How Power Blackouts Can Massively Hamper Your Business Strategies

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 .

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. 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 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.