Email is a critical tool for almost every Australian business, so when your email system goes down, it can quickly disrupt daily operations. Whether you use Microsoft 365 or another email platform, downtime means staff can't send or receive messages, which slows communication both internally and with customers and suppliers.
Why email downtime matters to your business
When email is unavailable, your team may miss important orders, customer enquiries, or urgent updates. This can lead to delays, lost sales, and damage to your reputation. Beyond productivity, downtime can increase cyber risk if users try insecure workarounds or if email data isn't properly backed up. For businesses handling sensitive customer information, email outages can also create compliance challenges under privacy regulations.
A typical scenario
Imagine a 50-person Australian manufacturing company that relies on Microsoft 365 for email and collaboration. One morning, their email service experiences unexpected downtime due to a configuration error. Without email, sales staff can't respond to customer quotes, the accounts team can't send invoices, and managers miss critical updates. The company's IT partner quickly identifies the issue and restores service within a few hours, but the delay causes frustration and some lost business. Afterwards, the IT partner reviews the configuration and implements monitoring tools to catch similar issues early.
What you can do now
- Ask your IT provider: What is your average email uptime and how do you handle outages? Do you have monitoring and alerting in place?
- Check your backup strategy: Are your emails regularly backed up? Can you restore lost or corrupted emails quickly?
- Review security settings: Are multi-factor authentication and strong password policies enforced to reduce cyber risk?
- Test your incident response: Does your IT team have a clear plan to communicate and resolve email downtime?
- Consider redundancy: Does your email system have failover options or alternative communication channels during outages?
Next steps
Email downtime can significantly impact your business, but with the right support and preparation, you can reduce risks and recover faster. Talking to a trusted managed IT provider or IT advisor about your current email setup and contingency plans is a practical step to protect your operations and maintain customer trust.