Traditional network vulnerabilities are causing more business impacts than most realize, resulting in revenue and job loss, according to a survey commissioned by Avaya.
The survey of mid-to-large companies in the US, Canada, andUK found that 82% of those surveyed experienced some type of network downtime caused by IT personnel making errors when configuring changes to the core of the network.
In fact, the survey found that one-fifth of all network downtime in 2013 was caused by core errors - and 80% of companies experiencing downtime from core errors in 2013 lost revenue, with the average company losing $140,003 per incident. The financial sector lost an average of $540,358 per incident.
The resulting impact on a career can be significant: a surprising 1 in 5 companies fired an IT employee when a network downtime incident occurred. The factor was more dramatic for some industries. Respondents also said that 1 in 3 companies in the natural resources, utilities & telecoms sector sacked IT staff due to downtime caused by change errors.
Survey Methodology: Avaya surveyed 210 IT professionals in large organizations (250+ employees) within the United States, Canada and United Kingdom to understand how much revenue was lost in total as a result of all the downtime incidents caused by core network changes in 2013. The surveys were completed in January 2014 in coordination with Dynamic Markets (UK).