From cell phone calls to e-mail messages, Proteus Enterprise keeps tabs on employee communications
It’s everything you always wanted to know about your employees, but were too busy to ask — that’s pretty much what Proteus Enterprise can deliver.
Proteus Enterprise is a software suite making its U.S. debut this week at the Telecom ’05 conference in Las Vegas. Created by CTI Group, the software monitors employee phone, e-mail and Internet usage, then consolidates the data it collects from local, branch and home offices.
It’s designed to help companies see clearly what they’re spending on communications systems, as well as provide the opportunity to divvy up communications costs by office or department, says Adrian Burt, senior vice president of sales and marketing at CTI Group. On the employee front, Proteus Enterprise can identify improper use of telephone and e-mail systems. “The amount of abuse that goes on in businesses on Internet and e-mail systems is just phenomenal,” Burt says.
On the phone front, the software can report how many outgoing calls a salesperson makes, who is called and how long the calls last. For trend-spotting, Proteus Enterprise can detail a company’s most frequent callers and compile lists of calls that were unanswered or abandoned.
On the Web side of things, it can identify which Web sites employees are visiting and highlight non-work related sites. It tracks the size and timing of e-mails employees are sending and receiving — for work and personal use.
For real-time monitoring, managers can configure the software to send e-mail or text alerts when specific types of calls are placed — such as a 911 emergency call — or when certain Web sites are visited.
Proteus Enterprise is geared for distributed work settings, Burt says. The software aggregates data from server log files, PBX and IP telephony systems, and cell phone accounts. To keep tabs on corporate cell phone usage, it pulls electronic copies of employees’ mobile phone bills into its database. Some employee cooperation is required: As new numbers appear, employees are asked to identify each number as personal or business related, Burt says.
The data that fuels Proteus Enterprise is familiar, but CTI Group’s methods of compiling and analyzing the data is what matters. “A lot of companies will have the data, particularly from Internet and e-mail systems, but it’s not pulled together into a consistent, consolidated report, and it’s not presented in a user-friendly way,” Burt says.
CTI Group sells licenses for on-premises deployment and also offers a hosted version of Proteus Enterprise. Small to midsize companies with up to 500 employees can expect to pay about $7,000 to $10,000 for the licensed software, while a large organization with three or four satellite offices might pay in the $20,000 range, according to Burt. Hosting fees start at about $500 per month.
The most common reason enterprises deploy Proteus Enterprise is to monitor and manage staff productivity. By measuring the most critical business tools employees use — phone, e-mail and Internet — companies can get a good idea of what they’re doing all day, Burt says.
They can also cut costs: Companies that deploy the suite can expect to trim 15% to 20% off their telephone bill alone, Burt says. Just having the software and making employees aware of its monitoring capabilities will cause people to become more responsible when it comes to phone usage, he says.
Sounds true to me — I’m sure my behavior would change if I knew someone was monitoring all my phone calls, e-mails and Web site visits. While the idea of such monitoring is a little unsettling, I can appreciate the business need to keep wasted time to a minimum.
I don’t doubt there’s a lot of misuse of company phone and Internet systems. Remember last week’s newsletter? I cited research from America Online and Salary.com that suggests we each waste about two hours every workday, not counting lunch. And the top time-wasting activity cited by 44.7% of respondents is personal Internet use. I just don’t think companies will continue putting up with that much slacking off.
