Welcome next generation of corporate workers

Organisations use unified communications to improve employee productivity and encourage flexible working

Flexi-work will become a prerequisite for the next generation of corporate workers.

Thatís according to new research released by Dimension Data, which reveals that organisations are realising the potential of unified communications to increase employee productivity while offering employees flexible working opportunities.

The study indicates that the top three objectives for organisationsí 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, ìUnified communications can ñ and indeed will - play a significant role in flexi-working. 62% of organisations are currently offering conventional mobile telephony, 60% VPN (remote desktop) and 58% web e-mail for their flexi-workers. Many enterprises, however, would like to offer VoIP telephony or softphone (telephony through computer terminal), indicating that these technologies are very much a future focus of enterprise flexible working and convergent communication strategies.î

Lopez continues, ìProductivity remains a crucial driver behind organisationsí communications strategies (see Fig. 1). As such, flexi-working (the ability to work anytime at any location), supported by technologies including e-mail, mobile telephony and instant messaging and presence information, can play a significant role in increasing employee productivity. 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.î

Commenting on the results of the IT users polled in the research, Lopez says employees are very interested in using unified messaging (37%), mobile push email (35%) and video conferencing (30%) for flexi-working.

41% of the organisations interviewed indicated that their motivation for offering flexible working and all-encompassing communication tools is to increase employee productivity, while 13% of companies want to increase employee retention. When IT Users were asked about their workplaceís motivation for offering flexible working, the results were similar, with 42% saying that productivity is the key driver (See Fig. 2).

ìThereís an increasing global trend for organisations to offer their employees flexible working conditions. While IT managers currently consider employee-related issues such as productivity or retention to be prime drivers to offer employees flexi-work, regulatory pressure will soon play a crucial role.î

Statistics by country reflect that in most countries in the Middle East and Africa, emphasis is on employee productivity. In the UK, productivity is the top driver for 45% of organisations, followed by retention on 13%. In other European countries, there is a focus on both employee productivity and compliance, while the United States and Asia focus on employee productivity and retention. According to the survey, 57% of the organisations interviewed (58% in the UK) offer flexible working with active IT support, 15% offer flexible working with no IT support (15% in the UK), and 29% do not offer flexible working (28% in the UK) (See Fig 3).

ìOrganisations must harness and begin to implement the technologies available in the market today, which in turn will empower their flexi-workers and increase productivity. To successfully roll-out 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 technologiesî concludes Lopez.

Dimension Data commissioned Datamonitor to study user requirements and decision-maker plans in the areas of unified communications and security. Unified communications ensure richer interaction by integrating most forms of communication (voice, e-mail, fax, instant messaging, video) through a single interface. The research covered IT managers and enterprise users across 13 countries in the United States, Asia Pacific and Europe, Middle East and Africa.