How much difference can effective processes have on the bottom line? If you think in terms of the dollars associated with wasted man hours on processes that take longer than they should, the impact can be significant.

Consider a recent Enterprise Communications article that cited an IBM (News - Alert) survey that found 98 percent of CEOs need to restructure their organizations’ work efficiency due to wasted time. According to the report, an average of five hours per employee is wasted every week due to inefficient processes. Another two hours is spent per employee per day looking for information and expertise within the organization.

The good news is that social software in the form of knowledge management software is available to help correct this issue. It can help to reduce the lost productivity within the enterprise through better connectivity among global work teams and an enhanced ability to deliver results.

To drive better efficiency within the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS (News - Alert)), the organization is adopting IBM Lotus Connections. This deployment is expected to extend social software across the county to improve communication and collaboration among all employees.

According to Dale Chatwin, ABS Knowledge Management Initiative Director, in the Enterprise Communications (News - Alert) piece, “ABS prides itself on a history of adopting cutting-edge software to bring speed and effectiveness to our organization. With Lotus Connections, ABS can use business-grade social software, straight out of the box.”

To extend the value of knowledge management software, Alistair Rennie, general manager of IBM Lotus Software noted that such solutions are designed to help organizations to accelerate innovation, as well as the speed of business. IBM social software is helping to transform the way people work and in the process, is providing a platform for collaboration that is known to mirror human interactions.

IBM Lotus software has been in place at ABS since 1992. The solution was recently recognized in the Gershon review for its best practice use of the Lotus platform to support the advanced knowledge management software environment within ABS. The coupling of the existing IBM Lotus Notes environment with IBM Lotus Connections, ABS is able to introduce an integrated Web 2.0 social software platform.

With the proper knowledge management software in place, ABS benefits from the latest advances in collaboration, including blogs, wikis, secure file sharing, profiling and tagging capabilities. In addition, employees can benefit from task management, community spaces, e-mail, chat and social data components. The end result is a more efficient workplace with man hours focused on producing effective results.