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Millions Lost to Internet Outages: Could a C-Suite Role Help Stem the Tide?

Mehdi Daoudi

The consequences of outages have become a pressing issue as the largest IT outage in history continues to rock the world with severe ramifications. It has been estimated that this latest outage cost Fortune 500 companies as much as $5.4 billion in revenues and gross profit with Delta most recently confirming $380 million in revenue alone. According to the Catchpoint Internet Resilience Report, these types of disruptions, internet outages in particular, can have severe financial and reputational impacts and enterprises should strongly consider their resilience.

This isn't just an issue impacting companies using CrowdStrike's software, but is one that is costing companies millions across the board. The Internet Resilience Report revealed that 43% of surveyed businesses in sectors including finance, e-commerce, cloud, and healthcare estimated losses of over $1 million due to internet outages or degradations in the month prior to the 2024 survey.

In today's interconnected world, a single point of failure in internet infrastructure can translate directly into substantial revenue losses. Thus, a top-down approach to internet resilience is needed. Companies should consider the establishment of a chief resilience officer (CRO) within the C-suite. This role is akin to that of a Chief Security Officer, emphasizing the importance of resilience alongside security. One of the primary causes of frequent outages is the lack of centralized and unified monitoring tools, resulting in a fragmented IT landscape reminiscent of the Balkans. The CRO should be responsible for driving the standardization of telemetry across the organization to enhance resilience. As the report highlights, the financial and reputational consequences of inadequate resilience are as severe as those of security breaches. Therefore, it is imperative that companies prioritize resilience at the highest levels of their organization.

In fact, Fortune 2000 companies are leading the charge in the new trend and increasingly recognizing the value of the CRO role. These executives are tasked with driving resilience planning, identifying single points of failure, and devising strategies to mitigate potential disruptions. The extensive Adobe Experience Cloud outage last year, which lasted 18 hours (in addition to the recent CrowdStrike outage), serves as a stark example of the type of service disruption that a CRO could help manage and prevent.

However, the creation of a CRO position is not the only path to achieving resilience. Organizations should also foster a culture of resilience by learning from their mistakes by documenting and studying failures within the product delivery chain and encouraging a mindset of continuous improvement. Companies should conduct preemptive exercises to test their systems, identifying weaknesses and refining their responses to potential outages.

Moreover, it is crucial for businesses to work with reliable vendors who demonstrate a commitment to resilience. While everyone is allowed to make mistakes, repeated failures or a lack of accountability should prompt companies to reconsider their partnerships. Learning from each incident and ensuring that vendors do the same is key to maintaining a resilient internet infrastructure.

As we navigate our increasingly digital-first world, the importance of internet resilience cannot be overstated. It should be an integral part of any disaster recovery or business continuity program, discussed at the highest organizational levels and tested regularly. While we can't simulate every possible outage scenario, planning for the unexpected has become a crucial business practice.

Prioritizing internet resilience and taking resiliency into consideration from the c-suite down is essential for any business aiming to thrive amidst the complexities of our connected landscape.

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Businesses that face downtime or outages risk financial and reputational damage, as well as reducing partner, shareholder, and customer trust. One of the major challenges that enterprises face is implementing a robust business continuity plan. What's the solution? The answer may lie in disaster recovery tactics such as truly immutable storage and regular disaster recovery testing ...

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Millions Lost to Internet Outages: Could a C-Suite Role Help Stem the Tide?

Mehdi Daoudi

The consequences of outages have become a pressing issue as the largest IT outage in history continues to rock the world with severe ramifications. It has been estimated that this latest outage cost Fortune 500 companies as much as $5.4 billion in revenues and gross profit with Delta most recently confirming $380 million in revenue alone. According to the Catchpoint Internet Resilience Report, these types of disruptions, internet outages in particular, can have severe financial and reputational impacts and enterprises should strongly consider their resilience.

This isn't just an issue impacting companies using CrowdStrike's software, but is one that is costing companies millions across the board. The Internet Resilience Report revealed that 43% of surveyed businesses in sectors including finance, e-commerce, cloud, and healthcare estimated losses of over $1 million due to internet outages or degradations in the month prior to the 2024 survey.

In today's interconnected world, a single point of failure in internet infrastructure can translate directly into substantial revenue losses. Thus, a top-down approach to internet resilience is needed. Companies should consider the establishment of a chief resilience officer (CRO) within the C-suite. This role is akin to that of a Chief Security Officer, emphasizing the importance of resilience alongside security. One of the primary causes of frequent outages is the lack of centralized and unified monitoring tools, resulting in a fragmented IT landscape reminiscent of the Balkans. The CRO should be responsible for driving the standardization of telemetry across the organization to enhance resilience. As the report highlights, the financial and reputational consequences of inadequate resilience are as severe as those of security breaches. Therefore, it is imperative that companies prioritize resilience at the highest levels of their organization.

In fact, Fortune 2000 companies are leading the charge in the new trend and increasingly recognizing the value of the CRO role. These executives are tasked with driving resilience planning, identifying single points of failure, and devising strategies to mitigate potential disruptions. The extensive Adobe Experience Cloud outage last year, which lasted 18 hours (in addition to the recent CrowdStrike outage), serves as a stark example of the type of service disruption that a CRO could help manage and prevent.

However, the creation of a CRO position is not the only path to achieving resilience. Organizations should also foster a culture of resilience by learning from their mistakes by documenting and studying failures within the product delivery chain and encouraging a mindset of continuous improvement. Companies should conduct preemptive exercises to test their systems, identifying weaknesses and refining their responses to potential outages.

Moreover, it is crucial for businesses to work with reliable vendors who demonstrate a commitment to resilience. While everyone is allowed to make mistakes, repeated failures or a lack of accountability should prompt companies to reconsider their partnerships. Learning from each incident and ensuring that vendors do the same is key to maintaining a resilient internet infrastructure.

As we navigate our increasingly digital-first world, the importance of internet resilience cannot be overstated. It should be an integral part of any disaster recovery or business continuity program, discussed at the highest organizational levels and tested regularly. While we can't simulate every possible outage scenario, planning for the unexpected has become a crucial business practice.

Prioritizing internet resilience and taking resiliency into consideration from the c-suite down is essential for any business aiming to thrive amidst the complexities of our connected landscape.

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According to Auvik's 2025 IT Trends Report, 60% of IT professionals feel at least moderately burned out on the job, with 43% stating that their workload is contributing to work stress. At the same time, many IT professionals are naming AI and machine learning as key areas they'd most like to upskill ...

Businesses that face downtime or outages risk financial and reputational damage, as well as reducing partner, shareholder, and customer trust. One of the major challenges that enterprises face is implementing a robust business continuity plan. What's the solution? The answer may lie in disaster recovery tactics such as truly immutable storage and regular disaster recovery testing ...

IT spending is expected to jump nearly 10% in 2025, and organizations are now facing pressure to manage costs without slowing down critical functions like observability. To meet the challenge, leaders are turning to smarter, more cost effective business strategies. Enter stage right: OpenTelemetry, the missing piece of the puzzle that is no longer just an option but rather a strategic advantage ...

Amidst the threat of cyberhacks and data breaches, companies install several security measures to keep their business safely afloat. These measures aim to protect businesses, employees, and crucial data. Yet, employees perceive them as burdensome. Frustrated with complex logins, slow access, and constant security checks, workers decide to completely bypass all security set-ups ...

Image
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In MEAN TIME TO INSIGHT Episode 13, Shamus McGillicuddy, VP of Research, Network Infrastructure and Operations, at EMA discusses hybrid multi-cloud networking strategy ... 

In high-traffic environments, the sheer volume and unpredictable nature of network incidents can quickly overwhelm even the most skilled teams, hindering their ability to react swiftly and effectively, potentially impacting service availability and overall business performance. This is where closed-loop remediation comes into the picture: an IT management concept designed to address the escalating complexity of modern networks ...

In 2025, enterprise workflows are undergoing a seismic shift. Propelled by breakthroughs in generative AI (GenAI), large language models (LLMs), and natural language processing (NLP), a new paradigm is emerging — agentic AI. This technology is not just automating tasks; it's reimagining how organizations make decisions, engage customers, and operate at scale ...

In the early days of the cloud revolution, business leaders perceived cloud services as a means of sidelining IT organizations. IT was too slow, too expensive, or incapable of supporting new technologies. With a team of developers, line of business managers could deploy new applications and services in the cloud. IT has been fighting to retake control ever since. Today, IT is back in the driver's seat, according to new research by Enterprise Management Associates (EMA) ...

In today's fast-paced and increasingly complex network environments, Network Operations Centers (NOCs) are the backbone of ensuring continuous uptime, smooth service delivery, and rapid issue resolution. However, the challenges faced by NOC teams are only growing. In a recent study, 78% state network complexity has grown significantly over the last few years while 84% regularly learn about network issues from users. It is imperative we adopt a new approach to managing today's network experiences ...

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