The black cloud over Black Friday: Why two outages demand a new digital strategy

Two major outages in a single month.
Retailers unable to trade.
Payment services stalling.
Peak-season performance wiped out in minutes.

Over 50 major platforms went down, including Snapchat, Zoom, Fortnite, and WhatsApp, while UK bank users at Lloyds and Halifax couldn’t access services, and the HMRC website also experienced downtime.

The message is clear: Our digital economy is far more fragile than most businesses realise.

The bigger risk: Assumptions‍

Many organisations rely on infrastructure they don’t understand, running in regions they’ve never seen, with failover plans they assume will “just work”.
Two major outages in weeks? That’s not bad luck; it’s a warning.

Resilience. Readiness. Reliability.

The most resilient businesses deliberately prepare for all eventualities. They build robust digital foundations, not just modern tools. That means:

• Smartly distributed architectures – pragmatic multi-cloud, multi-region, risk-aware design.
• Built-in redundancy & scenario planning – assume failure and ensure customer journeys survive it.
• Full visibility of the digital estate – know instantly what’s failing and how to route around it.
• Strategic digital roadmaps, not tech stacks – focus on long-term capability, not short-term convenience.

Absolute confidence with AbsoluteLabs

AbsoluteLabs brings heavyweight industry expertise, having supported some of the world’s most iconic brands. We design digital ecosystems that stay upright when the world goes sideways.

We specialise in

• Designing and modernising resilient architectures across retail, hospitality and finance sectors
• Building peak-ready operations
• Reducing dependence on single points of failure
• Establishing real-time visibility and governance across the digital stack

Because downtime isn’t just an IT issue anymore; it’s revenue and reputation.

The next outage is inevitable. The impact isn’t.

Digital fragility is real, but with the right strategy and the right partner, your business doesn’t have to share it.

Futureproof your digital foundation with AbsoluteLabs, a backbone that never buckles.