It has always been important to know that your company’s resources are being used properly and to the best of their capability.  Businesses want to ensure that their employees are being productive and not wasting the organization’s time and resources.

Internet access is one of those resources that can easily be abused, costing an organization time and money. Internet filtering and/or monitoring with one of Wavecrest’s Cyfin or CyBlock products can help preclude or drive down costs in at least four areas: productivity, bandwidth, legal liability and security.

1. Productivity

• The average worker admits to frittering away 2.09 hours per 8-hour workday, not including lunch and scheduled break-time (America Online and Salary.com survey, 2006).
• The average employee costs a company $29.71 per hour (including salary, overhead costs, benefits, payroll taxes, etc.) —- United States Department of Labor Bureau of Labor Statistics — March 2010.
• Lost productivity costs the company $59.42 per day per employee (2 hrs x $29.71).
• Average employee works 240 days per year.
• Yearly loss per employee is $14,260.80  (240 x $59.42)
• Loss per 1000 employees is $14,260,800 per year.
• Average cost for a Wavecrest Internet filtering or monitoring product with a 1000-employee license is $3,500 per year ($3.50 per user).

Conclusion:  Cost of a Wavecrest license is less than three tenths of one percent of the cost of lost productivity. A well-communicated Web-use policy, coupled with an effective monitoring product, greatly increases productivity in the workplace.

2.  Bandwidth

Reliable studies indicate that as much as 70% of a company’s bandwidth is being consumed by non-productive pursuits. Activities such as online video, audio streaming, downloading movies or MP3’s are especially damaging.  It is quite clear that eliminating or significantly reducing bandwidth abuse can improve network performance and preclude or decelerate the need for organizations to support increased bandwidth use.

3.  Legal Liability

Web-related legal costs typically result from employees visiting pornography sites.  Many studies show this to be a serious problem. In fact, according to research by Nielsen Online in October 2008, one quarter of employees who use the Internet visit porn sites during the workday.  Hits to porn sites are higher during office hours than at any other time of day, according to M.J. McMahon, publisher of AVN Online magazine, which tracks the adult video industry.

This type of activity puts the employer at serious risk of being sued by other workers who are offended or upset by being exposed to pornographic images. Such suits usually take the form of sexual harassment or hostile workplace litigation and can be very costly in terms of damage to reputation as well as legal costs.

4.  Security

Studies show that approximately twenty percent of personal use of the Internet by employees involves activities that pose potential threats to employer network security. Examples include file sharing, the use of malicious code, spyware and more. Like bandwidth abuse, the associated costs are difficult to quantify, but such activities can easily result in network disruptions or slowdowns and/or loss or compromise of proprietary data; these all come with a cost.

The 2010 FIFA World Cup games begin today and will run until July 11.  Challenger, Gray & Christmas, a research firm that deals with lost workplace productivity, ranks the World Cup as one of the biggest time wasters in the workplace worldwide.  And it’s not just time that World Cup viewers will suck up in the workplace.  Bandwidth consumption will also increase with the availability of video streaming of the games.

While the World Cup ranks number 4 in the US as a top time waster behind March Madness, the Super Bowl and Fantasy Football, it will still cost American companies about $121.7 million in lost productivity.  The British economy, however, is looking to lose about $7.36 billion in productivity, according to the British law firm Brabners Chaffe Street.

Wavecrest’s Cyfin and CyBlock products and services help all types of organizations manage and control employee Web activity. Cyfin and CyBlock products do this by monitoring and/or filtering employees’ Web use and reporting on the activity by content categories, e.g., sports, social networking, games, and others. Of particular note, with regard to the World Cup, CyBlock products can be set up to block Web access by categories and by hour so employees can access sports sites on their lunch break or after hours. This approach can help sustain morale while minimizing lost productivity and bandwidth associated with the World Cup.

Sources:
http://blogs.reuters.com/shop-talk/2010/06/08/world-cup-is-no-march-madness-in-sapping-productivity/
http://www.bizjournals.com/kansascity/blog/2010/06/world_cup_promises_some_kick_to_productivity_apps_aim_to_help.html
http://www.usnews.com/usnews/biztech/articles/060608/8worldcup.htm

Bandwidth consumption is an increasing concern for all organizations as bandwidth-intensive sites and video streaming become more popular.  The table below offers several examples of the amount of bandwidth that different online activities consume.

As the table shows, many online activities that are probably not work related utilize a lot of bandwidth.  The last thing any organization needs is network latency or slowdowns due to non-work related online activity.

To mitigate this problem, CyBlock and Cyfin provide IT with the information needed to determine 1) if the bandwidth consumption is work related and 2) if any measures need to be taken to reduce the amount of consumption.  Both products provide quantified data (via Web-use reports) that can help IT personnel keep track of network (bandwidth) utilization by users as well as by type of usage (appropriate or not so appropriate).

The Dashboard is the easiest way to get a quick view of bandwidth usage.  You can quickly find the top bandwidth consumers by users, groups, categories or sites.  You can also check when spikes in bandwidth activity occur.

The reports below can also be used to track bandwidth usage by users and identify potentially troublesome sites.

• Site Analysis Bandwidth Report - Focusing on kilobytes by classification, category, and users, this report gives a good overview of whether the majority of bandwidth consumption was acceptable and which categories and users used the most bandwidth.
• Top Bandwidth Sites Report - This report shows the top bandwidth consuming sites and their categories for the specified time period.
• Network Information Report - Find out your busiest time of day for Internet use with this report.  It shows visits and kilobytes read by hour.
• Top Users Report - This report displays the top hits, visits, and kilobytes by user.

These reports can help you anticipate overload possibilities and the need (or lack of need) to purchase additional capacity.  If abuse can be detected and brought under control, the cost of additional capacity may be avoided.

By monitoring and using the reports listed above, you can:

1. Obtain an accurate, content-categorized picture of network usage patterns
2. Identify bandwidth abusers for management attention
3. Prevent bandwidth wastage through intelligent filtering
4. Improve IT system performance and reduce bandwidth costs.

It’s baaaacccccckkkkkk! Happens every year. March Madness, that is. Everybody loves it. (Well, almost everybody.)

The excitement! The fun! The astounding fast breaks, slam dunks and three-pointers! And oh yes, watching it all unfold on your office computer.

Who could not like it? Well, for openers, the overworked folks who have to worry about workforce productivity, bandwidth costs, security issues and legal risks.

Here’s just one of many worrisome predictions, “FIRST WEEK OF TOURNEY COULD COST $1.8 BILLION.” It comes from the Challenger March Madness Report. The report also states, “The men’s college basketball tournament, better known as March Madness, marks the arrival of several other annual rituals: employee-organized office pools, a potential dip in productivity and a marked decline in Internet speed, as workers soak up bandwidth watching live streaming broadcasts of the tournament games during office hours.”

Not exactly good news for businesses and government agencies during this time of troublesome economic conditions and serious budget worries.

Maybe it’s time to revisit your AUP and rebrief your workers on the negative impact their fun could have on the organization and ultimately on their own job security. And if your organization doesn’t already have a robust Internet usage management solution in place, it may just be time to look into it seriously.

Wavecrest’s Control List includes CBSSports.com and NCAA.com under the Sports category, and for those using Cyfin, access to these sites will be monitored under Sports. If you want to only block and/or monitor the live video, you can create a custom category to block and/or monitor www.ncaasports.com/mmod/player.

According to Nielsen’s “VideoCensus,” online video viewing is up this year compared to last.  Total video streaming was up 31.4%, and viewers spent an average of about 3.5 hours watching online video in July.  This is an increase of 42.2% from 2008.  The most popular video Web site was YouTube with over 7 billion streams in July 2009. A simple 5 minute video on YouTube uses 12,500 kilobytes in bandwidth.

Online video viewing often happens in the workplace where users have access to a faster Internet connection.  This can cause network slowdowns or latency in the workplace if abused.

The below Cyfin and CyBlock reports can be used to track bandwidth usage by users and identify potentially troublesome sites.  These reports can help you anticipate overload possibilities and the need (or lack of need) to purchase additional capacity.  If abuse can be detected and brought under control, the cost of additional capacity may be avoided.

• Site Analysis Bandwidth Report - Focusing on kilobytes by classification, category, and users, this report gives a good overview of whether the majority of bandwidth consumption was acceptable and which categories and users used the most bandwidth.
• Top Bandwidth Sites Report - This report shows the top bandwidth consuming sites and their categories for the specified time period.
• Network Information Report - Find out your busiest time of day for Internet use with this report.  It shows visits and kilobytes read by hour.

Source: http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?R=1007247

Bandwidth is a main concern for many businesses during this March Madness season.  Many must deal with employees using company resources to enter online office pools, blog about the top seeds, and watch live streaming games that take place throughout March and early April.

In fact, CBSsports.com is expecting even more viewers online this year. They expect the number of unique viewers for March Madness on Demand, to rise 50% to 7.2 million viewers.  With the massive number of sports Web sites and streaming games available, companies can expect to see a considerable drain on employee productivity and network bandwidth during the NCAA Tournament.

While you may or may not allow your employees to follow the games at work, you will want to ensure that it doesn’t interfere with your network.  Wavecrest Computing offers Internet filtering by category or site, white list filtering, real-time monitoring and detailed Web-use reports on a particular category or site and bandwidth usage.  Some reports you can use to monitor bandwidth or access to sports sites are:

• Site Analysis Bandwidth Report
• Network Information Report
• Category Audit Detail Report
• Category Audit Summary Report
• Site Audit Detail Report

Source: http://www.marketingshift.com/2009/3/cbs-expects-7-millon-online.cfm

The start of the 2008 Summer Olympic Games are right around the corner, and this year, NBC plans to stream 2,200 hours of live events on NBCOlympics.com.  This may cause several network problems and productivity losses for businesses. To give you an idea of how much bandwidth a video can eat up, an episode of “The Simpsons” uses about 25,000 kb.  This can cause major problems when you multiply that by several employees at one time. 

Whether you’re concerned about productivity, bandwidth or both, your CyBlock or Cyfin application can be used to help you filter and/or track Web access the NBC Olympics site. The site http://www.nbcolympics.com is included in the category Sports but can also be filtered or monitored separately by placing it in a custom category if you don’t want to block the entire Sports category.  Or, you can choose to just block video from the Web site by placing the URL http://www.nbcolympics.com/video/index.html in a custom category.  Dont’ forget that you can also use the hourly blocking option if you want to allow employees access to the site during lunch and after hours.

To use custom categories, simply go to Advanced Settings - Category Setup - Edit URLs.  Simply select the custom category you’d like to use, and type in the URL(s) you’d like to filter or monitor.  For Cyfin users and those that decide to just monitor Web use of NBCOlympics.com, you can run a Category Audit Report on the Custom Category that you created to track that site.

This is just a reminder that March Madness begins next week with the first game on Tuesday, March 18 and the first online games on Thursday, March 20. Experts estimate that more than 1.5 million employees will be watching the games from their desks and an overall potential $1.7 billion lost in productivity. And just like last year, NCAA On Demand is including the “boss button,” which brings up a fake spreadsheet to make it appear that employees are busy working.

Many businesses and schools are also concerned that the widespread viewing of the streaming video will slow or crash their computer networks. This is especially worrisome because for the first time this year all 63 tournament games will be available online, without online blackouts of games showing on local CBS TV stations.

CBSSports.com and NCAA.com, including NCAA On Demand, are included in the Wavecrest site-blocking list under Sports, and for those using Cyfin, access to these sites will be monitored under Sports. If you want to only block and/or monitor the live video, you can use one of Wavecrest’s custom categories to block and/or monitor www.ncaasports.com/mmod/player.