Importance of a UPS…Are You Protected?

Is your critical electronic equipment protected from power surges? 

Can your employees still conduct business during a power outage?

If your answer was “no” or “I don’t know” to either of these questions, you owe it to your business to keep reading.  First let’s talk about the electrical “power surges.”  Take a moment to look around your office at all of the electronic equipment (computers, printers, copiers, phone system, servers, switches, televisions/monitors, etc.); now think about how much money was spent on all of that equipment.  If it’s a “home” office it might be a few thousand dollars, if you’re in a large corporate office it might be hundreds of thousands of dollars.  Everyone has seen and probably used a “power strip” that not only gives you extra outlets, but also protects the connected equipment from power surges.  Every piece of electronic equipment, including your TV and DVD or Blue Ray player at home, should be protected with a surge protector.  I won’t get into the details here, but you can buy a surge protector for $5-$10, or you can spend hundreds; some will even buy you new equipment if it’s damaged while plugged into their surge protector.  Do some research to determine how much protection you need.

So now that your equipment is protected from power surges, what happens when there is no power at all?  Does your business come to a screeching stop?  Do you count the money you are losing as the minutes pass by on your [battery powered] watch?

 What would it be worth to your business if you could keep your phones (and other equipment) working during a power outage?  Would you save money on unproductive employees?  Would you have more sales?  More “happy” customers?

Connecting your critical equipment (phone system) to an uninterruptible power supply (UPS) would allow you to continue to make and receive calls during a power outage.  Connect your servers, computers and printers and now you have a fully operational business while your competitors are updating their MySpace or Facebook status from their cell phones.  The bonus is that most uninterruptible power supplies also offer surge protection, so you just need the one piece of equipment.

Let me illustrate this point for you with a true story that happened recently.  A medical office had a power surge followed by a short power outage.  The surge fried the hard drive and one of the cards in the phone system that cost nearly $1,200 to replace.  If they had a UPS, their phone system would have been just fine, and they could have used the phones during the power outage.  There is no way to measure the number of calls missed or customers lost during the downtime.  The irony of the story is that the medical office had already purchased a UPS to connect with their phone system, but never took the 5-10 minutes to install it.  The UPS was still in the box on the floor when the technician arrived to repair the phone system.

Learn how to protect yourself by calling Dicar Networks at 408-850-6400, or www.DicarNetworks.com.

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