10 Ways IT Drives Everyone Else Crazy
Managers are frustrated with IT. A study shows where they think IT is failing them.
IT is wasting the time of managers and employees alike, according to a study conducted by Lawless Research on behalf of ServiceNow. In fact, so much time is being wasted, it can be measured in days per week, rather than in minutes. Managers blame time-consuming, frustrating work processes, many of which involve technology.
The study surveyed 915 managers at US and UK companies with at least 500 employees and asked them about their biggest pain points with productivity.
In the course of our reporting at InformationWeek, we hear a lot from CIOs and other IT executives about how IT is being increasingly called upon to "transform the business." This study begs the question of whether the best way to "transform" might be to enable the business to run with as little friction as possible. The problem, according to the end users surveyed by Lawless Research, is that IT has not automated the processes that make the business work. All this time users are spending on getting day-to-day work done is time they can't spend on transforming the business itself.
Of course, it isn't all IT's fault. Consumerization of IT may be leading end users to have unrealistic expectations about how technology can work in the enterprise. Sure, it is easy to pay for a latte at Starbucks with your smartphone. Should it be that easy to create a purchase order at work, or process a major procurement decision? It is easy to set up a shopping profile on Amazon. Is it good security to set up a new hire's account just as quickly?
Even if you assume a level of impatience on the part of your users, the Lawless study paints a picture of a set of antiquated IT services not fit for agile business in a mobile world. It is clear that at least some of the fault for the inefficiencies reported by users falls on IT.
Check out some of the most troubling findings from the study, and then decide for yourself what falls on IT and what falls on unrealistic user expectations. And tell us, in the comments section below, whether you've ever fallen victim to these productivity killers yourself.
Managers polled in the Lawless Research survey spend an average of two days each work week on administrative tasks. Whether they are filling out purchase orders, budgeting, tracking employee hours or other such tasks, administrative work sapped managers of two full business days in which they could have instead interacted with employees, set priorities, and made strategy decisions. One in five respondents (20%) said they spend three or more business days on admin work per week. Does that seem like a good use of time for your highly paid managers?
That's how much time a large corporation (5,000 managers) wastes each year on administrative tasks, according to Lawless Research. That's equal to hiring 2,000 new full-time employees. The cost of these administrative tasks is estimated by Lawless to be $575 billion a year, roughly equal to the combined annual profits of the top 50 US companies. Of course, those costs can never be brought to zero, but is IT doing enough to reduce them?
Nine out of 10 managers polled by Lawless Research agree that their efficiency depends on other departments, especially IT. Managers listed four areas that are especially important for their productivity: IT tech support; marketing services (such as web design, marketing data, design); creating purchase orders; and on-boarding of new employees (equipping them with computers, email, access to technology, etc). In most companies, all four of these areas require at least some input from IT. And managers feel they are spending too much time on these tasks.
When asked to identify their organization's most time-consuming processes, 69% of respondents to the Lawless Research survey cited on-boarding new employees, 66% cited purchase orders, 60% cited IT support, and 54% cited marketing services. In other words, these four major business functions are taking too long to complete.
When asked what processes frustrated them the most, 53% of respondents cited purchase orders, 49% cited on-boarding new employees, 48% cited IT support, and 38% cited marketing services. "Frustrated" isn't really a word we associate with good service.
Email is still the No. 1 way that services are requested in the enterprise. Email? Really. Nearly two thirds of respondents (62%) said they have to use email to request marketing services; 53% have to request purchase orders via email; 46% have to use email to get an employee on-boarded; and 43% have to use email to request IT support. It gets worse...
Phone calls or meetings are, together, cited by respondents as the second most common way to get services in their enterprises. More than a third of respondents (38%) say they get IT support by calling for help or meeting with the IT person directly; 37% said they have to do that for on-boarding a new employee; 26% go through those steps to get marketing services; and 21% have to do so to get purchase orders. A phone call or in-person meeting for a purchase order? How does that make any sense?
Only 16% of managers surveyed say they can get a purchase order through an automated process. Only 15% say they can do so for IT support. A mere 7% of respondents can use an automated service to get marketing services, or to on-board an employee.
The vast majority of survey respondents (85%) say that using Email and spreadsheets leads to errors. Managers surveyed were nearly unanimous in their agreement that using these old standby business tools were increasing their mistakes.
More than three quarters of respondents (76%) said they want services in their enterprise to be as easy to use as Amazon and FedEx. And there it is. Why shouldn't it be as easy to access services inside your organization as it is to use external resources? Even if you want to include some checks and balances internally, is email or a phone call really the best way to get something done?
The study paints a picture of IT departments that haven't taken the digital leap. Have you been on the receiving end of the user frustrations expressed in this research? Do you agree that your processes need updating? Is this really an IT problem, or is your department a handy scapegoat for broader organizational issues? Tell us all about it in the comments section below.
The study paints a picture of IT departments that haven't taken the digital leap. Have you been on the receiving end of the user frustrations expressed in this research? Do you agree that your processes need updating? Is this really an IT problem, or is your department a handy scapegoat for broader organizational issues? Tell us all about it in the comments section below.
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