17/06/2026
Cisco has announced the release of Splunk’s latest research, The Hidden Costs of Downtime, revealing the aggregate cost of unplanned downtime for Global 2000 companies has surged to $600 billion annually – a 50% increase in just two years.
In partnership with Oxford Economics, the Splunk study shows that the financial toll of an outage is immediate, severe, and potentially long-lasting. Downtime has become a systemic business crisis that threatens revenue, brand equity and shareholder value, costing an organization $95 million in lost revenue annually. This is nearly twice the level seen in 2024.
“Downtime is inevitable; prolonged disruption is not,” said Kamal Hathi, SVP and GM, Splunk, a Cisco company. “The most resilient organizations are not the ones with the most tools or the biggest vision for AI. They are the ones that align technology with business outcomes, empower people with context, and design systems that bend, but do not break, under pressure.”
The Business Impact of Downtime
Technology executives increasingly view the consequences of an outage as more severe. Publicly disclosing a data breach is now considered the most severe hidden cost, with 71% of technology executives rating it as very or prohibitively disruptive, up from 23% in 2024. Furthermore, downtime triggers a chain reaction of hidden costs, including:
Financial and Market Erosion: The study found that the average cost of downtime has reached $15,000 per minute. In addition, organizations see an average 3.4% drop in stock price following a downtime event.
Customer Churn: Eighty-one percent of technology leaders cite the loss of customers as a consequence of downtime, with 47% admitting customers are often or very often the first to detect service degradation or outages.
Escalating Ransomware Costs: Ransomware payouts have nearly tripled since 2024, now reaching $40 million on average, making them one of the most significant direct financial burdens.
Regulatory Exposure: Regulatory fines have reached an average of $51 million per organization, with 57% of technology executives now viewing these penalties as very or prohibitively disruptive.
Operational Drag: A staggering 89% of tech leaders cite the need for large numbers of personnel to fix issues. Nearly all (90%) tech leaders report increased demand for customer support with 76% of finance and 74% of marketing executives feeling the pressure as well.
Brand Recovery: Nearly 20% of marketing professionals report that it takes an entire quarter to recover brand health following remediation.
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