DM1901

RESEARCH: INFORMATION MANAGEMENT Dm
"WASTING TIME SEARCHING FOR INFORMATION ACROSS A PLETHORA OF REPOSITORIES AND FOLDER
HIERARCHIES IS INCREDIBLY COUNTER-PRODUCTIVE AND WILL HAVE A DIRECT IMPACT ON A BUSINESS'S
PROFITABILITY. ADDITIONALLY, IN THE WAKE OF POTENTIALLY SEVERE FINANCIAL PENALTIES FOR FAILING TO
COMPLY WITH REGULATIONS SUCH AS GDPR, ORGANISATIONS NEED TO THINK CAREFULLY ABOUT WHETHER
THEY ARE TRULY ABLE TO QUICKLY AND EASILY IDENTIFY WHAT CONTENT AND INFORMATION THEY HAVE,
AND WHERE."
chances will be for achieving a
competitive advantage," commented
Greg Milliken, Senior VP of Marketing
at M-Files. "Looking at the results it's
clear that all organisations -
regardless of sector or geographical
position - are united in the challenges
they face towards information
management practices.
The findings revealed that:
45 per cent of employees find
searching for documents and
information challenging and time
consuming.
The UK and US have mirrored
experiences when searching for
documents and information with
just under half (43.5 per cent for
the UK and 45.6 per cent for the
US) of organisations reporting
challenges around this.
96 per cent of all employees
globally face some sort of difficulty
when looking for the most recent
version of a document or file.
95 per cent of UK employees
equally express frustrations when
searching for the most recent
version of a document or file.
According to M-Files these findings
reinforce the persistent frustrations felt
by employees towards information
handling. They suggest that it is
imperative that organisations find
better, more intuitive ways for
managing documents - failure to
address this could have severe
repercussions for an organisation. This
could include hampering productivity
and staff retention, as well as an
organisation's ability to demonstrate
compliance in accordance with
regulations such as GDPR, when
handling and protecting information.
"Managing the information and data
within an organisation is more
complicated than ever," explained Greg
Milliken. "The volume of content that
the average organisation creates has
risen significantly and it's often stored
in a wide range of different systems or
spread across shared network drives
which makes it difficult and time
consuming to find and control. For
employees, the need to get-to-grips
with multiple interfaces is slowing
down user adoption and decreasing
productivity. It must become a priority
for organisations to address this."
Milliken went on to explain: "Time
spent looking for documents and
recreating work that already exists,
comes at the expense of other, more
productive tasks. Wasting time
searching for information across a
plethora of repositories and folder
hierarchies is incredibly counterproductive
and will have a direct
impact on a business's profitability.
"Additionally, in the wake of
potentially severe financial penalties for
failing to comply with regulations such
as GDPR, organisations need to think
carefully about whether they are truly
able to quickly and easily identify what
content and information they have,
and where."
Intelligent information management
systems can help organisations
address content chaos and support
greater productivity and workplace
efficiency, particularly as the demand
for remote and mobile working
practices increases.
"Organisations recognise the benefits
that flexible working can bring to the
workforce yet so many workers are
unable to even access information
remotely," argues Milliken. "For
employees, particularly the everincreasing
number of digital natives
entering the workforce, they expect to
be able to consume and share business
information in the same way they
consume personal information -
instantly and from anywhere. If a
company fails to provide the tools that
enable this, they'll simply go to an
employer who can. This could have big
implications on organisations looking
to attract and retain the best talent."
Milliken concludes: "By implementing
a flexible, powerful and simple to use
information management solution,
employees will no longer need to waste
precious time searching and recreating
documents, enabling them to work far
more productively, and add far more
value to their organisation. This is true,
regardless of where that information is
stored, and whether it's being accessed
in the office, or remotely."
The full research report can be
downloaded from: go.m-
files.com/2019-Intelligent-Information-
Management-Benchmark-Report-EN-
UK.html
More info: www.m-files.com
www.document-manager.com
January/February 2019
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