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The survey revealed that businesses are only making slow progress towards achieving future-proof workplaces and are failing to modernise many essential processes. For example, only 29 percent of business leaders currently have a centralised approach to service and security management – hugely important areas to ensure consistency and control. While employees increasingly expect flexibility and mobility, less than half (42 percent) of organisations are able to provide Web portal based support services to provide ‘anywhere’ access to applications and services.
The absence of a workplace environment that is able to support new ways of working and evolving business practices is taking its toll, and is restricting businesses’ flexibility and agility. The findings show that nearly a quarter of business leaders questioned (23 percent) admit that their current approach is having a negative impact on helping the company adapt to a changing competitive landscape. Furthermore, 20 percent state that their existing workplace strategies are having a negative impact on their ability to accelerate time to market for new products and services. A further 18 percent say that it has a negative impact on retaining and attracting new employees.
The effective use of technology is at the heart of successful digital workplace strategies, however many CXOs named technological factors as the key barriers to productivity they face. In fact, almost two thirds (63 percent) see interoperability with outdated technology as a major challenge to workplace productivity. More than half also cited the complexity of current workplace technology (57 percent) and a lack of access to the right productivity tools (55 percent) as major issues. A further concerning revelation is that the majority of organisations simply do not have a clear understanding of their current productivity levels, with only 17 percent using analytics tools across the business.
The threat of cyberattacks continues to grow in both scale and sophistication, and is impacting all industry sectors. Businesses have responded by investing heavily in cyber defense, but the study suggests that for many, the different levels of protection and authentication they have accumulated are acting as a throttle on productivity. More than half of study participants (56 percent) responded that their current approach to workplace security is having a negative impact on employee productivity, with 20 percent of the total sample base stating that it has a ‘highly negative’ effect. This is due to employees taking non-compliant routes and cutting corners when faced with complex or time-consuming security procedures and mechanisms.
Business leaders rank compliance with regulations such as the Global Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) as their biggest workplace security issue – 59 percent see it as a major challenge, ahead of location-based access and information sharing (58 percent) and identity management (58 percent). Security is also preventing businesses from taking full advantage of the latest generation of collaboration-based tools to drive productivity and social integration. According to the study, 41 percent of businesses have not yet deployed these tools with 46 percent naming security concerns as the main barrier.
Notes to editors
1Fujitsu commissioned this research to gain an understanding of the extent to which organisations are preparing for the demands of the future workplace, and how business leaders are planning to transform and invest in their current workplace systems and processes in order to make them future-proof.
The study was undertaken July-September 2017 by PAC via briefings with 1,278 senior business and technology decision makers at large- and mid-sized commercial and public sector organisations in Europe, Oceania and the United States.
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Fujitsu is the leading Japanese information and communication technology (ICT) company, offering a full range of technology products, solutions and services. Approximately 155,000 Fujitsu people support customers in more than 100 countries. We use our experience and the power of ICT to shape the future of society with our customers. Fujitsu Limited (TSE: 6702) reported consolidated revenues of 4.5 trillion yen (US$40 billion) for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2017. For more information, please see http://www.fujitsu.com.
Fujitsu employs over 14,000 people in the UK & Ireland, with total revenues exceeding £1.8 billion. Offering an integrated product and service portfolio, we deliver consulting, applications, technology products, systems integration and managed services, including cloud-based solutions, for customers across both public and private sectors, including retail, financial services, telecoms, government, defence and consumer IT. For more information, please see http://uk.fujitsu.com.
Isabella Ward
Phone: + 44 (0) 20 7861 2800
E-mail: teamfujitsu@harvard.co.uk
Company:Harvard PR
Graham Goulden
Phone: + 44 (0) 843 354 9568
E-mail: graham.goulden@uk.fujitsu.com
Company:Fujitsu UK & Ireland
Date: 07 November, 2017
City: London