Power Protection FEATURED ARTICLE

Hitting stores the day after Thanksgiving is a tradition for many and a day of hope for retailers seeking to get out of the red. While the reference to the day as “Black Friday (News - Alert)” is really a comment on a retailer’s ability to turn a profit, it took on a different meaning for some shoppers when the power went out in Delaware and Pennsylvania.

According to the Delaware Online, the busy Christina Mall was hit with a power outage mid-morning on Black Friday. Shoppers in Macy’s and J.C. Penney were able to continue with normal activity as the lights stayed on. For smaller stores, it was simply too dark for shoppers to try to navigate safely. Plus, staff couldn’t process completed sales without access to power.

A similar story surfaced the next day in Pennsylvania as a number of stores in East Stroudsburg closed briefly due to power outages in the middle of the day. Shoppers were clustered and waiting outside of Kmart and Wal-Mart, waiting for official openings once the power was restored. Losing patience, Kmart eventually let shoppers back into the store to pay with cash only.

In both situations, the power outage cost retailers significant revenue on a day that should have been significant for them. While each did have the opportunity to recoup some of those losses once the power was restored, the fact of the matter is that some shoppers still left before they had the opportunity to make their purchases. A lack of proper power protection is bad for the brand and it’s bad for business.

But even the most robust power protection won’t keep the Wal-Mart lights on if an outage occurs. There’s just too much wattage pulling in larger locations to keep all lights on in the event of an outage or other problem. What power protection delivers, however, is the assurance that expensive equipment and electronics attached to those power sources won’t blow up when massive amounts of power are pushed through the system.

For the business or enterprise trying to conduct standard operations on any given day there is an assumption that the lights will always be on, which leads us to sometimes adopt bad habits. For instance, the typical office worker is likely to continue to focus on entering data, creating content or updating the CRM system. If automatic save processes aren’t in place or the individual doesn’t do it on a regular basis, all information could be lost if the power goes out.

This is where Minuteman adds value. The power protection solutions provider not only delivers powerful solutions that maintain equipment viability when a problem occurs, it also works to save data when the power goes down. If the user has forgotten to save hours of hard work, the Minuteman solution will do it for him or her, eliminating the need to duplicate efforts once the lights come back on.

There is really nothing more frustrating than losing power when you’re in the middle of an important project or a critical day. With Minuteman power protection, at least you know you can get back on track as soon as the lights come back on.