Get Your FREE Network Security Here

By slpowers on July 29, 2013 • ( 1 )

I’d like to show you a “free” improvement for your network security.

If you read my last entry, I discussed the need for better internet controls within your organization and discussed some examples. If you agree and it is time to step up security to protect your organization, let’s look a simple remedy, one example being Clearwidth— an internet bandwidth monitoring, reporting and control appliance.

Let’s say you are a 40 user organization with an average salary of $40k per employee, and 240 working days a year. The Clearwidth solution costs $5,000 to purchase, $1,000 to install and configure, and $1,000 per year to maintain. Not a bad price tag considering the amount of money lost on time wasted by distracted employees.

An article on Forbes expressed the enormity of the issue in a guest post from Russ Warner. Warner referenced a survey from Salary.com stating

According to the survey, a majority of employees regularly spend time surfing the Internet on websites unrelated to work. Because “time is money,” every hour wasted has a direct negative impact on the bottom line.

Specifically, the survey revealed 64 percent of employees visit non-work related websites every day at work. Of that group, 39 percent spend one hour or less per week, 29 percent spend 2 hours per week, 21 percent waste five hours per week, and only 3 percent said they waste 10 hours or more doing unrelated activities. (My experience as a CEO tells me these figures are probably underestimated.)

The survey also revealed which websites keep employees most off-task. Not surprisingly, socializing on Facebook occupied 41 percent, while 37 percent use LinkedIn, and 25 percent are shopping at Amazon. Other destinations include Yahoo and Google+ and to a lesser extent Twitter and Pinterest.

All these distractions not only waste time, but slow the internet and make you less productive overall! The math – 96 minutes wasted per user per day, or 64 hours per day within our example organization! That’s $1,333 per DAY. Can you agree that employees probably waste an extra 24 minutes a day in addition to the 24 minutes you’d be happy to give them? You bet. So that is still $333 a day on wasted time and non productive internet use impeding the business apps that you need to function well. This solution would easily pay itself off in the first two months… and pay dividends month after month. It’s like…Free!