Study by OEM reveals public sector most likely to use cloud for document sharing, but fails to take advantage of other cloud benefits.
Ricoh Europe has published research revealing that Europe’s public sector is the industry most likely to use cloud technologies for document sharing, although 52 percent of senior public sector employees indicated that using the cloud has made managing documents more difficult, suggesting that the sector may not using cloud technologies to their greatest advantage.
According to the study, 47 percent of public sector organisations in Europe use the cloud to share documents and 71 percent use it to allow mobile access to documents. However, in 69 percent of cases it has been shown that investments are being made in the new technology before the functionality of existing systems is fully realised, with 83 percent of public sector workers saying that they have access to some of the latest devices, such as smartphones and tablets, but their use is being hindered by back-end legacy systems.
“It seems the public sector is not maximising the benefits of cloud computing, including easer access to information, increased knowledge sharing and improved business agility,” said Carsten Bruhn, Executive Vice President of Ricoh Europe. “This could be due to disconnected document processes, where the process, the technology, and the way people work are viewed in isolation instead of as equal parts that need to work seamlessly together.”
Amongst the issues uncovered by Ricoh’s research is that there is a divide between technologies provided to the front office and back office, resulting in potential bottlenecks, duplication of effort, delays in accessing real-time information and security risks.
The research concluded that “faced with the challenges of an increasingly paperless society and mobile workforce, managing these processes within and between public sector organisations is becoming increasingly complex”, with Bruhn adding, “One of the particular challenges the public sector faces is striking a balance between making information accessible, both to employees and to the public, and protecting confidential details. Regular reviews of document processes in the sector will help identify potential risks and opportunities to improve the sharing of information in a secure way.”