Business to enter a new era of decentralisation

A study from Ricoh has shown that 63% of business leaders predict a shift towards a more decentralised business model and that responsibility for business decision making will move from centralised management boards towards individual employees. 

While decentralisation has been criticised in the past for inefficiency, duplication and lack of consistent strategic direction, by 2020, it is expected that effective business processes will empower workers to better meet the needs of the market place and enable organisations to be more agile.

The survey was carried out among 567 senior executives globally, including Ireland, in September and October 2011 on their expectations of the future technology impact on business. The survey sample is global, with 32% of respondents based in Europe, 29% in North America and 28% in Asia-Pacific.

"We believe that businesses will be more process orientated, ensuring that critical information is more centralised and data can be received, stored and retrieved by employees.  This will mean decision making can be less hierarchical and allow employees, who are collaborating directly with customers, to make important business decisions, without delay," said Alan Mason, managing director, Ricoh Ireland.  

Supporting closer customer collaboration is essential as by 2020, business leaders believe that customers will be the main source of new product or service ideas.  The majority of business leaders (86%) agreed that customers will become an integral part of internal decision making and that project teams will typically include people from outside the organisation such as customers and business partners.

At the heart of successful decentralisation in 2020, lies a network of integrated processes to manage information, and ensure that it is accessible by key knowledge workers, wherever they are, to make business decisions. In the future, there will also be a need to consider how experts outside the organisation can input and retrieve information to act on behalf of the business. The research showed that 85.7% of business leaders agree that project teams will typically include members from outside the organisation, such as customers, partners or communities. 

Information will also need to be created, stored and retrieved securely by knowledge workers. Central governance is essential to protect business critical data, one of the organisations most valuable assets. However, the indicators are that this will be challenging as currently 43% of all business critical document processes in European organisations rely on hard copy data and only 22% of organisations currently have a fully automated workflow, according to research carried out by Coleman Parkes Research for Ricoh.

"In the new era of decentralisation it will be essential for businesses to do more to adapt to the digital world, especially as critical information will need to be accessed by employees, many of whom will be working virtually or outside the business," said Mason.  

See http://thoughtleadership.ricoh-europe.com/ for more detqails and inforgraphics.

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