2005 Press Releases

Date: 06 December 2005

More than one working week a year wasted searching for shared documents

Survey reveals that an unfortunate 23 per cent of us spend a staggering three and a half weeks looking for lost information each year

A survey of 250 professionals, conducted on behalf of Objective Corporation, has revealed that a significant amount of time is being wasted every year searching for documents that have not been saved on shared servers or in an appropriate folder.

A lack of internal processes when it comes to the management of documents has led to:

• 41% of respondents spend 10 minutes every day looking for documents
• 37% of respondents spend half an hour or more looking for documents

Gary Fisher, CEO Europe, Objective Corporation, said: “Not only is this extremely frustrating for staff and management alike, it is also a significant waste of time that could be better spent on activities that generate profit or improve services.”

“Organisations need to have clearly defined processes in place to ensure effective management of critical documents. Content management solutions can help enforce those processes that make categorisation and retrieval of all information types easier for staff. However, the problem needs to be recognised and the processes agreed as a priority,” he concludes.

Documents saved onto desktops and documents being saved in the wrong place, were the two main reasons highlighted by the survey as causing the problem.

When asked if they could not access a document because it was saved on an individuals desktop:

• 5% said ‘All the time’
• 20% said ‘Frequently’
• 20% said ‘Regularly’
• 31% said “Now and Again’

When asked if they could not access a document because it was saved in the wrong place the survey found:

• 8% said ‘All the time’
• 25% said ‘Frequently’
• 15% said ‘Regularly’
• 36% said “Now and Again’

However, it seems that workers are not helping themselves with 21 per cent admitting they only save documents onto shared servers ‘when I have to’. A further 3 per cent admitted they never saved documents onto a shared server.

In the 21 st century no organisation can afford to lose any percentage of its intellectual capital, whether that is in the climate of a regulatory regime, in the face of increased competition or in the provision of customer service standards that are necessary to differentiate in their respective markets.

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