With modern business being so technologically driven, there’s bound to be knock on effects when the WIFI decides to go down or delay your workload. But is it more than just added frustration for your staff?

As an employee or owner of a business, what springs to mind when you think of the most important resources for the firm? Money, Staff, Working Space? Clearly yes, Internet? Perhaps not.

But if you take a moment to delve into your business’s activities, emails, buying stock, finance and even research. You’ll see these all require you to use the internet in some form. So how does a business get affected when their provider goes offline or is slower than normal? Here’s 3 areas that may feel the effect:

1. Cloud Based Apps

Almost all areas of business are run through online applications, Accounting (SAGE), Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and Social Media (LinkedIn). If slow connection becomes a problem, it can stress out staff and delay their working procedures.

Online service over email and live chat can slow down, leaving customers wanting to change their supplier or store, as their queries and problems aren’t being addressed as quick as they would like.

2.Your VoIP Communications

Due to big changes in the telecommunications industry, using the internet to make calls has become the norm. It is usually a zero-cost option for business and allows free video-calling. There are two ways to make and receive calls through VoIP services. Google and Skype calling over the internet or using traditional modern desks phones that connect to the internet to allow workers to dial.

Internet can easily be affected by bad weather if the firm’s VoIP provider is small and vulnerable. Slower internet can easily disrupt calls and cause miscommunications, which may create errors in data and orders etc.

Sometimes the slow connection is caused by a business having too many lines, and there just isn’t enough strength to keep up with so many users at once.

3. Employees

As an owner or director, you’d like to guarantee your staff a quick and efficient PC that enables them to swiftly work through their day-to-day tasks. Sometimes when broadband slows this just isn’t possible.

Even the slightest delay can frustrate workers, as it can break their routine and ruin their mood. Let’s say your business spends 5% of its time having to wait on pages to load, having slow download speeds and re-connecting due to outages. This can build up over the course of a year, and a business may waste 5 days a year facing internet problems.

How can firms deal with this problem?

Sometimes slow internet speeds are because of badly positioned routers, or apps and websites. Some firms use streaming services and gaming apps which can use up more than 50% of the bandwidth available, slowing down all other searches. You may have noticed this when you download a few games onto your PC, it makes loading times on the internet a few moments slower.

If there is no improvement after clearing out PCs and/or repositioning routers, it is probably best for a business to consider upgrading their broadband. Even the online giant Amazon is heavily affected, research found that a 1-second loading time on their website can lose £1.15 Billion, as you can see it’s a problem not far from home.

There are a lot of packages your business can choose from if an upgrade is necessary, we’d recommend checking out deals with BT, the UK’s leading broadband provider. If you have any queries about upgrading or replacing broadband, you can contact us here

References: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/20141112210153-68335342-top-3-business-failures-due-to-slow-internet/ https://www.weebly.com/inspiration/internet-speed-affects-your-business https://www.brashsolutions.co.uk/slow-unreliable-broadband-affecting-local-economy/