Grounded From a Glitch
Earlier last week, United Airlines experienced a major technology failure that led to a nationwide grounding of all it's mainline flights. The issue stemmed from a breakdown of one of their internal platforms that's used for flight planning, crew scheduling, and weight calculations. Though the system was eventually restored, the disruption impacted airports across the country, leading to over a thousand delays and dozens of cancellations. While United confirmed it was not caused by a cyberattack, the incident shows just how must operations rely on the seamless collaboration of technology.
Why Small Businesses Should Take Notice
Many small businesses operate under the false assumption that tech disruptions of this scale only happen to the big guys, after all, the bigger you are the harder you fall, right? Having that mindset can leave your vulnerable, even if you are a smaller business. Unlike large enterprises who's budgets can afford large teams of IT professionals, small businesses often lack the resources to quickly diagnose, respond to, and recover from a critical system failure. In those moments when downtime does strike, the impact is felt immediately in the form of lost sales, customer frustration, and leaves your team in chaos.
What makes this even more dangerous is when smaller companies continue using outdated or unmonitored systems without a clear incident response plan. Without regular maintenance, backups, or monitoring, they're essentially flying blind without insurance, and the chances of tech failures increase. United had the resources to correct the issue and restore operations within hours, but what would that timeline look like for your business?
Building Resilient Systems With the Right IT Partner
Having proactive IT supporting your business is a strategic advantage for your business. With AdvanTech working closely in a variety of industries including education, manufacturing, non-profits, and many other small businesses across New England, we ensure systems are reliable, secure, and always prepared for the unexpected. From ongoing monitoring and patch management to backup solutions and disaster recovery planning, our services are built to keep your business running, even when things go wrong.
The outage that hit United Airlines is a reminder that technology is the backbone of today's operations and when it fails, it can cost you. Don't wait for a crisis to realize the value of proactive IT management. Let's make sure your systems are ready for anything.
