When it comes to your PC at work, it is good to keep in mind that the primary purpose of the PC is business, not personal. Why is this important?
You can ruin it for everyone.
Your home PC or laptop is, for the most part, a standalone device. Likely, the only things it connects to are a printer, camera or mobile device – not another computer. An issue with your personal computer probably won’t affect others. Business PCs, however, are part of a larger network. And an issue with one computer has the potential to affect every other user on the network. You don’t want to be known as “the guy that gave everyone a virus,” do you?
Dude, where’s my file?
A home PC is unlikely to be sharing large amounts of resources with other users, which is why personal firewalls – windows and those configured as part of antivirus applications—generally run with few issues. But on a PC inside your dealership, resource-sharing and network connectivity are easily disrupted by firewalls and non-business related applications. Care and custom configuration are required so PCs can seamlessly connect and share information across the network.
Don’t be a bandwidth HOG.
Although it may be nice to jam to music from your favorite internet radio station, streaming internet radio competes for bandwidth with your business-related internet activities. If even just a few people in your dealership stream their favorite station, vital functions like parts inquiries, online parts catalogs and part orders will move slower, and may even crash.
But you HAVE to see this piano-playing cat!
Social media platforms (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube) can be great for your dealership. But they can also be bad for your dealership. Studies have suggested that hundreds of hours of productivity are lost every year to social media activities during business hours. Consider defining a social media policy for your employees, outlining guidelines for acceptable use. Keep in mind that your employees can be a great source of content for your social media strategy – so you may not want to lock it down completely! If you find the temptation to “browse” the internet is just too strong for some in your dealership, there is a Content Filtering application for the SonicWALL that can help.
The moral of this story is, when it comes to your PC its best not to mix business with pleasure. Doing so can lead to lost productivity, increased risk of malware and viruses, and reduced overall performance of the PC and possibly the entire network. If this happens, we can guarantee you won’t be winning any popularity contests at work. It’s just business, not personal.
