SMBs across Europe are moving much faster than their peers in larger organisations in the race to complete key digital transformation initiatives, according to research commissioned by Ricoh Europe. Some 735 business leaders and IT decision makers across Europe were surveyed for the study by Coleman Parkes Research.
Almost two thirds of small- and medium-sized businesses of less than 500 employees (64%) expected to digitise their remaining physical documents within the next three years, compared to less than half (46%) of large businesses. In addition, 78% of SMB business leaders said their employees can work on documents from any work-supplied mobile device, compared to 69% in large organisations.
Digital transformation will enable SMBs to grow into the future with a different working model where increased employee knowledge sharing makes companies better able to respond to clients’ needs.
However, the study also unveiled an area of risk for SMBs as employees embrace ‘bring your own device’ and become more likely to use personal drives to store information, compared to large business (62% versus 55%).
Almost a third (30%) of SMB leaders said they expected the majority of their employees to be ‘intelligent workers’ with ubiquitous access to business and client information any time anywhere.
Some 55% of SMB and 53% of large business, however, leaders confessed their organisation did not have a culture of knowledge sharing.
Commenting on the survey, David Mills, chief operating officer, Ricoh Europe (pictured), said: “The forward-thinking SMBs have a fantastic opportunity ahead of them. By further digitising their business critical documents and optimising their processes, they will be able to access information quickly, whenever they need it… by doing so, they will increase productivity as they manage their knowledge more effectively. They will also be more agile in the changing workplace, more responsive to customer needs and able to enhance employee knowledge sharing. Then, when these foundations are set, they will be able to build an information sharing culture that will attract and retain more i-workers to successfully drive the business in the future.”
TechCentral Reporters
Subscribers 0
Fans 0
Followers 0
Followers