I almost didn’t sign up, but three days before I did. I’m talking about a roundtable discussion sponsored by Canon on The Evolving Workplace with an emphasis on the obstacles standing in the way of broader deployments around BYOD and mobile technologies. Hosted by Forrester Research, the roundtable featured representatives from Canon, Forrester, The MOPRIA Alliance, and Craig Wilson, director of Information Technology for Winthrop & Weinstine, a Minneapolis-based law firm who also happens to be a Canon customer (Read a case study about how Winthrop & Weinstine is leveraging mobile technology in their firm in this week’s edition of The Week in Imaging.).
How we work and where we work is changing dramatically and continues to change…dramatically. Forrester reports that between 2010 and 2013, the number of people working in public places has doubled while there’s been a 33 percent increase in people who work from home at least some of the time. “All this has significant implications for workforce technology strategy,” says David Johnson, principal analyst, Forrester Research.
Tablets and smartphones have become the mobile devices of choice for increasing numbers of mobile workers with both representing non-Microsoft operating systems. While other vendors are rolling out tablets and smartphones, Johnson says, “For the foreseeable future Apple and Google will own the tablet and mobile device space.”
Just as it doesn’t take a weatherman to tell which way the wind blows, you probably don’t need a Forrester analyst to underscore the current winners in the tablet and mobile device space, still it’s a trend worth noting.
Also worth noting are the results of a Canon Workflow Optimization Study, which reveals how document management workflows impact day-to-day operations of businesses as well as diverging opinions between IT decision-makers and non-IT executives, regarding the importance of integrating cloud, mobile and digital workflow strategies.
Some of these findings were presented by Dennis Amorosano, vice president and general manager, Business Imaging Solutions Group Marketing Division, Canon U.S.A., and issued in a Canon press release on July 15. The study found that an overwhelming majority of IT decision-makers strongly believe that these tools are very or extremely important investments for running their business more effectively, while non-IT executives are less likely to view their operational importance this strongly. In addition, although 82 percent of IT decision-makers are very or extremely confident in their organizations’ ability to integrate paper and digital document workflows, just 56 percent of non-IT executives felt the same way.
When asked whether investing in the following specific technologies was very or extremely important to running their businesses more effectively, the views of IT and non-IT professionals were not exactly in synch:
- Cloud-based document technology: 79 percent of IT decision-makers vs. 47 percent of executives
- Integrating paper-based and digital information into company databases: 77 percent of IT decision-makers vs. 55 percent of executives
- Printing information from the cloud: 75 percent of IT decision-makers vs. 45 percent of executives
- Managed print services: 71 percent of IT decision-makers vs. 46 percent of executives
Disparities were also seen in the responses between IT decision-makers and non-IT executives regarding their companies’ Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) and mobile printing programs. Fully 57 percent of IT-decision makers and just 23 percent of non-IT executives said their companies provide support for all devices and platforms. That disparity continues in the percentage of IT decision-makers and non-IT executives (12 percent and 36 percent, respectively) who said their companies only support some devices and platforms. Additionally, 67 percent of IT decision-makers said their companies offer mobile printing, compared to 47 percent of non-IT executives.
The study also shows how technologies such as BYOD and mobile are currently being used in the workplace and the value they provide. Fully 70 percent of professionals whose companies support BYOD said employees use their personal devices to access and share documents through company e-mail, 59 percent said employees access documents stored in the cloud, and 54 percent said employees access company databases.
The 53 percent of professionals whose companies have mobile printing capabilities cited several benefits of the technology, many pertaining to the growing number of employees who telecommute or frequently travel for work. These benefits include:
- Flexibility to print while employees are traveling (79 percent)
- Ability to print wherever employees are working within their company (78 percent)
- Ability to provide printed content to others, including team members, clients and customers (72 percent)
- Convenience of accessing printed content created on any device, in any location (68 percent)
It is fascinating that even though a number of organizations have BYO technologies, people in those organizations aren’t aware of the ability to access those devices they’re bringing into the general office and/or how to extend the printing and document access services to those devices being used by their employees.
“As we look at this data it begs the question, why are we seeing this in the marketplace even after several years,” observes Amorosano. “A vendor like Canon, having technology that enables mobile print across smart phones and tablets, why has that not become more ubiquitous inside the accounts?”
Good question. Amorosano adds that there’s no doubt the marketplace continues to head toward BYOD and providing technology for end users in general office environments even though they still haven’t figured out how to provide the same level of services on those technologies that have traditionally been available to a tethered PC.
“That’s presenting a significant product challenge not to mention the productivity challenges,” adds Amorosano. “It also leads to challenges around employee morale and the like, particularly for those employees who want to be as productive as possible regardless whether they’ve brought their own device into the office or not.”
Over the next few weeks I’ll continue to provide additional content gleaned from that Webinar and the survey. Meanwhile, I hope you find these initial insights and the case study helpful in some way.
Thanks for reading.
