In a report on the productivity and communications challenges of small and mid-size businesses, Fonality (News - Alert), provider of cloud telephony services, discovered that knowledge workers at SMB’s spend approximately half of their time on routine communications and filtering incoming information and correspondence.
The “2011 Report on UC and Cloud-based Services for SMB’s” study conducted by Webtorials revealed that 50 percent of the time knowledge workers spend actually working, they are bogged down by essential, but unproductive tasks that suck up time and energy.
Steve Taylor, editor-in-chief and publisher for Webtorials stated, “No one has examined the impact of inefficient communications on small and mid-size business, and the findings are not only stunning, but they point to a need for immediate change.”
The study also pointed out that knowledge workers comprise the largest section of staff members in an SMB, and they spend 36 percent of their time contacting customers, finding information, or scheduling meetings.
Taylor continued, “We found that reducing a Knowledge Worker’s unproductive time by 25 percent can yield an extra six weeks in productivity each year, per employee, which should be an immediate call to action for business owners.”
Another point of note that came out of the study revealed that 14 percent of SMB knowledge workers spend time on duplicating information such as e-mails or phone calls as well as managing unwanted communication such as spam e-mails.
Dean Mansfield, president and CEO of Fonality, stated, “For more than a decade, SMBs have produced two-thirds of North America’s jobs, but due to the cost and complexity of traditional legacy solutions, they have not been able to benefit from the same communications tools as Fortune 500 companies. Now, the emerging intersection of cloud technologies, with mobility applications and Unified Communications (News - Alert), makes it possible for businesses of all sizes to share information faster and more effectively than ever.”
Juliana Kenny graduated from the University of Connecticut with a double degree in English and French. After managing a small company for two years, she joined TMC (News - Alert) as a Web Editor for TMCnet. Juliana currently focuses on the call center and CRM industries, but she also writes about cloud telephony and network gear including softswitches.
Edited by Juliana Kenny