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- Greater productivity – if 40% of employees’ activities are spent on non-work related activities, organisations can be losing many hours of valuable resource in an age when the cost of running a business is already extremely high.
- Degradation of network performance – if people are continually using the web to download images, film clips and music, this will impact the network simply because it will slow it down. The result could be that you need to buy more (unnecessary) bandwidth to cope with the demand.
- Need for legal compliance – some industries are regulated or constrained by stringent legal requirements, for example, financial services and pharmaceutical companies. As a result they must ensure that customer information is protected and not sent to a third party.
- Growth in criminal activities – there has been many instances where individuals have used company resources to break the law. For example committing fraud or dealing in drugs using the company internet access.
- To a large extent, organisations are responsible for the actions and behaviour of their personnel.
- Protection against loss of data – organisations need to protect vital information such as customer records and other proprietary information.
- Enforcement of an acceptable use policy. An Acceptable Use Policy (AUP) is a set of rules and regulations that all employees would be required to sign regarding their behaviour for using their PC and access to the internet. This, for example, could include only surfing the web for personal reasons (e.g. online banking) at lunchtime. It can also specifically outline that individuals should not send offensive material.
- Prevent inappropriate use – by knowing that they are being monitored, personnel are unlikely use the network for reasons other than business.
- Protection of reputation – preventing individuals sending scandalous emails can protect a companies brand and reputation.
- Protection against harassment, defamation, fraud and illicit activities.