06
magazine
agenda
Collaboration
tools create a
happier workforce
Businesses are damaging employee morale
by failing to invest in the right office
technology, Deloitte warns in a pan-
European report commissioned by Google,
Digital Collaboration: delivering innovation,
productivity and happiness
.
Its survey of 3,600 European employees
found that employees are 17 percentage
points more satisfied with their workplace
culture when they have tools that allow them
to work more collaboratively, such as shared
documents, videoconferencing or instant chat.
More than half (54%) of UK employees
believe access to better collaboration tools
improves productivity. Yet only 36% have
access to video-conferencing and only 32%
have access to online collaboration tools.
Moreover, just 5% are satisfied with the ones
they do have.
Half of those who have had requests for
collaboration tools denied have started using
them anyway. In the UK, 46% of workers
who use collaboration tools not supplied by
their employer do so because they perform
better; 38% say they have a wider range of
functionality.
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Phone is third choice
for Generation Y
The phone is Generation Y’s third
choice of communication method
when engaging with businesses, after
social media and electronic messaging
applications (email etc.), according
to Dimension Data’s
2013/14 Global
Contact Centre Benchmarking Report
.
The preference gaps between phone,
messaging and social media for Generation
X individuals born between 1961 and
1989 are also narrowing. As a result,
the proportion of voice-only contact
centres has fallen to 53.8%, from 69.4%
12 months ago.
Andrew McNair, Dimension Data’s
Head of Global Benchmarking, said: “While
the Silent Generation (born before 1944)
and the Baby Boomers (born between
1945 and 1960) prefer the phone as their
channel of engagement with a contact
centre (44.7% and 49.4% respectively),
the pace of decline in ‘voice-only’ contact
centres demonstrates the continuing trend
to multi-skill telephone agents across
emerging ‘non-voice’ contact channels.”
He added: “It’s surprising that almost
one-half of the organisations we polled
have not analysed their customers’ channel
preferences by age.While age is not the
only indicator of likely customer behaviour,
it is a strong one, as it provides an indicator
for which channels merit the greatest
attention and investment. The fact that so
many organisations are ignoring the age
factor suggests that they may be failing to
measure or evaluate customer behaviour
effectively.”
ccbenchmarking
Tablets not all they are
cracked up to be
British businesses are paying a high price for the
introduction of tablets in the workplace with 47%
of users experiencing tablet failures in the past
two years, warns Panasonic, a manufacturer of
rugged tablets.
More than two thirds (68%) of tablet users said
they believed their tablet was less resilient to failure
than the devices they used before, such as a PC,
laptop or smartphone.
A survey of 500 British workers who use a tablet
for work conducted by Dynamic Markets Ltd found
that those who have experienced tablet problems
have had to contend with an average of three
failures in the last two years and an average repair/
replacement time of 2 weeks.
The most common failures were battery problems
(27%), touch screen issues (16%) and screen
breakages or button failure (10%).
The most common causes of failure were extreme
temperatures, with 29% of problem tablets being left
in a hot place and 11% out in in the cold, such as in
a car overnight; being dropped or knocked off a desk
(21%); spillages of water, coffee, tea and soft drinks
(17%); total immersion in water (11%); and being run
over by a vehicle (11%).
Jan Kaempfer, marketing director of Panasonic
Computer Product Solutions, said: “These findings
indicate that British businesses are paying a very
high price for the convenience of using tablets in
the workplace, including expensive total cost of
ownership and costly worker downtime. The benefits
of tablets are clear for all to see but businesses
must pay much more attention to the types of
device most suitable for their mobile workers and
the requirements they have for the device.Will
the tablet be used inside or outside?Will it require
removable and exchangeable batteries with long life
between charges? And will it be exposed to extreme
temperatures, dust and dirt or poor weather
conditions?”
Email and internet access were the two most
common work-related tasks employees use tablets
for (both 89%). Also popular were document review
on the move (59%) and usingWord (50%) and Excel
(40%). More than four out of 10 employees (44%)
use a tablet to access work-specific business apps.
Brother boost for start-ups
Brother is supporting a new business incubator with a range of technology solutions,
from printers to web conferencing. The Founders Dock hub provides budding NorthWest
entrepreneurs with office space, hot desks, technology and expert mentoring. It was founded
by TiE, a not-for-profit network that provides a platform for mentoring, networking and
education. To be eligible, a start-up business must join TiE and sign up to a mentoring
programme.
Panasonic’s range of rugged tablets minimise the risk
of damage and downtime, wherever they are used
Workers with access to videoconferencing
solutions, like Cisco EX60 telepresence
systems, are the exception rather than the rule
