P&G Saves $15M/year by Blocking "Non Business" Internet Traffic

Using traffic management (usually with DPI products) to optimize enterprise networks and internet access is not new, but recent numbers published by David Holthaus in Cincinnati.com show amazing consumption of recreational traffic by employees and potential savings.

"When Procter & Gamble’s IT sleuths investigated why the company’s computers were running so slow, they found something surprising: More than 50,000 YouTube videos were being downloaded from company computers every day. Along with watching videos, P&Gers were listening to 4,000 hours of music a day on Pandora, the personal playlist Web site .. The demand for desktop videos, music and other non-business entertainment delivered to PCs through P&G’s Internet network was so great that it exceeded the company’s capacity".

Nevertheless, it is not an easy to sort applications into business and non-business, and as such those 50,000 daily YouTube downloads are saved (for now):

"The digital emergency led P&G to block Pandora and the movie and video site Netflix .. P&G called Pandora and Netflix of “limited business need,” according to the company memo. P&G has not blocked YouTube or Facebook, which claims more than 500 million users around the world. The company uses both of those sites for marketing its brands and for internal and external communications".

"If the company keeps using bandwidth at the current rate, it will cost $15 million a year just to add more for non-business use, the memo estimated".

See "P&G puts clamps on web surfing" - here.