Poor information management is damaging productivity

The M-Files 2019 Global Intelligent Information Management Benchmark Report surveyed 1,500 office workers across multiple global regions to establish an organisational benchmark on how business information is organised and accessed. Research included the identification of top document management challenges that thwart workplace efficiency, costing organisations time and money.

Findings revealed that poor information handling steals job output: 82 percent of respondents stated navigating different systems and locations to find the correct version of a file they are looking for negatively affects their productivity. In addition, 91 percent of respondents reported that their job would be easier if they could quickly and easily access the most current version of a document, without having to worry about the system or repository in which it resides. Poll participants identified the following additional impediments to staff productivity and effectiveness:

• 42 percent cited challenges with improper or incorrect labelling of documents
• 41 percent reported that information was frequently stored in the incorrect folder or system -- with 29 percent asserting information was misplaced or lost
• 26 percent cited challenges determining which system or repository to search, while 26 percent were unsure whether they found the current version of a document

These findings indicate that many businesses manually store information utilising outdated hierarchical folder structures across a variety of disparate and often unintegrated systems. Modern intelligent information management systems allow users to search for information using context established by the type of document, such as a contract or proposal, and its relationships to customers, projects, cases or literally any other organisational element important to the business. This removes much of the complexity for staff, enabling them to intelligently organise and easily retrieve the most relevant and current information without having to worry about where it's actually stored.

Tim Waterton, Director of UK Business at M-Files, commented: “These findings should serve as a wake-up call to organisations of all sizes that they must fundamentally change their information management practices, wherever they are in their transition to a digital workplace. In today's business environment, employees struggle to access content quickly and easily while navigating a plethora of information scattered across multiple data repositories. To tackle declining employee productivity, enterprises need to implement intelligent information management solutions that dramatically alter the way they process and manage information, enabling staff to focus on more value-added tasks.”