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their software requirements, with a third of
SMBs stating they review them only every
year, every 18 months or longer. Given the
pace at which technology develops, some
SMBs are missing out on the opportunity
to be not just more productive, but more
competitive and – ultimately – successful.
It seems odd, then, that even though the
world is increasingly conducting business
digitally, many organisations are still tied to
time-consuming and outmoded processes
for creating and managing essential paper-
based documents.
“There is no short answer to the UK’s
productivity paradox, as it has its roots in
politics, local and global economics and
plain old bad practice. But as a starting
point for getting back on track, developing
truly innovative products, processes and
solutions, while investing in people to give
them the skills and tools they need and the
wages they deserve, could be some of the
measures needed to revive productivity in
the UK.”
John Glover,
Sales & Marketing Director
of cloud collaboration software provider
Kahootz.com
"Although the precise reasons for Britain’s
modest productivity are hotly debated,
we believe insufficient attention is being
paid to the fact that productivity suffers
when people can’t work together and
communicate effectively. While workplace
technology has done a lot to enhance
individual productivity, there is still huge
scope for improving or extending how we
work in teams. This applies as much to
small project groups as it does to large
organisations that operate an ‘extended
enterprise’, where many core activities are
outsourced altogether or co-developed with
different partner organisations and suppliers.
"In our work with large UK organisations
that have invested in new technologies, we
see that many team hours are still wasted
wading through long and complex email
chains, retrieving the most recent version of
an important file or travelling to meetings
where vital knowledge is shared but not
recorded or acted upon. How often do
these siloed working practices and a lack
of visibility into how other departments are
working stifle productivity and the potential
for innovation?
"Increasingly, we’re seeing cloud-
enabled tools have a transformative effect
on productivity because they remove
technical, structural and mental barriers to
collaboration. Working in the cloud, there
is a major opportunity for organisations in
every industry to build an ‘agile working’
culture that is inherently more productive.
"Interestingly, we are seeing an upturn
Workplace distractions
cost money
New research reveals that businesses are losing £250
million a year due to distractions such as heavy email
traffic, loud talkers and office gossips.
The
Ahead of the Curve Report
, commissioned by Samsung
and conducted in partnership with the University of Leeds,
found workers are unproductive for 70 days of the year, with
respondents admitting they only feel like they’ve actually
achieved something on an average of 3.6 days a week.
Almost a quarter (22%) claim they interrupt their workflow
every 22 minutes to check email and over a third (38%) admit
they check their messages at least every 15 minutes.
According to the survey, the top seven office distractions are:
1
Loud talkers – 57%
2
Ringing phones – 39%
3
Unnecessary meetings – 26%
4
A never-ending flow of email – 22%
5
Making tea – 18%
6
Office gossips – 16%
7
People typing loudly – 12%
Graham Long, Vice President of Samsung’s Enterprise Business
Team, said: “£250 million is a big loss to the UK economy so it’s
important that businesses recognise that having the right mix of
technology in the workplace and fully enabling mobile working
can positively impact employee productivity and engagement.”
in clients’ capabilities with project teams
now using highly scalable cloud-based
tools to meet customer or development
needs that would previously have been
beyond them, largely because of those
siloed working practices and logistical
constraints. The current productivity
debate may in time need to be extended
to consider UK firms rethinking their
capabilities as much as boosting existing
productivity levels.
“Today's businesses need IT solutions
that are quick to deploy and immediately
responsive when circumstances change.
I believe collaboration tools that enable
organisations and project teams to
personalise their workspaces will lead to
more agile working practices and thereby
play a key role in boosting productivity in
the UK.”
Alpesh Unalkat,
Managing Director,
Capita Document and Information
Services managed print business
“We are living through a time of
unprecedented change in the world of
communications and if you’re being
thrown information from all angles, there
needs to be a logical and methodical way
of handling and processing it.
“Every day we receive and digest more
information than we did the day before.
It can feel like we are bombarded with
facts and figures, snowed under with
email and squeezed for time, as more and
more companies and people vie for our
attention.
“Trying to do it all and complete all
our tasks can feel overwhelming at times,
but is it fair to say we are facing a crisis in
productivity?
“Office user productivity is being
impacted by multiple sources of info flying
around in the workplace. Before the advent
of the internet and highly sophisticated
machinery, office work and documents
were limited to paper, but now it’s about
media in all its different guises.
“Often, there is still a ‘disconnect’
between solutions for print, online and
digital documentation. Not all businesses
work with this full package and, when that
happens, productivity can be compromised.
For example, file sharing and cloud-based
systems such as SharePoint work brilliantly
when the entire workforce is joined up
and aligned to the same computer system.
However, if only half the workforce is using
it, it means that the other 50% are doing
something different when it comes to
sharing documents and info. That can only
mean a duplication of effort, the potential
to miss out on vital information and for the
gap between one part of the organisation
and another to widen. And, of course, it
allows scope for inefficiencies and waste.
“Let’s take another example: an
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Alpesh Unalkat,
Managing Director,
Capita Document and Information Services
