Ricoh study finds ageing back office legacy systems are holding back businesses in UK and Europe.
Part two of the Ricoh Document Governance Index 2012 was conducted by Coleman Parkes Research on behalf of Ricoh using 1,075 interviews with C-level executives, directors and other employees across the UK and Europe, with findings showing that 79 percent of UK and wider European businesses are being prevented from effectively streamlining document processes by back-end systems that are unable to fully support new technologies, such as smartphones and tablet devices.
The findings come despite UK businesses indicating that such devices are helping to manage business critical document processes, with 78 percent of business leaders admitting that they invest in new technology before fully realising the functionality of their existing systems. In addition, discrepancies between technologies used in the front and back office, usually with front offices using new technology without integrating it with the back office, often means that document processes are exposed to bottle necks, duplication of effort and security risks.
Ricoh also states that the research found confusion among businesses using the cloud, with 70 percent of UK and European businesses claiming to use the cloud to enable mobile access to document processes, but only 50 percent saying that it is making their document process management easier, suggesting lack of planning by business leaders.
Phil Keoghan, CEO of Ricoh UK commented: “It’s clear that technology driven change will continue and with it bring new ways of working and communicating. For business, the challenge is to plan for the long term and bring everyone in the organisation on the same journey at the same time. That means fully integrating the front and back office, connecting people with information, and enabling collaboration and knowledge sharing seamlessly throughout the organisation.”