Enterprise Knowledge Workers: Understanding Risks and Opportunities

Enterprise knowledge workers:
Understanding risks
and opportunities

An Economist Intelligence Unit report
sponsored by SAP

Enterprise knowledge workers: Understanding risks and opportunities

Preface

Enterprise knowledge workers: Understanding risks and
opportunities is an Economist Intelligence Unit white
paper, sponsored by SAP. The Economist Intelligence
Unit bears sole responsibility for this report. The
Economist Intelligence Unit’s editorial team executed
the survey, conducted the interviews and wrote the
report. The findings and views expressed in this report
do not necessarily reflect the views of the sponsor.
Achmad Chadran was the author of the report, and
Debra D’Agostino was the editor. Richard Zoehrer was
responsible for layout and design.

Our research drew on two main initiatives. We
conducted a global online survey in July and August
2007 of 565 executives from various industries.
To supplement the results, we conducted in-depth
interviews with executives from around the world
about the nature of the work that they carry out, the
challenges that they face and their ideas for improving
process efficiency for knowledge workers. Our thanks
are due to all survey respondents and interviewees for
their time and insights.

November 2007

© The Economist Intelligence Unit 2007


Executive summary 100
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oday’s business environment is Please indicate whether you agree or disagree Agree
with the following statements. Disagree
defined by collaboration-intensive
knowledge work. Technological advances in data- I have ready access to all of the information I need to perform my role.
43% 57%
processing, telecommunications and interactive
media—many associated with the paradigm known My company’s enterprise-wide processes do not adequately address my
information needs, so I find a “workaround”.
colloquially as “Web 2.0”—have fuelled rising 71% 29%
expectations for productivity, responsiveness
I can’t access business processes and information through my productivity
and ready access to data and information. In tools, so I copy and paste data.
this environment, business processes straddle 60% 40%

the virtual and the physical as geographic and My work typically consists of decision-making, problem-solving, or the
creation of new analysis and insight.
cultural barriers grow increasingly permeable, new
93% 7%
communications media proliferate, the volume of
I can’t find relevant information when I need it.
information mushrooms and the concept of time 42% 58%
zones gives way to a universal expectation of 24x7
E-mail is not an effective collaboration tool, so I’m drowning in messages
perpetual-motion productivity. As diagrammed on and am unable to complete my projects.
corporate whiteboards around the world, enterprise 38% 62%

workflows today tend to resemble spiders’ webs My effectiveness and productivity suffer when I’m travelling on business.
rather than lines with simple bifurcations, as new 58% 42%

technologies undo rigid hierarchical corporate
structures and facilitate more direct and democratic
modes of reporting, information-sharing and l Knowledge work extends broadly across all
problem-solving. industrial sectors, and characterises enterprise
In this new information technology (IT)-enabled processes up and down the value chain. This work
enterprise environment, workers manage and requires ready access to a variety of different
have access to a broad range of unstructured types of information and data, both structured
information and data. Although this creates new and unstructured, and supports problem-solving,
opportunities for the enterprise, it also poses new decision-making and decision support processes.
challenges and risks. This paper examines the l To do their jobs, knowledge workers use the gamut
nature of collaboration-intensive knowledge work, of different media and technology available to them.
the challenges posed by the current state of IT, Driven by the demands of their jobs, enterprise
the cost implications of these challenges, and the workers will use whatever means available—
means by which enterprise workers can operate including traditional formats like face-to-face
more efficiently and effectively. The major findings meetings, and more recent innovations such as
are as follows: mobile text messaging (SMS)—to seek out, access,



process and analyse data. Knowledge workers choose governance. These workarounds vary in nature and
their means of data search, access and processing in the degree to which they flout standard corporate
based not on leading-edge technology but on a more practice. At their most innocuous, they dilute the
complex set of factors, including quality, immediacy value of existing IT infrastructures and circumvent
and the availability of information. the beneficial feedback loop by which IT managers
l While knowledge workers are satisfied with the gain insight into knowledge workers’ needs and
quality and quantity of information available to them, workflows. In some extreme cases, workarounds
they feel burdened and frustrated by the amount of time can violate company standards and policies (not to
that it takes to collect, analyse and process it. Despite mention legal rules and regulations) on the proper
an abundance of information and data within the handling and retention of information.
enterprise, knowledge workers continue to struggle l To realise fully the contributions of these workers,
to locate the specific information that they need enterprise IT planners must better understand
in a timely manner, convert it into a usable form the needs and problems associated with this new
and manipulate it to meet their needs for effective work paradigm. Because it improves their own
decision-making or problem-solving. efficiency and the quality of their work, knowledge
l As a result, knowledge workers often resort to workers respond positively to efforts to facilitate
“workarounds”, extraordinary and unorthodox collaboration and the search for and access to data
measures that can create new inefficiencies within and information.
the enterprise and introduce new risks to corporate

Emergence of the collaboration-intensive
knowledge workplace

W hen the term “knowledge
worker” was first coined in 1959
by management theorist Peter Drucker, few could
imagine how the concept would evolve. In those
worker. In North America, knowledge workers
now outnumber all other workers by four to one,
according to Stephen Haag, author of Business
Driven Technology and Management Information
days a company’s compendium of knowledge resided Systems for the Information Age. With information
almost exclusively in paper-based systems, and the increasingly accessible thanks to the development of
term was used mainly to distinguish white-collar networked computing, digital storage mechanisms
workers from blue-collar staff. and, of course, the Internet, knowledge work now
In the digital age, a new paradigm has emerged defines the job descriptions of enterprise employees
in the enterprise—and with it a new kind of at nearly all levels. No longer adhering to linear



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process flows or rigid task sequences, these workers What is your title?
are increasingly asked to come together in cross- Board member
3%
functional teams empowered to tackle specific
CEO/president/managing director
issues, seek out and analyse information, make 15%
CFO/treasurer/comptroller
decisions and then disband to address other issues, 3%
often in collaboration with completely different CIO/technology director
3%
teams. More than 93% of respondents to our survey Other C-level executive
say that their work “typically consists of decision- 6%
SVP/VP/director
making, problem-solving, or the creation of new 16%

analysis and insight.” (See chart, pg 4) Head of business unit
7%
As such, knowledge workers routinely rely on Head of department
10%
disparate sources to obtain key data needed to make
Manager
critical business decisions. This places unique and 28%
Other
complex demands on workers, particularly because so 11%
much of the information that they are asked to collect is
unstructured, residing in word-processed documents,
e-mails and other tools: 47% of our survey respondents
report that as much as 75% of the information that they
need day-to-day is unstructured.

Glossary: Knowledge workers defined
Knowledge worker: One whose job Unstructured data: Information that data at a later time. Conversely, however,
is defined by the collection, distribution either lacks a formal data structure or certain desired algorithms may dictate the
or analysis of data. In today’s marketplace, is not easily readable by a machine. Such use of specific data structures.
knowledge workers can include anyone information is usually found in word-proc-
who depends on the delivery of data in essed documents, e-mails and web pages. Workarounds: Procedures that cir-
order to complete his task. In this sense, Despite its amorphous nature, unstructured cumvent standard corporate practices.
market analysts, product delivery drivers, data can be highly strategic (as in the case Workarounds may involve unauthorised
supply chain managers and chief executives of competitive analyses) and actionable (as access to and use of information and data,
may all be considered knowledge workers. in the case of customer intelligence). the application of technologies or platforms
that are not supported by corporate IT
Collaboration: Any structured com- Structured data: Information that is for- departments, or collaboration with inap-
munication between or among people, matted, arranged and classified in a way that propriate persons. Workarounds are usually
using any medium, whether in real time or facilitates efficient use, such as in a database well intentioned but ill advised, conducted
virtually, with the intention of exchanging or spreadsheet. In information systems, as a means of achieving greater efficiency
data, information or ideas as it relates to a data structures often dictate the algorithms but at the risk of violating corporate integ-
work-related project or task. (instruction sets) that may be applied to the rity and policy. n



As business models leverage the productivity
gains brought about by Moore’s Law (the dictum
“From my standpoint, everything
that computing power doubles every two years), I do is information work.”
employees are expected to produce at accelerating
rates. As a practical matter, this often means that Erica Fox, analyst, Google
knowledge workers must devise their own working
methods to complete their tasks. They are, in a
sense, process engineers and process workers. More a workflow paradigm wholly distinct from that of its
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often than not, they are also process auditors and predecessors. This paradigm, in turn, creates new
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trouble-shooters. opportunities and challenges that are completely
30
Moreover, the nature of this work bears scant unprecedented in the workplace.
resemblance to older, task-oriented enterprise
processes. Knowledge workers require a wide
What is your primary industry?
variety of data and information. The collaboration-
intensive knowledge work paradigm is not limited Financial services
33%
to a particular set of job functions, industries or job IT and technology
15%
titles. These workers operate in fields as different as
Professional services
financial services, healthcare, automotive, telecoms, 12%
Healthcare, pharmaceuticals and biotechnology
education, entertainment, agriculture and the 9%
public sector. Moreover, they carry out their duties Automotive
6%
with equal resolve and creativity, whether their Consumer goods
companies measure their revenue in millions or tens 5%
Manufacturing
of billions of dollars. 3%

“From my standpoint, everything I do is Telecommunications
3%
information work,” says Erica Fox, an analyst in the Education
2%
People Analytics practice at Google, the Internet
Government/Public sector
search and online advertising giant. Ms Fox’s 2%
Aerospace/Defence
group supplies Google with hiring, retention and 1%
employee benefits data and metrics. As such, she Entertainment, media and publishing
1%
is called on to analyse data emerging from various Agriculture and agribusiness
1%
departments around the company. “Are we meeting
Retailing
diversity goals? How quickly are we filling open 1%

positions? How can we create an environment where Transportation, travel and tourism
1%
good people continue to perform at high levels of Energy and natural resources
1%
productivity? These are the questions I am routinely
Chemicals
asked,” she says. 1%
Construction and real estate
As problem-solving, decision-making and 1%
decision support preoccupy a vast majority of Logistics and distribution
1%
today’s enterprise workers, the emergence of Other
knowledge work across the enterprise gives rise to 3%

© The Economist Intelligence Unit 2007 7


How knowledge workers obtain information 7+

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o do their jobs, knowledge workers What are the greatest barriers to information sharing at
your company? (Choose the top three)
use the gamut of different media
and technologies. Ironically, however, although Necessary information resides in silos
54%
the proliferation of new means to locate and Business managers have no incentive to share information
42%
access information has multiplied the amount of
IT infrastructure is inflexible
information available to these workers, it has also 42%
Access to information is not a top management priority
made the efficient dissemination, management 32%
and processing of data far more burdensome. To Information workers have no incentive to suggest changes to processes
31%
complicate matters further, different collaborative Company doesn’t understand the value of opportunities and synergies
media and technologies present unique value 27%
Corporate culture is secretive
propositions to enterprise workers. 24%

When reaching out to colleagues, for example, Other, please specify
6%
Richard Manuel, an equities analyst and portfolio

Perspectives: Industry overviews
Data obtained from our online “Information workers have no incentive to not consider access to information to be a
survey bear out some interesting sector- suggest changes to processes.” top management priority, while 52% say that
specific trends, although the small number of they work with inflexible IT infrastructures.
respondents limits the reliability of responses Healthcare: Better analytical and report-
garnered from several industries. For this ing tools also rank highly on the wish-lists Financial services: Siloed information
reason, only those industries represented by of knowledge workers in the healthcare weighs heavily on workers in the financial
20 or more respondents have been included industry. These workers, too, tend to find services sector, a perception that may drive
in this analysis. their corporate cultures secretive and do not the need for better reporting tools.
consider access to information to be a top
Automotive: Knowledge workers in the management priority. Technology: About 69% of respondents in
automotive industry would like to see bet- the IT and high-technology sectors report dif-
ter analytical and reporting tools. Unfortu- Consumer goods: Knowledge workers in ficulties in accessing data due to information
nately, these knowledge workers tend to the consumer-goods industry would also like silos.This suggests that even in sectors where
consider their IT infrastructures inflexible, to see better analytical and reporting tools, knowledge work is vital for success, substan-
to perceive their corporate cultures as but may not be holding their breath: 42% of tial work remains to accommodate necessary
secretive and to agree with the statement: respondents in this industry say that they do collaboration and information accessibility. n



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manager at Fidelity Management and Research in How valuable are the following means of obtaining relevant data?
(Rate on a scale of 1 to 5 where 1 = Highly valuable and 5 = Not at all valuable)
Boston, uses a range of technologies including
e-mail, instant messaging (IM) and SMS. But not Company intranet
24% 31% 27% 12% 6%
everyone takes advantage of these technologies. Audio/video teleconferencing
“This is not a big IM shop,” he says. “Lots of people 15% 33% 28% 18% 6%
E-mail
still use e-mail as if it were IM.” 38% 39% 20% 3% 1
In fact, when the need arises for collaboration of Fax
6% 12% 22% 31% 29%
the highest quality, enterprise knowledge workers In-person meetings
tend to turn not to virtual collaboration tools but 54% 32% 11% 3% 1
Internal company applications
to a more traditional format—the face-to-face 17% 37% 30% 12% 5%
One-on-one telephone calls/voicemail
meeting. Explains Sujit Sinha, senior director of
39% 40% 16% 4% 1
web and mobility solutions at Motorola: “My group Online chat
8% 19% 24% 27% 22%
consists entirely of IT folks who support other Instant messaging
departments—marketing, internal communications, 13% 22% 24% 23% 18%
Paper media
human resources (HR) and so on. We attend all their 12% 33% 31% 19% 5%
staff meetings in order to understand what’s coming Internet
48% 36% 15% 2% 1
down the road.” Face-to-face meetings, he says, are Web meetings
the best way to ensure that everyone understands 11% 23% 32% 23% 10%

what is required. 1 Very significant 2 3 4 5 Not at all significant
Even in an age of IM and virtual communities,
there appears to be no substitute for the direct
approach, whereby contextual questions can be
addressed quickly. Interestingly, the Internet ranks one or more of the following characteristics of
second among the most common means of obtaining information work:
information, followed by one-on-one telephone calls l accessibility, rather than quality, drives the
and e-mail (see chart, this page). selection of media applied in the search for and
A different, although equally compelling, acquisition of information;
perspective on today’s workflow patterns derives l the range of search and acquisition media
from the media used by knowledge workers over the narrows as the importance of the information
past 12 months. The responses to our survey affirm desired increases; and
the wide variety of media used by enterprise workers l knowledge workers choose different media and
in the course of their work: 97% of respondents technologies depending on the urgency of
cite e-mail use over the past 12 months, 55% cite obtaining a specific piece of information and the
SMS and 54% cite web conferencing. Other media need to understand it in context—and sometimes
leveraged by enterprise workers over the past year even use multiple media on the same information,
include instant messaging (49%), workflow systems as a means of validating and qualifying it.
(41%), message boards (36%) and webcasts (35%).
Note the discrepancies between the perceived
importance of specific media and technologies and
recent incidences of their use, which may indicate



The pain points of knowledge work

A dvances in IT have certainly
increased the sheer volume of data
and information available to enterprise employees.
But have they made access to or work with this
to our survey say that data-gathering is a significant
or very significant challenge, and 68% say the same
thing about data-searching, a task that is closely
related to data-gathering. The source of this pain?
information any easier? Not to the satisfaction of Stovepiped information and siloed data repositories,
knowledge workers, our survey results indicate. in which data are only available to one department.
Despite the proliferation of company information, Nearly one-half (49%) of survey respondents say
and even in spite of a perception among enterprise that they “often” or “always” face information that
employees that this information is of high quality, is “scattered across too many different sources or
locating the right information in a timely manner systems”.
remains a chore, as does analysing and processing it. “The challenges are well known but hard to
6 Challenges associated with data-gathering rank solve,” says Peter Vieser, strategic technical vendor
12
25 high among knowledge workers: 74% of respondents manager at telecom services provider Siemens in
50 Munich, “such as bringing together structured and
100
unstructured data along various business processes.
How frequently do you face the following challenges when trying to obtain the The data are often kept in proprietary, secure
information you need to get the job done? The information is…
systems that cannot easily be spidered by our search
1 Never 2 Rarely 3 Sometimes 4 Often 5 Always
machine.”
Password-protected and I do not have the password Mobile and remote information workers face
21% 38% 30% 11% 1
Too hard to find even though I have access to the sources or systems special challenges, and need tools that are reliable,
8% 28% 42% 19% 2%
sufficiently high-capacity and portable. More than
Scattered across too many different sources or systems
3% 17% 31% 40% 9% 57% of respondents agree with the statement: “I
Accessible by anybody inside my company but is hard to find
8% 28% 39% 24% 1
find that my effectiveness and productivity suffer
Accessible by anybody inside and outside the company but is hard to find when I’m travelling on business.”
17% 33% 35% 14% 1
Open to all and easy to find but is poorly organised
Even when company information is easy to
4% 20% 42% 30% 4% find, knowledge workers say that it takes undue
Open to all and easy to find but is hard to understand
8% 34% 44% 13% 1 processing to be made useful. More than one-third of
Open to all and easy to find but needs to be reformatted to be useful survey respondents say that they “often” or “always”
7% 20% 38% 30% 5%
Open to all and easy to find but takes too long to download face situations where information is “open to all
17% 36% 35% 10% 2%
and easy to find but is poorly organised”. Moreover,
Open to all and easy to find but unable to download or print-out the data
17% 41% 31% 9% 2% 35% of survey respondents say that they “often” or
Questionable due to lack of data reliability/completeness
5% 21% 43% 27% 5%
“always” face situations where information is “open
Nowhere that I can find it to all and easy to find but needs to be reformatted
9% 33% 38% 18% 2%
to be useful”. To make matters worse, 32% of

10 © The Economist Intelligence Unit 2007


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respondents say that they “often” or “always” face In your work during the last year, how significant were the following challenges
surrounding the integration of unstructured data with structured data?
situations where information is “questionable due to (Rate from 1 to 5 where 1 = Very significant and 5 = Not at all significant)
lack of data reliability/completeness”. No wonder, Data gathering
then, that the second most significant challenge 31% 43% 17% 6% 3%
Data searching
cited by knowledge workers is the downstream task 30% 38% 23% 7% 2%
of data analysis. Data analysis
32% 38% 23% 6% 2%
Barriers can arise even in technically advanced Data management
companies. Explains Google’s Ms Fox: “We warehouse 25% 38% 25% 8% 3%
Data consolidation
all kinds of data: financial, employee and other 26% 37% 26% 8% 4%
Data sharing/collaboration
information. Different people have different access 21% 37% 29% 10% 4%
levels, so I can’t always access company financial Data integration
20% 32% 25% 15% 7%
information even though I may legitimately need it. Data integrity/security
Then it’s all about trying to find the right person with 22% 31% 25% 13% 9%
Process compliance
the right access—and believe me, that can be a lot of 17% 28% 31% 14% 9%
work in and of itself.”
1 Very significant 2 3 4 5 Not at all significant

Case study: Google
The challenges of HR management myriad issues that arise in the course of de- capture exactly what I said’, ask to access
can be extreme for hot companies in the veloping and refining company HR policies. the document directly and change it right
fast-growth tornado. This would certainly “Let’s say an engineering director wants then and there. It’s pretty cool that way.”
apply to Google, the Mountain View, Cali- to know if we’re hiring enough engineers Fittingly, Google’s IT infrastructure has
fornia-based Internet search and online ad- to support his five projects,” Ms Fox says. also been designed to support enterprise-
vertising giant. By end-June 2007 Google’s “He’d be an internal client for our analytics wide collaboration. “Nothing is on our
payroll had reached 13,748, an impressive services. Everything at Google is quanti- desktops; everything resides on centralised
milestone for a “dotcom” formed just nine fied. Everything we do—every performance servers,” Ms Fox says. “There are lots of
years earlier. review, for example—yields a score. For wiki pages, thousands of groups.”
“As a company, we have to deal with every employee—every prospective em- With all of its Web 2.0 innovations,
more than 5,000 in-bound job applications ployee—there is a mountain of data.” what more could Google possibly offer
per day,” says Erica Fox, an analyst in the Google’s corporate culture thrives on its knowledge-worker employees? Ms Fox
People Analytics group within Google’s HR collaboration. “Google has developed a lot offers one suggestion: “It would be great
organisation. As part of its strategy for of collaboration tools,” says Ms Fox. “We’ll to have a data-warehousing system that
coping with this flood of information while be in a meeting with people in a couple of can take tons of data, and maybe provide
maintaining its vision and competitive edge, different sites, and somebody will record a natural language querying capability that
Google maintains vast data repositories. minutes in real time. Somebody at a dif- could actually parse questions typed in
Ms Fox relies on these data to address the ferent location might chime in, ‘you didn’t standard English.” n



The risks of poor information-sharing
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he need for context arises repeatedly What is the impact on you and your company of inadequate
access to the information you need to get your job done?
in our research, as a means for both (Choose the top three)
qualifying and validating corporate data and
Lost productivity
information. “I am not the biggest fan of solely 54%

searching for corporate data,” says Siemens’ Mr Flawed decision-making
47%
Vieser. “You need a network of people in various Loss of agility/competitive responsiveness
45%
communities and responsible departments to help
Inability to optimise processes
you do the job.” This pain is shared by nearly 60% of 31%
Lower quality
survey respondents, who agree that data-sharing and 26%
collaboration is a “significant” or “very significant” Higher costs
24%
challenge. But survey respondents and interview Limited/delayed innovation
subjects alike view such collaboration as essential in 24%
Limited process compliance
the course of their knowledge work. 9%

“There are no company rules for collaboration,”
says Bruno Schmid, chief executive officer of Resource
Informatik, an IT solutions provider and outsourcing
specialist based in Glattzentrum, Switzerland.

Case study: Motorola
When IT planners at the Schaumberg, uses custom-built applications to leverage With a global workforce of nearly 70,000
Illinois-based telecoms giant, Motorola, Motorola’s vast portfolio of wireless prod- employees, the scale of this advanced infra-
determined that the time had arrived to cre- ucts. This means that all Motorola employees structure exceeds that of many of Motorola’s
ate a mobile, enterprise-wide environment can enjoy high levels of connectivity and carrier customers. Mr Sinha attributes much
for its information workers, a large part of information access, and experience a uniform of the portal’s success to Motorola’s unique
the job fell to Sujit Sinha, the company’s sen- look and feel to their applications, whether approach to innovation. As new features
ior director of web and mobility solutions. they are on the road or in the office. and applications are suggested for consid-
The resulting platform, a mobile portal Since going live in June 2006, Motoro- eration, Mr Sinha’s group decides in short
that can be accessed by all knowledge work- la’s integrated, mobile-enabled intranet has order which will be tested and which will be
ers, connects two existing programs: Intranet grown to encompass some 40 different passed over based on how much time—not
2.0, Motorola’s web-based collaboration suite, programs, including cutting-edge security money—it will require to build.Yet although
and Motosphere, an internal platform that technologies and unified messaging platforms. this approach initially does away with cost-



The company relies on its employees to use sound
judgment in deciding when e-mail, telephone or face-
“There are no company rules for
to-face meetings are most effective. “It really depends collaboration. It really depends upon
upon the specific situation,” he says.
A large part of the problem is not only that
the specific situation.”
data still largely reside in silos, but that business Bruno Schmid, CEO, Resource Informatik
managers have little incentive to share these data.
As a result, more than 66% of survey respondents
say that they find workarounds to get the data they may become a significant stumbling block. People
need. These workarounds—extraordinary measures will find ways to cut corners, and be non-compliant
intended either to circumvent or to overwhelm a when they are faced with systems and processes they
procedural obstacle—are usually the product of well- don’t know how to work, or maybe even don’t feel
intentioned employees who want nothing more than
to work efficiently and effectively. A workaround may
I spend an excess amount of time creating “workarounds”
consist of an act as simple as searching the web for to access the information that I need to get my work done.
data that cannot be found on the enterprise local
area network; leaning on the good graces of a “power Agree 66%

user”, or internal system expert, for an operational
statistic; or deciding to cut one’s losses and forgo a Disagree 34%

key piece of information for a report or presentation.
According to a Hong Kong-based supply chain
manager for a global consumer-goods retailer, “If IT
systems and work processes are cumbersome, they

benefit analyses in favour of examining a Mr Sinha’s group can add new applications the online universe of avatars and alterna-
technology’s potential, the analogy that Mr and capabilities enterprise-wide with no tive social networking. Although virtualised,
Sinha uses is drawn from traditional business fanfare apart from an e-mail bulletin and a role-playing applications may seem a far cry
models. “Think of it as a venture capitalist. user blog, and can allow an early-adopters from the business-oriented applications
You’re going to get thrown a lot of innova- community to “play”, see what value they normally provided on enterprise networks,
tions, so you want to spend your time on just may derive and share their experiences with Motorola nonetheless sees potential in these
a couple of promising ones.” others across the intranet. applications’ ability to improve knowledge
Motorola has also adopted a viral model Needless to say, this approach invites ex- work efficiency, and has made them avail-
for new-technology adoption, short-cutting perimentation with some very unconvention- able to certain employee communities via its
painstaking product evaluations and using al applications. “One interesting thing we’re Intranet 2.0 program. “Who knows what you
the entire enterprise as a real-world proving playing with is the virtual world thing, similar can do with it? Put them out there and see
ground for new applications and platforms. to Second Life,” says Mr Sinha, referring to what happens,” he says. n



work, or don’t appear beneficial to them.” rate process compliance as “very significant”. When
Unfortunately, from a corporate-governance forced to choose between following corporate
perspective, such workarounds are far from trivial. At protocol and getting the work done, corporate
the very least, the repeated application of workarounds protocol all too often goes out of the window.
usually signals an erosion in the process by which
IT departments assess the needs of their knowledge
Approximately what percentage of the information you gather
workers, thereby severing an important feedback loop. is structured versus unstructured?
Moreover, employees who achieve success through
unauthorised and undocumented workarounds Structured 37%
deprive the enterprise at large of their expertise,
and companies risk growing overly dependent on a Unstructured 64%
few individuals adept at navigating the system. Most
unsettling is the fact that a corporate culture that
overlooks (or even unwittingly rewards) procedural
workarounds faces the risk of various workplace
violations, including improper accounting or reporting
Total does not add up to 100% due to rounding.
practices, failure to meet regulatory compliance
standards or security breaches.
Furthermore, results from our survey indicate that
knowledge workers tend to give short shrift to issues
concerning official company procedures. Asked to
rate various challenges that they face in the course
of knowledge work, fewer than 17% of respondents

Better tools for knowledge workers

W hat, then, are the keys to more
effective knowledge work? To
increase productivity and improve decision-making,
knowledge workers want tools to help them access
data more easily, qualify and ensure the data’s
which IT changes would improve overall decision-
making, 46% of survey respondents selected
“improved ability to integrate and present complex
information from various sources”, 43% chose “more
comprehensive integration of IT systems across
relevance to the problem or question at hand, the enterprise” and 42% chose “easier access to
and integrate and analyse the data to develop an information from your desktop”.
understanding of complex relationships. When asked In the view of the Hong Kong-based supply



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12.5
6+

chain manager, three critical collaborations need How confident are you that your company has technology and processes
that enable ready access to information you need? How confident are you
to happen between IT support staff and enterprise that it will have these in 1-3 years?
(Rate from 1 to 5, where 1 = Highly confident and 5 = Not at all confident)
users. First, “be customer-focused and understand
the needs and concerns of the end-user. You can Now
11% 1 Highly confident
build the world’s most innovative system and 28% 2
process, but if done without understanding end- 32% 3
21% 4
users’ needs, requirements and concerns, no one
9% 5 Not at all confident
will want to use it.” Second, engage end-users
throughout the development of the internal Next 1 - 3 years
operating systems “to make it easier to get their 15%
41%
buy-in”. Third, senior management must be aware 29%
6
that “in order for people to do their day-to-day jobs 12 11%
5%25
properly and effectively, they need to be on board
50
with, and support the development of, the right IT 100
systems and workflow processes.”
In your opinion, how well aligned would you say that your organisation’s
The good news is that a majority of knowledge IT objectives are with the following objectives?
workers believe that IT will respond to their needs in 1 Perfectly aligned 2 Well aligned 3 Somewhat aligned 4 Not aligned at all
the near term. When asked how confident they are
Providing information workers with ready access to company data
that their company’s technologies and processes will 6% 37% 45% 12%
meet their needs within the next three years, more
7+ Allowing information workers to collaborate more effectively
15
5% 31% 49% 15%
than one-half expressed confidence. 60
Giving information workers the appropriate hardware (PDAs), software, and processes needed to
integrate multiple sources of data and information
30
5% 25% 46% 24%

Of the following IT changes, which do you believe would
improve overall decision-making in your company?
(Choose the top three)

Improved ability to integrate and present complex info from various sources
46%
More comprehensive integration of IT systems across the enterprise
43%
Easier access to information from your desktop
42%
Addition/improvement of analytical and reporting tools
41%
Addition/improvement of a companywide collaboration portal
27%
Addition/improvement of enterprise data search tools
26%
Greater integration of specialised software applications with MS Office
19%
Easier access to information from mobile devices
19%
Addition/improvement of tools that enable internal real-time dialogue
14%



Conclusion

T he continued evolution of enterprise
processes towards knowledge work
puts a higher premium on holistic IT planning than
ever before. Because employees who find resources
broad understanding of the needs of information
workers. What kinds of information and data are
highly sought after within the enterprise, and how
are they used? The answers to these questions will
inadequate resort to workarounds that reduce undoubtedly vary, partly in relation to a company’s
corporate transparency, executives must develop clear primary activity but also with the job function
IT strategies to reduce risks and better enable workers. of the information worker. Motorola’s Mr Sinha
The first step in creating an IT environment estimates the number of distinct workflows in his
conducive to information work is to develop a company to be in the hundreds, which suggests

Enterprise Web 2.0 and self-service media
The rise of new information search most effective Web 2.0 conventions that may self-service portals more frequently report
and handling responsibilities that have come be integrated into self-service portals, such as challenges in data-gathering, perhaps because
to define enterprise workflows invites enterprise resource planning (ERP), customer they have developed higher expectations for
comparisons with an emerging Web 2.0 relationship management (CRM) and product data access and ease of use.
paradigm. Web 2.0 refers loosely to the lifecycle management (PLM) systems. For What about the influence of age on the
collaborative, community-based sites that those who have them, knowledge workers use of collaborative media in enterprises?
encompass such newer conventions as wikis, enjoy and appreciate the self-service portals A cross-tabulation of media choices on
blogs, aggregators, webcasts and folksono- available to them, and see the potential for the basis of respondents’ age yields some
mies, many of which have found their way expansions and enhancements. Asked to notable tendencies among different genera-
on to corporate networks, with varying choose among several statements describing tions. However, the distinctions that emerge
degrees of success. their experiences with company self-service challenge tired stereotypes of Luddite baby
As part of our online survey on informa- portals, 36% selected “I use some self-service boomers and technically savvy Gen X-ers. In
tion work, respondents were asked about the portals provided by my company, and would fact, respondents over 25 years old are more
availability of various Web 2.0 conventions on like to see their use expanded,” while 29% likely to use collaborative tools, e-mail, web
corporate networks. When cross-tabulated chose “To the best of my knowledge, my com- conferencing and workflow systems than are
according to various criteria, their answers pany does not use self-service portals.” their younger counterparts. Web conferenc-
yield a nuanced view of the various collabo- Small companies tend not to have portals, ing finds its highest appeal among knowledge
rative technologies available to knowledge and big companies are more likely to have workers aged between 46 and 55 (62%),
workers in different industries. more effective portals than small ones. while those aged 26-55 report the strongest
These results may provide insights into the Interestingly, knowledge workers who use inclination towards the use of SMS. n



strongly that information openness and ease of Which of the following statements best describes your
experiences with your company’s self-service online portals?
access should prevail over firewalls and stovepipes.
Google’s approach to documenting and quantifying I use some self-service portals
provided by my company, and
enterprise workers’ needs involves an open ticketing would like to see their use
expanded 36%
system, similar to those used in technical support
To the best of my knowledge,
environments but expanded to include almost any my company does not use
self-service portals 29%
query imaginable, from the request for a new mobile
phone to the development of a new search capability My company provides some
self-service portals, but none that
on a specific platform. are applicable to me 15%

Ultimately, enterprise workers need: My company makes the most
effective use possible of
l easier access to information across disciplines self-service portals 11%
and functional boundaries, in order to derive My company provides some
12
full value from the information and the efforts of self-service portals, but I tend not
25
to use them, and prefer to obtain
knowledge workers; information by other means 9% 100
50
l better contextual information, to validate and
quantify data in advance and streamline search-
and-retrieval efforts; Which of the following have you personally used in your role at
l collaboration tools to facilitate the many forms your company during the last 12 months? (Select all that apply)

of communication—including virtual, real- E-mail
time and face-to-face—that knowledge workers 97%
Text messaging (on phone)
increasingly rely on to work effectively; and 55%

l automated provisions—such as obligatory data- Web conferencing, with live audio sent across a computer network
54%
classification fields—to enforce corporate policies Instant messaging (on computer)
49%
designed to protect the integrity and security of
Workflow systems (allowing people to track progress of a work process)
corporate data and information. 41%
Discussion forums/message boards (allowing people to post messages
or questions on a specific topic)
Once launched, collaboration and data platforms 36%
Webcasts/podcasts/RSS feeds
should be audited regularly, as should the higher- 35%
level processes that they are intended to support. Centralised online collaboration (allowing people to collaborate on
documents and projects in real time)
Finally, IT architects should adopt a mindset 32%

of open access and unrestricted collaboration for Wikis (allowing multiple authors to post and edit articles, building up
a body of knowledge)
their IT infrastructures if they are to empower the 22%
Collaborative tools for designing products
knowledge workers who have come to dominate their
18%
enterprises. In the words of Professor Drucker, the Blogs (allowing people to publish an online chronological journal)
17%
companies that can best “strip away everything that Other, please specify
gets in their knowledge workers’ way” will benefit 4%

from “the single biggest factor for competitive
advantage in the next 25 years”.


Appendix: survey results

Appendix: Survey results
In July and August 2007, the Economist Intelligence Unit conducted a global online survey of 565 senior
4
executives from various industries. Please note that not all answers add up to 100% because of rounding or
7+

because respondents were able to provide multiple answers to some questions. 15
30

In which region are you personally located? What is your primary industry?

Financial services
North America 31% 33%
IT and technology
15%
Asia-Pacific 30% Professional services
12%
Healthcare, pharmaceuticals and biotechnology
Western Europe 26% 9%
Automotive
6%
Middle East and Africa 6%
Consumer goods
5%
Eastern Europe 4% Manufacturing
3%
Telecommunications
Latin America 3% 3%
Education
2%
Government/Public sector
2%
Aerospace/Defence
1%
In which region is your company headquartered? Entertainment, media and publishing
1%
Agriculture and agribusiness
North America 38% 1%
Retailing
1%
Western Europe 29% Transportation, travel and tourism
1%

Asia-Pacific 20% Energy and natural resources
1%
Chemicals
Middle East and Africa 7% 1%
Construction and real estate
1%
Eastern Europe 4% Logistics and distribution
1%

Latin America 2% Other
3%



What is your organisation’s global annual revenue in US dollars? What is your age?

$500m or less 41%
18 to 25 2%
$500m to $1bn 13%

$1bn to $5bn 15% 26 to 35 33%
$5bn to $10bn 8%
36 to 45 34%
$10bn to $20bn 23%

4 46 to 55 22%
7+
15 56 to 65 8%
5
30 10
Over 65 1% 20
40

What is your title?

Board member
3% What are your main functional roles? (Choose up to three)
CEO/president/managing director
15% Strategy and business development
36%
CFO/treasurer/comptroller
3% General management
34%
CIO/technology director
3% Marketing and sales
24%
Other C-level executive
6% IT
20%
SVP/VP/director
16% Finance
18%
Head of business unit
7% Information and research
17%
Head of department
10% Risk
14%
Manager
28% Operations and production
12%
Other
11% Customer service
11%
RD
11%
Human resources
6%
Supply-chain management
4%
Procurement
4%
Legal
3%
Other
4%



100
50 50
25 25
12.5 12+
6+

How satisfied are you with the information available to you Please indicate whether you agree or disagree Agree
to support your primary job responsibilities? (Rate on a scale of with the following statements. Disagree
1 to 5 where 1 = Very satisfied and 5 = Not at all satisfied)
I have ready access to all of the information I need to perform my role.
Quality of information 43% 57%
11% 1 Very satisfied
35% 2 My company’s enterprise-wide processes do not adequately address my
32% 3 information needs, so I find a “workaround”.
18% 4 71% 29%
5% 5 Not at all satisfied
I can’t access business processes and information through my productivity
tools, so I copy and paste data.
Quantity of information 60% 40%
14%
40% My work typically consists of decision-making, problem-solving, or the
28% creation of new analysis and insight.
14% 93% 7%
4%
I can’t find relevant information when I need it.
42% 58%
Ease of access to information
9% E-mail is not an effective collaboration tool, so I’m drowning in messages
33% and am unable to complete my projects.
29% 38% 62%
6+
23%
12+
My effectiveness and productivity suffer when I’m travelling on business.
7%
58% 50 42%
25
Ease of use of information
9%
29% Work today requires access to different types of information.
35% 50
25 Which sets of information are most critical to accomplishing
12.5 21% your work? (Choose up to three)
6+
6%
Financial information
42%
How confident are you that your company has technology and processes Research and development
that enable ready access to information you need? How confident are you 40%
that it will have these in 1-3 years? Competitor information
(Rate from 1 to 5, where 1 = Highly confident and 5 = Not at all confident) 38%
Customer/supplier relationships
34%
Now
11% 1 Highly confident Sales/marketing
2 34%
28%
32% 3 Internal costs and budget
31%
21% 4
Human resources (personnel, recruiting, compensation)
9% 5 Not at all confident
16%
Product life cycle
Next 1 - 3 years 15%
15% Time reporting
12%
41%
29% Inventories/availability to promise
7%
11%
Investor relations
5% 7%
Other, please specify
7%



6
12
25
50
100

How valuable are the following means of obtaining relevant data? Approximately what percentage of the information you gather
(Rate on a scale of 1 to 5 where 1 = Highly valuable and 5 = Not at all valuable) is structured versus unstructured?

Company intranet
Structured 37%
24% 31% 27% 12% 6%
Audio/video teleconferencing
15% 33% 28% 18% 6%
E-mail Unstructured 64%
38% 39% 20% 3% 1
Fax
6% 12% 22% 31% 29%
In-person meetings 12
54% 32% 11% 3% 1 25
Internal company applications
100
17% 37% 30% 12% 5%
50
One-on-one telephone calls/voicemail
39% 40% 16% 4% 1
Online chat
8% 19% 24% 27% 22%
Which of the following have you personally used in your role at
Instant messaging
your company during the last 12 months? (Select all that apply)
13% 22% 24% 23% 18%
Paper media
12% 33% 31% 19% 5% E-mail
97%
Internet
48% 36% 15% 2% 1 Text messaging (on phone)
55%
Web meetings
6 11% 23% 32% 23% 10% Web conferencing, with live audio sent across a computer network
54%
12
25
Instant messaging (on computer)
49%
50
Workflow systems (allowing people to track progress of a work process)
100 41%
Discussion forums/message boards (allowing people to post messages
or questions on a specific topic)
In your work during the last year, how significant were the following challenges 36%
surrounding the integration of unstructured data with structured data?
(Rate from 1 to 5 where 1 = Very significant and 5 = Not at all significant) Webcasts/podcasts/RSS feeds
35%

Data gathering Centralised online collaboration (allowing people to collaborate on
31% 43% 17% 6% 3% documents and projects in real time)
32%
Data searching
30% 38% 23% 7% 2% Wikis (allowing multiple authors to post and edit articles, building up
Data analysis a body of knowledge)
32% 38% 23% 6% 2% 22%
Data management Collaborative tools for designing products
25% 38% 25% 8% 3% 18%
Data consolidation Blogs (allowing people to publish an online chronological journal)
26% 8% 4% 17%
37% 26%
Data sharing/collaboration Other, please specify
4%
21% 37% 29% 10% 4%
Data integration
20% 32% 25% 15% 7%
Data integrity/security
22% 31% 25% 13% 9%
Process compliance
17% 28% 31% 14% 9%



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