If you are a BUSINESS OWNER, you might already have learned about the
past encounters between the modern industry and POWER OUTAGES IN
AUSTRALIA. These BLACKOUTS OFTEN COME OUT OF NOWHERE, but when they
finally leave, they usually go out doing enough damage on the business
side of things
[https://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-02-09/south-australians-blackouts-costing-businesses-money/8255086]
.This is why in this article, we’re going to dig beneath the surface
of which industries are the most vulnerable to these phenomena, and
also the simple solution to your business problems that relate to the
loss of power.
INDUSTRIES THAT SUFFER THE MOST:-
1. MEDICAL ESTABLISHMENTS:
Hospitals and clinics are the last places on earth where you’d want
the primary power grid to fail. These places can’t afford to lose a
single second of power supply as the consequences might be disastrous.
The lives of hundreds of thousands of patients depend on the constant
availability of high-tech equipment and all these modern equipment
(such as ECG monitor, X-ray machines, Ventilators, etc) are directly
dependent on the power supply from the main grid.
This is why hospitals are among the foremost places to need a
reinforcement power source such as a diesel generator to make sure
that things continue to run smoothly.
2. MILITARY BASES:
Military bases all over the world these days employ an array of
gadgets and high-tech machinery during their training camps and most
of these devices are run on the electrical power supply. With the loss
of power, all the weaponry and fighting equipment can be rendered
useless, and that can make the army vulnerable to unforeseen threats.
Needless to say, these sectors can’t really afford to run out of
power supply or else they run the risk of depending on swiss knives
for their mere survival during the most critical situations.
3. STOCK MARKET:
It’s really important to fathom that the stock market can easily
collapse if the power within a vast area was to simply vanish away for
a few hours. Thousands and thousands of people buy goods each second,
so a multinational corporation that invests in the stock market can
lose millions of dollars if the power outage was to occur even for a
few seconds!
For the companies associated with the stock market, transactions must
never stop, and therefore even a blip in the regular power supply can
be a sweat-inducing occurrence for them.
4. FOOD INDUSTRY:
By the food industry, not only do I mean the food preparation industry
that includes restaurants, hotels, and bars, but also the food
delivery industry where some of the biggest names such as Uber Eats,
Deliveroo, Dominos, etc simply can’t live without electrical
availability.
Restaurants without power can’t efficiently produce the same quality
of food, and that in extension is bad news for the delivery personnel
as well. Also, without power, the supermarkets keeping food items will
also suffer since the shoppers won’t bother purchasing fresh fruits.
Vegetables thinking that there’s no point buying them only to throw
them away the next day.
5. RETAIL & WHOLESALE COMPANIES:
Uninvited POWER OUTAGES ARE A BAD OMEN FOR THE COMPANIES WITHIN THE
RETAIN BUSINESS IN MORE WAYS THAN ONE. Downtime can affect some of the
biggest BUSINESSES, and perhaps one of the most recent examples of
that is when Amazon was hit in 2016 from an unexpected storm in Sydney
[https://www.smh.com.au/technology/web-chaos-mostly-over-after-amazon-web-services-hit-by-power-outage-during-sydney-storm-20160606-gpc707.html].
Due to an unf oreseen power outage, their website was not available to
the buyers for a duration of only about 15 minutes.
But those few minutes of non-operation were enough to cost the company
an estimated revenue equating to about $3 Million! It just goes to
show why retail and wholesale companies need to prepare to face this
challenge.
MAJOR CONSEQUENCES OF POWER OUTAGES ON BUSINESS:-
1. LOSS OF PRODUCTION:
Let’s be clear about this. When a company that’s under operation
24*7 faces an unplanned power outage, the machinery will
simultaneously shut down thereby costing them hundreds of thousands of
dollars with every passing hour.
Not only will chaos ensue, but the unavailability of a backup POWER
SOURCE SUCH AS A diesel generator
[https://www.genelite.com.au/diesel-generators/] will further ha unt
the owner for his/her negligence towards the potential crisis. In
mining industries, the loss of power can even be life-threatening, and
therefore must be subjected to maximum attention by the corporations
carrying the operation
2. LOSS OF REVENUE:
Naturally, no production directly leads to loss of revenue. You
can’t produce goods so you can’t sell them, that’s pretty much
how the game goes. But these financial losses are not just based on
the goods that you can’t sell, but rather your employee team as
well. Just because your office ran out of power, doesn’t mean that
you won’t have to pay your huge staff the wages they deserve.
You can’t lawfully deny your workers their salaries in the event
that the power went out and the business operations came to a halt.
Therefore, not keeping a standby power source around will cost you
tremendously, financially speaking.
3. LOSS OF CUSTOMERS:
Once again, the chain reaction will further mean that you can’t
reach out to your valued customers, nor can you sell them the goods,
which is a double-trouble sort of situation since not only can they
acquire your service, most of them can’t even get in touch with you
and get a positive response.
It’s all about brand image in modern times. With so much competition
out there, you can’t simply afford to let your customers go and shop
from other brands just because you’re left here wondering when the
power comes back and you can resume your business operation.
4. LOSS OF DATA:
Data centers will instantly run out of business if the power outages
occur in their area and they don’t have a backup plan in store. When
they are tasked with storing, managing, and handling so much sensitive
business information on their servers, going offline for a single
second opens the floodgates as far as potential threats are concerned.
Permanent loss of data, hacking, misinformation, etc is all possible
outcomes of a power outage.
CONCLUSION:
There’s a reason why the term “better safe than sorry” continues
to be employed in every department out there. No matter the business
that you associate with, or which market sector you belong to, a power
outage will directly hamper your progress and therefore you must
always have the reinforcement strategies in check.
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23/04/2020 Last update