From 1750 to 1900, all human knowledge doubled. Did you know it now it doubles every 24 months? Did you know every day the average person transmits the information equivalent of six newspapers and receives 174 newspapers of data? That your IQ falls 10 points when you’re fielding constant emails, text messages, and calls? We have collated these and other startling facts to underline the growing threats that connectivity and this vast data movement present to business productivity.
Challenge us to look study your business’ operations and identify how bespoke software solutions could reduce or eliminate these threats. Ours is a fully turnkey service. An experienced business consultant will visit businesses across the UK, US and Australasia to analyse and recommend solutions to turn threat to advantage. Our team will then develop such solutions to time and budget. Please contact us to arrange a preliminary online discussion.
Document Loss
Executives waste six weeks per year searching for lost documents.
[From a survey of 2,600 executives by Esselte, maker of Pendaflex and Dymo, FastCompany Magazine, 8/2004]
In surveying 1000 middle managers of large companies in the U.S. and U.K., 59% miss important information almost every day because it exists within the company but they cannot find it.
[Accenture, Wall Street Journal, 5/14/2007]
15% of all paper handled in businesses is lost
[The Delphi Group, a Boston consultancy]
Solution: Document management system
Commuting Cost
Commuting to work takes average 80 hours / year – two weeks holiday
Solution: Remote working systems
Time Wasting
The average worker admits to frittering away 2.09 hours per 8-hour workday, not including lunch and scheduled break-time.
Solution: Time management systems
Information Overload
The world’s capability for storing, communicating and computing information has grown at least 23% annually since 1986. The average person in 2007 was transmitting the information equivalent of six newspapers each day and receiving 174 newspapers of data (much of that reflected in video and photos).
[Dr. Martin Hilbert, Science Magazine, 2/2011]
71% of white-collar workers feel stressed about the amount of information they must process and act on while doing business; 60% feel overwhelmed.
[Institute of the Future, Menlo Park, CA]
Solution: Project collaboration systems
Data Theft
75% of senior executives in more than 60 countries said they are concerned about data theft and other forms of computer-related reprisals from laid-off employees.
[Ernst & Young, 11/10/2009]
Solution: Online database security audit
Email Waste
Organizations lose around $1,250 per user in annual productivity because of time spent dealing with spam, $1,800 unnecessary emails from co-workers, $2,100 – $4,100 due to poorly written communications.
[Tom Pisello, ITBusinessEdge.com, 12/2008]
Solution: Intranet and helpdesk solutions
Email Litigation
About 24% of companies have had employee emails subpoenaed by a court or regulator, up from 20% two years ago, and 15% have gone to court to defend against lawsuits triggered by an employee email, up from 13%.
[Wall Street Journal, 7/2006]
Solution: Email monitoring systems
Demands of Recession
The economic downturn is putting pressure on American workers:
–Required to do more work with fewer resources 48%
–Doing the work of two people because of recession, 39%
–Difficulty taking time off from work, 47%
–Feel the need to stay connected, 24/7, 30%
[TNS Research, March 2010, for InterCall]
Solution: Automated processing systems
Electronic Distraction
People who regularly juggle several streams of electronic information do not pay attention, control their memories, or switch from one task to another as well as those who prefer to focus on one thing at a time. Heavy media multitaskers are paying a big price.
[Stanford Report, 8/24/2009, Study by Clifford Nass, Eyal Ophir & Anthony Wagner]
Your IQ falls 10 points when you’re fielding constant emails, text messages, and calls, the same loss you’d experience if you missed an entire night’s sleep and more than double the 4-point loss you’d have after smoking marijuana. On average men fared worse than women because, researchers say, men have more difficulty multitasking.
[
Institute of Psychiatry, London 2005]
Once interrupted, it takes workers 25 minutes to return to the original task, if they return at all. People switch activities, such as making a call, speaking with someone in their cubicle or working on a document, every three minutes on average,
[Betty Lin-Fisher (for Knight Ridder Newspapers), Houston Chronicle, 2/27/2006]
The cost of interruptions to the U.S. economy is estimated at $588 billion a year.
[Jonathan B. Spira, "The Cost of Not Paying Attention," Basex Research, 2005]
62% of at-work email users check work email over the weekend, and 19% check it five or more times in a weekend. More than 50% said they check it on vacation, with the highest amount coming from mobile device users at 78%.
[Erin Gifford, "It's 3am--Are You Checking Email Again?"
AOL Corporate Newsroom
Statistic, 45th Annual Email Addiction Survey 2009, AOL]
Solution: Data management systems
Too Many Meetings
45% of senior executives felt that employees would be more productive if meetings were banned once a week.
[Office Team, "Let's Not Meet," 5/7/2009]
Unnecessary meetings cost U.S. businesses approximately $37 billion each year.
[U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2005]
Solution: Remote discussion and information exchange systems
Disorganisation
43% of Americans categorize themselves as disorganized, and 21% have missed vital work deadlines. Nearly half say disorganization causes them to work late at least 2 or times each week.
[Boston Globe 3/12/2006
Esselte survey, David Lewis]
Solution: Time management systems
Paper and Filing
More than 40% of printouts are discarded within 24 hours.
[Daniel Lyons, "The Paper Chasers," Newsweek 12/01/09
Statistics, Xerox Research]
Paper has grown consistently over the last three decades. One of the biggest sources of paper growth really is the Internet. It’s the printing of email.
[
Anne Mulcahy, Xerox CEO, "Paper Trail," Wall Street Journal interview, 3/9/09]
Solution: Online data management and retrieval systems
Tags: business consultants, business productivity, data management systems, helpdesks, intranet, software, software analysis
This entry was posted on Saturday, August 27th, 2011 at 6:24 am and is filed under The Software Farm. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.