Organisations are under increasing pressure to improve employee
productivity and reduce costs. In turn, senior executives have
identified a need to use information technology more aggressively to
achieve these goals, according to new research from Dimension Data
(LSE:DDT).
Dimension Data commissioned Datamonitor to conduct the survey,
which surveyed 390 IT managers and 524 end-users across 13 countries
in the United States, Asia Pacific and Europe, Middle East and Africa.
The research, released today indicates that the top three
objectives for organisations' unified communication investment
strategies for 2007 and beyond are to raise productivity, increase
customer satisfaction and cut costs. Unified communications enables
richer interaction by integrating most forms of communication (voice,
e-mail, fax, instant messaging and video) through a single interface.
Rob Lopez, Managing Director, Solutions at Dimension Data says,
"Productivity remains a crucial driver behind organisations'
communications strategies. As such, flexi-working, supported by
technologies including e-mail, mobile telephony and instant messaging
and presence information, can play a significant role in increasing
employee productivity."
The research findings support this trend, and show that
organisations' motivation for offering flexible working focus around
increasing employee productivity (41%), employee retention (13%), and
compliance with existing/future work-home initiatives (12%).
Statistics by country reflect that in most countries in the Middle
East and Africa, emphasis is on employee productivity. In European
countries, there is a focus on both employee productivity and
compliance, while the United States and Asia focus on employee
productivity and retention.
Lopez continues, "Employees are under no illusion that
organisations are seeking to deploy ubiquitous communication tools and
flexi-work initiatives to increase their productivity. Nevertheless,
they are not overly cynical and adopt flexi-work readily as a result
of the perceived personal gain. The high levels of technology adoption
also indicate that the functionality these tools bring are seen as
beneficial," he adds and points out that the larger the company, the
more likely it will support flexible working.
According to the survey, 57% of the organisations interviewed
offer flexible working with active IT support, 15% offer flexible
working with no IT support, and 29% do not offer flexible working.
Mobile telephony and VPN are the most widely available tools for
flexi-work. There is scope to give flexi-workers more technologies
such as instant messaging to improve their productivity.
"To successfully rollout flexi-work, organisations need to offer
support. This requires additional resources and management capability
of the infrastructure, as well as end-user education around the best
way to securely use these technologies," Lopez concludes.
Other key findings in the Dimension Data survey include: unified
communications is a vibrant and developing market; security is a
concern rather than an issue; unified communications technologies are
more likely to be outsourced or externally managed than other
technologies; and unified communications mindshares are dominated by
alpha brands within each market.
About Dimension Data
Dimension Data plc (LSE:DDT), a specialist IT services and
solution provider, helps clients plan, build, support and manage their
IT infrastructures. Dimension Data applies its expertise in
networking, security, operating environments, storage and contact
centre technologies and its unique skills in consulting, integration
and managed services to create customised client solutions.
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