Indian Knowledge Workers Find Document-Related Woes Hit Productivity

Adobe Systems Incorporated has revealed the findings of a survey that was conducted among over 950 knowledge workers (including business, IT and technical professionals), representing 775 organisations across India. The survey aimed to gauge the state of productivity and collaboration among Indian knowledge workers. Findings indicated a widespread impact on productivity owing to document-related challenges. The survey findings also indicate a high degree of concern for document security among respondents. Finally, the survey found an overwhelming majority confirming that they expect to increasingly use their smartphones and tablets not just to access but also to create, manage and review documents in the near future.

The survey consisted of specific questions around the issues of productivity, collaboration, security and mobility in the context of document and document exchange, and was conducted in September, 2012.

Commenting on the findings of the survey Umang Bedi, Managing Director – South Asia, Adobe said, “India is a knowledge economy, and as such, lost productivity has serious economic implications. In this increasingly complex and interconnected digital world, it is imperative that organisations and knowledge workers adopt documentation tools that allow them to be productive and collaborative in a highly-secured manner.”

“Also given the increasing penetration of mobile devices like smartphones and tablets it is equally important that organisations enable their workforce to create, manage and review content on these devices,” said Umang.

1. Productivity continues to be a challenge for Indian knowledge workers:

• 52 percent of respondents spend at least one-quarter of their work week creating and managing documents

• 47 percent spend more than one-quarter of their work week dealing with document-related issues like: searching email attachments, copying data from one document format to other, struggling with incompatible document formats, etc.

• 58 percent of knowledge workers feel they are less or not productive at all with the current set of documentation and productivity tools that their organisations use.

2. Collaboration over documents is a big pain point:

• 51 percent of Indian knowledge workers spend more than one-quarter of their time at work manually gathering and analysing data from disparate sources like forms, etc.

• 59 percent feel their degree of collaboration through documents is neither high nor good enough. This mirrors the finding about a similar number of knowledge workers wanting a lot more from their documentation and collaboration tools

• An overwhelming 80 percent of respondents indicate that they lose valuable time trying to get documents approved and signed, indicating a low awareness and usage of tools like digital signature.

3. Document security is a very real issue for knowledge workers:

• 47 percent of respondents have faced an instance of breach in document security like information leak, sensitive document reaching to a wrong recipient, etc.

• 62 percent respondents expressed a very high or high degree of concern for document security while only 43 percent believed they are prepared to handle the issue

• In contrast to the above two points, 73 percent confirmed that their organisations have well-defined document security policy.

4. Mobility will define the future of collaboration:

• 68 percent of knowledge workers surveyed confirmed that they use their smartphones/tablets to access documents

• 58 percent already use their devices to create, manage and review documents

• 90 percent confirmed that in the near future they will increasingly use smartphones and tablets for document creation, management and review.