When you estimate and study the cost of possible downtime to your business, consider: - All costs related to restoring your business processes
- Ongoing costs for facilities (such as trunks and T1s) that cannot terminate calls
- Productivity losses when workers are unable to receive calls or process orders
- Any compensatory payments or penalties you must pay when you’re unable to deliver product or serve clients according to service level agreements (At worst, could there be litigation costs associated with broken contracts?)
- Potential losses due to a damaged reputation, including negative impact on credit lines, ratings, and stock price
- Inability to bill clients and collect payments
- Estimated value of new business that you miss
Gartner advises calculating outage costs for various time periods, such as hours or days, because downtime costs change dramatically over time. Also, costs should be calculated at the worst possible time period, like the end of the quarter or at peak times. In addition to looking at probable costs of downtime, look at preventative measures. Evaluate how you maintain network operations, including your systems, software, firmware, applications, security, and integrations. When you self maintain, it is important to develop and keep qualified personnel who can work effectively with multiple vendors to coordinate updates, manage performance, and resolve service problems. When purchasing a maintenance contract, be thorough in evaluating maintenance service providers. Get a full understanding of standard support and research any automated solutions presented. Avaya Product Support Services focus on maximum performance, reliability and availability for your contact centers, messaging, and IP telephony applications and systems. An Avaya maintenance agreement gives you proven expertise, additional resources, and consistent, dependable service. Additionally, with an Avaya Maintenance Agreement, the cost of your service is a stable, consistent amount, which lets you budget effectively: you won’t be charged extra if a component needs replacing or if on-site dispatch is required. | 
