Despite numerous high-profile incidents in the last year, enterprises are still not paying enough attention to the needs of their users, according to research.

In the fifth annual Veeam Availability Report, 84% of senior IT decisions-makers across the globe admitted to suffering an ‘availability gap’ between what IT can deliver and what users demand – a two point increase on 2014.

This costs businesses up to $16 million a year in lost revenue and productivity, in addition to the negative impact on customer confidence and brand integrity, according to 68% and 62% of respondents respectively.

This figure has risen a staggering $6 million in 12 months, despite almost all respondents saying they have implemented tightened measures to reduce availability incidents and that 48% of all workloads are classified as ‘mission-critical (rising to 53% by 2017).

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With the number of the world’s connected population soaring to record levels last year (3.4 billion or around 42% of the globe) and predictions there will be almost 21 billion connected devices by the end of 2020, the need to deliver 24-7 access to data and applications has never been more important.

However, it seems that enterprises have not received that message, despite more than two-thirds of respondents saying they have invested heavily in data centre modernisation specifically to increase availability levels.

“When you talk to more than 1,000 senior IT decision makers, you expect that there will be some that are still struggling to deliver on the needs of the always-on enterprise but these findings are alarming,” said Ratmir Timashev, CEO at Veeam. “Modern enterprises are becoming software-driven businesses, so IT departments can no longer get away with services that are ‘ok’ – always-on availability is paramount.

“However, since our last study, the number of annual unplanned downtime events have increased – from 13 to 15 – and they are also lasting longer and taking a far greater amount of time to recover. In today’s economy, where speed and reliability are imperative, this is unacceptable. If this trend continues, I fear for the companies we surveyed.”