent to more than double 2014’s total. Just as people fight in the aisles to secure a bargain, websites crash: as well as buyers, retailers need to be prepared to cope with demand. This is the period in which the majority of businesses in the retail industry start to see profit, so it is imperative that everything functions without disruption or downtime.
Retail businesses should remember the 3 Rs:
1) Risk – understand your level of risk
2) Run tests – in order to work out peak capacity
3) Recovery – ensure a plan is in place for system outage or failure
The popularity of Black Friday is increasing, therefore the retail industry must ensure more than ever that its IT infrastructure can keep up with demand. During this peak time, poorly executed business continuity and disaster recovery plans place businesses and the larger retail ecosystems at risk. It is critical that organisations ensure their systems are prepared to deal with the massive traffic surge to their online sites while protecting customer data and preparing to recover if anything fails. As with any business, time is money: downtime at such an important time of year can have a potentially disastrous effects on a company’s reputation."
Hubert da Costa, VP EMEA Cradlepoint adds: "All the attention of Black Friday tends to go on its profit making opportunities for retailers, but the forward thinking retailer will also be considering the potential costs of network downtime. Typically network downtime costs an average of £200k an hour, but that is just an average. In the retail sector, to be unable to take payments on a day such as Black Friday would be catastrophic. In addition to the financial hit, there is also the negative impact on your brand. The security risks of batch processing aren’t worth taking, but whilst queues of disgruntled customers build, so too can the pressure. When you’re looking at the true eye watering cost of network downtime, the lost opportunity and the reputational damage, it becomes clear a network failover solution does not just provide business continuity on the day, but ensures your business continues to run in the future."