Routine Technology Problems Drive Huge Losses in Productivity, Survey Says

Pete Goldin
Editor and Publisher
APMdigest

The cost of routine IT issues experienced by workers and businesses has reached crisis proportions, negatively impacting employee and company productivity – and by extension shareholder value and national economic performance – to an extent not previously understood, according to a study by BMC Software and Forrester Research.

BMC Software asked Forrester Research to examine the issue of “IT friction” in the workplace. The result was a global survey and report entitled “Exploring Business and IT Friction: Myths and Realities.

Forrester surveyed 900 IT professionals and 900 business users from across North America, Europe and Asia and found that workers and their companies suffered significant losses in productivity due to IT issues.

Fully 86 percent of employees lose an average of 18 hours a month — totaling more than five weeks each year — due to IT issues and the subsequent challenges in resolving them. Representing a 10 percent productivity hit, the average annual cost for each “normally” impacted employee is approximately $3,700. That number can spike even higher for the most severely impacted employees, who lose as much as 52 percent of their productive work time.

From a corporate perspective, this means that lost productivity for Fortune 100 companies could easily exceed $100 billion annually. Their 2011 payrolls accounted for approximately 26-27 million employees around the world, plus a very large but unpublished number of full-time contract workers.

Beyond the lost time and productivity, companies also suffer lost “upside” associated with the failure to repurpose those employee hours towards productive work and revenue – an issue that will be the subject of a future report.

The “IT Friction” issue also impacts national Gross Domestic Product (GDP) performance – an impact estimated to be many trillions globally – which also will be examined in a future survey of the same eight countries included in the initial Forrester report.

Kim DeCarlis, CMO at BMC, said: “This first-ever global IT Friction study confirms with data what many have long suspected: enterprise IT departments need to strike a new balance, continuing to deliver business solutions and security while enabling new freedom and productivity for employees. In many ways, it’s time for an “IT Spring” – one that liberates IT from repetitive, low-level tasks while simultaneously giving employees more control over their technology. With many billions of dollars on the line, it’s time for dramatically new approaches that put employees and technology managers on the same team. Only through unity of purpose can this productivity crisis be resolved.”

Pete Goldin is Editor and Publisher of APMdigest

Routine Technology Problems Drive Huge Losses in Productivity, Survey Says

Pete Goldin
Editor and Publisher
APMdigest

The cost of routine IT issues experienced by workers and businesses has reached crisis proportions, negatively impacting employee and company productivity – and by extension shareholder value and national economic performance – to an extent not previously understood, according to a study by BMC Software and Forrester Research.

BMC Software asked Forrester Research to examine the issue of “IT friction” in the workplace. The result was a global survey and report entitled “Exploring Business and IT Friction: Myths and Realities.

Forrester surveyed 900 IT professionals and 900 business users from across North America, Europe and Asia and found that workers and their companies suffered significant losses in productivity due to IT issues.

Fully 86 percent of employees lose an average of 18 hours a month — totaling more than five weeks each year — due to IT issues and the subsequent challenges in resolving them. Representing a 10 percent productivity hit, the average annual cost for each “normally” impacted employee is approximately $3,700. That number can spike even higher for the most severely impacted employees, who lose as much as 52 percent of their productive work time.

From a corporate perspective, this means that lost productivity for Fortune 100 companies could easily exceed $100 billion annually. Their 2011 payrolls accounted for approximately 26-27 million employees around the world, plus a very large but unpublished number of full-time contract workers.

Beyond the lost time and productivity, companies also suffer lost “upside” associated with the failure to repurpose those employee hours towards productive work and revenue – an issue that will be the subject of a future report.

The “IT Friction” issue also impacts national Gross Domestic Product (GDP) performance – an impact estimated to be many trillions globally – which also will be examined in a future survey of the same eight countries included in the initial Forrester report.

Kim DeCarlis, CMO at BMC, said: “This first-ever global IT Friction study confirms with data what many have long suspected: enterprise IT departments need to strike a new balance, continuing to deliver business solutions and security while enabling new freedom and productivity for employees. In many ways, it’s time for an “IT Spring” – one that liberates IT from repetitive, low-level tasks while simultaneously giving employees more control over their technology. With many billions of dollars on the line, it’s time for dramatically new approaches that put employees and technology managers on the same team. Only through unity of purpose can this productivity crisis be resolved.”

Pete Goldin is Editor and Publisher of APMdigest