What do small/medium businesses have to say about workplace mobility? Well, a recent survey has discovered that despite understanding the importance of a mobile strategy, few Australian decision-makers are actually doing anything to capitalise on business opportunities when out of the office.
This, unsurprisingly, affects their business growth with over a quarter (26 per cent) of decision-makers estimating they could be losing between $5,000 and $20,000 per year due to poor management of information when employees are out of the office.
It looks like someone needs to pull up their socks before they lose their shirt!
Commissioned by Canon Australia, the survey also found that with nearly a quarter of SMB decision makers spending over half of their working week (20 hours) outside the office, over a third (33 per cent) agree or strongly agree that their company’s mobile policies and systems are inadequate.
To further highlight this, over half (51 per cent) believe that mobile devices are critical for them and their employees to complete their jobs , yet only 25 per cent have access to all their company information or documents on their mobile.
As a result, nearly a third (31 per cent) feel there are lost business opportunities through ineffective data capture and management on the mobile. Plus, 43 per cent agree that this same inefficiency can impact the growth opportunities of their business.
“A key focus for all businesses, particularly small business, is revenue and growth. Without effective solutions that enable employees to access, edit and share their business information when on the move, businesses could be working blind – a disadvantage that could lead to significant revenue losses with some small businesses (6 per cent) estimating these losses could be as much as $50,000,” says Jeremy Plint, Assistant General Manager, Canon Business Services Australia.
The survey found that business decision-makers are enabling less than 10 per cent of their employees to access company information via cloud services on their mobile phones. Furthermore, over 50 per cent of employees are unable to access company information or documents when they are on the road. In addition, nearly half (46 per cent) of decision-makers wish they could edit, review and action business documents and information on their mobile devices.
Jeremy Plint added, “At Canon we understand that businesses are often time poor with ever increasing pressures to improve productivity whilst cutting costs. This research highlights the need to equip employees with the right technology and business processes to work autonomously from any location.”
“This not only improves engagement within teams but reduces bottlenecks of information, enabling employees to not only effectively manage their information when on the move but also action and process that information for greater productivity,” Mr Plint concluded.
About The Survey
The research for Canon Business Solutions was conducted independently by PureProfile in March 2013 and is based on 1,506 respondents across Australia. The breakdown of this figure includes 504 senior decision-makers (including Senior IT Management, C Level and above) and 1,002 general respondents. All worked in SMB organisations which were classified as companies with between 1-200 employees for the purposes of this survey.
