It’s that time of year again – Amazon Prime Day. A one-day event filled with amazing deals for Amazon Prime members!
You have to hand it to Amazon, they know how to make their members excited. And they know how to keep their attention. On this day, new deals will be arriving throughout the day, so members are encouraged to set up alerts on their web browser and on their phone to take advantage these amazing deals.
Sounds awesome, right? For Prime members, yeah! For business owners, not so much.
You see, this event starts on MONDAY, July 10th and runs for 30 hours, through TUESDAY, July 11th. Those are work days for a lot of people. While it's a great time for the online shoppers of the world, business owners might not be as excited about its potential effects on their business.
Amazon Prime Day's Potential Impact on Your Business
Luckily, Prime Day starts on Monday, July 10th at 6 p.m. Pacific time, so most of us in the Greater Los Angeles area will be off work by then. But it runs through Tuesday, July 11th.
The impact to businesses could be two-fold.
1. Productivity Down the Tubes
Amazon says that deals will be released as often as every 5 minutes. So it's possible that you'll have multiple employees on Amazon every 5 minutes for the whole day! Talk about distractions.
2. Major Internet Slowness
If more people are online during business hours than usual, that means your Internet speed could take a hit. So not only could employees with Amazon Prime memberships be distracted, they could also unintentionally cause the productivity of the ENTIRE OFFICE to go down due to slow Internet.
What You Can Do to Prevent a Productivity & Internet Slowdown
IT systems can be set up to prioritize certain types of Internet usage so this slowdown does not occur for all activity types. For example, if your business uses IP phones, you can set up your system so voice is given priority. This way, you won’t have a crackly phone connection if someone starts to watch a webinar.
You can also block certain types of online activities from going through your network - whether someone's trying to access it on their phone over the office Wi-Fi or through their desk computer. Today might be the right time to disable the "Shopping" category from going through your Internet.
Or, if it's okay with you that employees shop on their lunch break, then you can set it up to allow access at certain times of the day.
This doesn't stop people from using their cellular connection to check out the deals, but if they do, at least they won't slow down everyone else.
IT Processes to Keep Productivity Up All Year Round
There are many IT management processes that can help increase worker productivity all year round.
It’s nearly impossible to police every activity your employees do online, but implementing an Internet filtering solution is a one way to control what they can and cannot do when they’re using your company’s Internet connection.
These solutions also offer Internet usage reporting, which will give you a high-level look at your bandwidth consumption, how much time is being spent on non-business related web activities, what sites employees are visiting, and your exposure to online threats.
If your office relies on cloud-based applications, managing your company’s Internet usage should be even more of a priority.
ANYTHING that affects your employees’ ability to work in an efficient manner can be costly, whether it’s due to Internet slowness, downtime, or other technical issues.
If you’re concerned about your company’s information technology and want to look for ways to better manage it, give us a call to discuss your options.
