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WHITE P APER
Bridging the Information Worker Productivity Gap inWestern Europe: New Challenges and Opportunities for IT
Sponsored by: Adobe
Melissa Webster
September 2012EXECUTIVE SUMMARYIn June 2012, IDC undertook a global survey of information workers and IT
professionals in the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Australia,
and Japan to better understand today's information worker needs and challenges. A
key goal of our survey was to uncover significant time wasters and opportunities toaddress workforce productivity. This paper reports our findings and provides
recommendations for IT.
Our survey shows that information workers in Western Europe waste a significant
amount of time each week dealing with a variety of challenges related to working with
documents. This wasted time costs the organization €14,492 per information worker
1
per year and amounts to a loss of 19.5% in the organization's total productivity.
For an organization with 1,000 people, addressing these time wasters would betantamount to hiring 195 new employees.
This should be welcome news for executives seeking to redeploy resources to spur
innovation, increase profits, and compete effectively in new markets. It should also
capture the attention of CIOs who have been tasked with increasing theorganization's productivity. In IDC's 2011 survey of CIOs in the United States andWestern Europe, CIOs ranked increasing productivity third on the list of businessinitiatives that were expected to drive IT investment in 2012 — just behind reducing
2
the organization's costs and improving the organization's business processes.
IT is responding with new investments in collaboration tools. Asked about key IT
initiatives for 2012, CIOs ranked improving the organization's collaboration tools third —behind cloud services and consolidation/virtualization and ahead of big data andanalytics, application consolidation, security and risk management, and a host of otherkey IT initiatives. Translating investments in collaboration tools into real productivity
gains has proven to be somewhat elusive in the past, as a decade of IDC research into
the hidden costs of information work shows. What is standing in the way?
One of the key findings of our June 2012 survey is that information work is inherently
document intensive. Much of the time that information workers spend at work involves
working with documents or forms in one way or another — whether researching and
1

See the Appendix for the survey methodology and an explanation of how costs arecalculated.
2
The CIO Agenda for 2012 and Beyond: A Look at CIO Sentiment and Priorities, IDC #233098,
February 2012

pulling information together for documents; reviewing, approving, and signing
documents; managing the document review process; or working with forms and forms
data. General-purpose collaboration tools don't fully address information workers'
needs related to these document-based activities.
Specifically, information workers need tools and best practices that make them moreproductive in the following areas: Creating and managing documents Collaborating around documents and working with forms
 Working with documents on mobile devices
As our June 2012 survey also found, some significant gaps in perception exist
between information workers and IT when it comes to current and future needs —gaps that will only widen with the rapid growth of cloud and mobile computing.
Closing these perception gaps is essential if IT is to deliver against its key productivity
improvement objectives, and this paper looks to help IT achieve that goal.

KEY CHAR ACTE RISTICS OF INFORMATION
WORK
If we stop to consider how information work has changed over the past decade, we
see that many of the changes have been dramatic. A far greater percentage of
employees work remotely or from a home office today, and workgroups often span
the globe. Web and video conferencing and tools such as instant messaging andinstant meetings let people collaborate in real time across distance, time zones, andorganizational boundaries, and mobile devices help them be productive "on the go."Increasingly, enterprise social networks are enabling information workers to shareand find relevant information, locate needed expertise, and come together in selforganizing groups.
No one would argue that investments in collaboration tools haven't brought returns;
they have. At the same time, as our research over the past decade into the hidden
costs of information work shows, information workers continue to waste a significant
number of hours each week on a variety of unproductive activities.
Certainly, many factors can contribute to this loss in productivity. In some cases, theculprit is inefficient business processes and/or lack of automation. To some extent, it's
the result of too many separate applications that force the information worker tobecome "the glue" between multiple systems.
To gain a better understanding of the nature of information work today — and glean
insights into the activities that cost information workers time — IDC conducted a global
survey of 1,200 information workers and IT professionals in the United States, theUnited Kingdom, France, Germany, Australia, and Japan in June 2012. Our survey
results highlight significant differences in perceptions between information workers andIT around current and future needs and reveal opportunities to improve workforce
productivity. This paper provides a detailed analysis of our findings for Western Europe.

2#236579©2012 IDC

Information Work Is Document Intensive
Our survey reveals that information workers spend most of their time at work eachweek performing one document-related activity or another (see Figure 1).

Information workers
spend most of theirtime at work eachweek performing one
document-related
activity or another.

FIGURE 1
Information Work in Western Europe Is Highly Document
Centric
Q.

Thinking about your typical workweek, how many hours would you say you spend on thefollowing document-related activities?

Creating documents
Researching/gathering inf ormation
Reviewing/providing f eedback
Searching f or documents
Consolidating and analyzing f orms
data

Approving/signing documents
Filing/organizing documents
Filling in f orms
Managing review, merging
edits/comments
Managing approvals,obtaining
signatures

0

2

4
6
(Hours per week)8

10

Activities related to creating/managing documents (personal productivity)
Activities related to review/approval of documents (collaboration)n = 420 information workers in Western Europe, evenly split across the United Kingdom, France,
and Germany
Notes:
Multiple responses were allowed.
Total is 47.1 hours, which is greater than the 44.3 hours information workers say they work each
week; subsequent calculations are based on the higher number (47.1). (See the methodology in
the Appendix.)
Source: IDC's Information Worker Survey, June 2012©2012 IDC

#2365793

Information workers spend half their time in activities related to document creationand management, including researching and gathering information for documents,
searching for documents, and filing and organizing documents. This is time spentworking individually, where tools that help improve personal productivity come intoplay.
They spend the other half of their time in activities that involve working collaboratively
with documents — that is, getting their documents reviewed and approved; merging
edits and comments from multiple reviewers/versions into a single document;
managing approvals and obtaining signatures, wet stamps, or other marks ofapproval on documents; reviewing documents received from others and providing
feedback; approving or signing documents; and dealing with forms or forms data.
Almost two-thirds of this time is spent collaborating with people who don't sit nearby— that is, people from the information worker's team who work from other locations,people in other groups, and people from outside the organization. This is wherecollaborative tools can help bridge distance, time zones, and organizationalboundaries.
Information workers today increasingly require the ability to work "on the go." Most
want to use their mobile devices to perform the same document-related tasks they
use their PCs for today. All of these devices are being connected to the organization's
network and email systems, and this adds to the complexity of managing networks
and applications for IT.
Further, as our survey shows, the "bring your own device" (BYOD) trend has begun totake root in Western Europe: 13% of the smartphones information workers use atwork — and more than a third of the tablets — are BYOD today. This further
exacerbates challenges around document and application security and is forcing IT torethink its approach to device and information management.

Information workers
spend half their timein activities related to
document creationand management,
and they spend theother half in activities
that involve working
collaboratively with
documents.

Information workers
need to be able towork "on the go"using smartphones
and tablets. Most
want to use theirmobile devices toperform the same
document-related
tasks they use theirPCs for today.

In any case, the demand for mobility is not something IT can resist — no matter how
much it might wish to: It is being driven by information workers at every level of theorganization today, from executives on down.

Information Workers Spend Hours Each Week
Dealing with Document Challenges
Despite significant investments in personal productivity tools and collaborative
applications over the past several years, information workers in Western Europe
spend a significant percentage (43.3%) of their time dealing with a variety ofchallenges and frustrations related to working with documents (see Figure 2).
As our research shows, much of this time is wasted time: IDC estimates wasted time
costs the organization €14,492 per information worker per year in compensation costs
alone.

4#236579

Time wasted in thecourse of dealing with
document-related
challenges costs theorganization €14,492
per information
worker per year incompensation costs
alone.

©2012 IDCFIGURE 2
Information Workers in Western Europe Spend a Significant
Percentage of Their Time Dealing with a Variety of Document
Challenges
Q.

There are many things that can take up a lot of extra time when working with documents.
How many hours a week do you spend on each of the following?

Gathering and consolidating
f eedbackPulling inf ormation f rom dif f erent f iles
and f ormats into one document
Consolidating data f rom f orms
Dealing with problems, timeconsuming tasks due to paper
Deciphering the f eedback
Searching f or, but not f inding,documents
Unraveling version control problems
Recreating documents that can't be
f ound0123(Hours per week)

4

Activities related to creating/managing documents (personal productivity)
Activities related to review/approval of documents (collaboration)n = 420 information workers in Western Europe, evenly split across the United Kingdom, France,
and Germany
Notes:
Multiple responses were allowed.
Total is 20.4 hours, or 43.3% of the time spent on Figure 1 activities.
Source: IDC's Information Worker Survey, June 2012

Subsequent sections of this study look in more detail at the three areas wehighlighted previously — areas we believe IT should target for productivity
improvements: creating and managing documents (personal productivity),collaborating with others around documents, and working with documents on mobile
devices. We believe IT has an opportunity to make improvements fairly inexpensively.

©2012 IDC

#236579

5

BOOSTING INFORMATION WORKERS'PERSONAL PRODUCTIVITY
Let's begin with information worker challenges related to personal productivity.
Information workers in Western Europe spend 9.4 hours per week dealing withchallenges around creating and managing content (see Table 1). Much of this iswasted time.
Information workers
spend 9.4 hours aweek dealing withchallenges related to
document creationand management. At
least 4.9 hours of thisis wasted time.

Fruitless searches and missed opportunities for content reuse are entirely wasted
time, and at least a quarter of the time information workers spend dealing with issues
that arise using paper documents and pulling information together from multiple
sources into one document is also wasted time. This means they waste 4.9 hours per
week dealing with challenges related to document creation and management.

T ABLE 1
Information Worker Time Spent/Wasted Dealing with Challenges Related to
Personal Productivity in Western Europe
Hours
Spent
per
Week

% of
Time
Spent

Hours
Wastedper Week% ofTime
Wasted% ofOrganizational
Productivity Lost

Pulling information that exists in different files andformats together in one document

3.1

6.7%

0.8

1.7%

1.3%

Dealing with problems and time-consuming tasks thatarise with paper documents

2.8

6.0%

0.7

1.5%

1.2%

Searching for, but not finding, documents

1.9

4.0%

1.9

4.0%

3.2%

Recreating documents because the current or theright version can't be found or got lost

1.5

3.2%

1.5

3.2%

2.6%

Total

9.4

19.9%

4.9

10.4%

8.4%

n = 420 information workers in Western Europe, evenly split across the United Kingdom, France, and Germany
Notes:
Percentages are based on reported 47.1 hours per week spent on Figure 1 activities and 80.6% of employees being
information workers. (See the methodology in the Appendix.)
All numbers in this table may not be exact due to rounding.
Source: IDC's Information Worker Survey, June 2012

Time wasted in document creation and management activities costs the organization€6,250 per information worker per year. The cost in lost productivity is huge when we
add this up for the organization as a whole: It amounts to an 8.4% loss in theorganization's total productivity. Eliminating the time wasters related to creating andmanaging documents would be equivalent to adding 84 new employees in a
1,000-person company.

6#236579

Time wasted in
document creationand management
activities costs theorganization €6,250
per information
worker per year.

©2012 IDC

Persistence of Paper Documents a Contributor
Despite attempts to eliminate paper via document automation and other technologies
over the years, paper continues to be prevalent. We asked information workers inWestern Europe what percentage of the time they spend dealing with documents isspent working with documents in paper rather than electronic form; the answer is
21.9%. Use of paper is declining, but only modestly: 38.1% of information workers inWestern Europe say the percentage of documents they deal with that are paper
based has declined in the past year, but 13.3% say it has increased. As noted
previously, dealing with problems and time-consuming tasks that arise with paper
documents eats up 2.8 hours of an information worker's time each week.

Paper continues to beprevalent: 21.9% of
the time information
workers spend
dealing with
documents is spentworking with paper
documents today.

Reasons for the persistence of paper include requirements for physical signatures(and lack of comfort with electronic signatures), old habits, the need to file or submit
documents in paper form (or fill out forms by hand), and the need to print documents
for use in the field where it's difficult to take along a PC.
IT is somewhat aware of the continued reliance on paper: Over a third of IT
respondents say their organization's systems are still far too paper based. IT
underestimates the impact this has, however, on both productivity and costs.

Implications for IT
IT needs to focus more attention on improving information workers' personal
productivity related to creating and managing documents and eliminating the time
wasters. Content management and search technologies are only part of the answer.
IT should engage with information workers to define strategies for reducing the need for
paper and improving the efficiency of business processes that require transitions in andout of paper. Paper documents aren't searchable and are difficult to manage, and webelieve the persistence of paper documents and forms in the organization is a contributor
to all of the time wasters itemized in Table 1. Capture, esignatures (where legally
enforceable or recognized), vaulting, and other document-based technologies can help
address many of the root causes of the continued reliance on paper. Increased use oftablets can help here too: IDC research shows tablet users print significantly fewer
documents. We believe information workers are aware of the disadvantages of paperbased documents and are looking to IT for help with both tools and best practices.

Capture, esignatures(where legally
enforceable orrecognized), vaulting,and other documentbased technologies
can help address
many of the root
causes of thecontinued reliance on
paper.

Document-oriented technologies can also make it easier for information workers topull information together from multiple electronic formats/sources to create new
documents and create "collections" of related documents that can be managed as
single objects with rich metadata that makes the content more discoverable.

Document-oriented
technologies make iteasier to pull
information together
from multiple
formats/sources,
create new
documents fromexisting content, andcreate "collections" ofrelated documents.

ADDRESSING INFORMATI ON WORKERS 'DOCUMENT COLLABORATION NEEDSAs noted previously, information work in Western Europe is highly collaborative: On
average, information workers spend a little over half their time collaborating withothers inside and outside the organization. A majority of this time is spent©2012 IDC

#2365797

collaborating with people in other locations, departments, or organizations —underscoring the need for tools that make it easier to collaborate across distance,time zones, and organizational boundaries.
Information workers inWestern Europe
spend almost aquarter of theirworkweek dealing
with challenges
related to document
review and approval
and working withforms.

Time spent collaborating includes time spent on document review and approval
processes and dealing with forms and forms data. Information workers in Western
Europe spend almost a quarter of their workweek dealing with challenges related to
document review and approval and working with forms (see Table 2).
Again, much of this is wasted time. Time spent unraveling version control issues thatare created by awkward collaborative processes and consolidating data from forms (atask that begs for better automation) is entirely wasted time. Similarly, we estimate
conservatively that a quarter of the time information workers spend gathering andconsolidating feedback and deciphering that feedback could be eliminated throughthe use of better document-based collaboration tools.

TABLE 2
Information Worker Time Spent/Wasted Dealing with Challenges Related toCollaboration in Western Europe
Hours
Spent
per
Week

% of
Time
Spent

Hours
Wastedper Week% ofTime
Wasted% ofOrganizational
Productivity Lost

Gathering everyone's feedback and consolidating it
into a single document

3.7

7.8%

0.9

1.9%

1.6%

Consolidating data from forms

3.1

6.6%

3.1

6.6%

5.3%

Deciphering the feedback

2.4

5.1%

0.6

1.3%

1.0%

Unraveling version control problems created by
awkward routing, review, approval, or signatureprocesses

1.9

4.0%

1.9

4.0%

3.2%

Total

11.0

23.4%

6.5

13.7%

11.1%

n = 420 information workers in Western Europe, evenly split across the United Kingdom, France, and Germany
Notes:
Percentages are based on reported 47.1 hours per week spent on Figure 1 activities and 80.6% of employees being
information workers. (See the methodology in the Appendix.)
All numbers in this table may not be exact due to rounding.
Source: IDC's Information Worker Survey, June 2012

This adds up to 6.5 hours of wasted time each week at an annual cost of €8,242 perinformation worker. Again, the cost to the organization in lost productivity isenormous: an 11.1% drop in total productivity. Addressing these time wasters would
be the equivalent of adding 111 new employees in a 1,000-person company.

8#236579

Information workers
waste 6.5 hours per
week dealing with
document
collaboration
challenges — at anannual cost of €8,242
per information
worker.

©2012 IDC

Need for Document-Based Collaboration
Time wasted in edit, review, and approval processes and dealing with forms can betraced to a variety of frustrations that improved document collaboration processes cansignificantly ameliorate or eliminate altogether (see Figure 3).

FIGURE 3
Information Worker Frustrations Related to Working with
Documents in Western Europe
Q.

What are some of the biggest frustrations you face working with documents?

Time-consuming searches through email
attachments
Time collecting/consolidating everyone's
f eedbackGetting signatures on a document is time
consuming
Obtaining signed f orms is a slow, manual
process
Getting my documents approved takes a lotof timeDif f iculty communicating with others in
dif f erent time zones
Sometimes, people I send documents to
can't open them
Can't easily make paper-based inf ormationelectronic
Time f ollowing up with people to get
documents reviewed
It is dif f icult or time consuming to create
online f orms
Documents sent to others don't always
view/print correctly
It is hard to analyze the data I gather whenusing f orms

0

10

20
30
(% of respondents)

40

50

Activities related to creating/managing documents (personal productivity)
Activities related to review/approval of documents (collaboration)n = 420 information workers in Western Europe, evenly split across the United Kingdom, France,
and Germany
Note: The figure shows the percentage of respondents who rated each item 4 or 5 on a scale of
1 to 5, where 1 means they strongly disagree and 5 means they strongly agree.
Source: IDC's Information Worker Survey, June 2012©2012 IDC

#236579

9

These findings suggest that the general-purpose collaborative applications provided
to information workers in the past (including messaging, team sites, conferencing,and so forth) don't fully address the highly document-centric nature of information
work: Information workers also need support for document-based collaboration (seeFigure 4). Capabilities include: Commenting and annotation. Two-thirds of information workers in Western
Europe say being able to see other people's comments on documents they havebeen given to review and/or the use of commenting tools in the document itself
would save them time.

General-purpose
collaborative
applications don't fully
address the highly
document-centric
nature of information
work: Information
workers also needsupport for documentbased collaboration.

 Document portability and fidelity. More than a quarter of information workers
in Western Europe say the people to whom they send documents can't always
open them (because they don't use the same desktop software); similarly, morethan a quarter say the people to whom they send documents can't always view orprint them correctly. Altogether, more than a third of information workers inWestern Europe cite one or both of these frustrations. Information workers insmaller companies are more affected than those in larger companies, likely
because larger companies have standardized their desktop software to a greater
extent. Still, this is a significant area of frustration for information workers acrossthe board.
 eForms. Forms-related workflows are an area of frustration for half of information
workers. Information workers in Western Europe spend 7.5 hours per week fillingin forms and consolidating/analyzing information they have collected via forms;
nearly half of this is wasted time. Today, this is largely a manual effort: Only 4%of our information worker respondents in Western Europe are using an electronic
forms product.
 Signatures and approvals. Information workers in Western Europe spend 6.7
hours per week obtaining signatures on documents and getting documents
approved, as well as signing or approving documents. This is a good target for
better automation.
 Document security and governance. The moment a document leaves theauthor's hands, document security concerns begin — especially when adocument is shared with external collaborators.

10#236579©2012 IDCFIGURE 4
Specific Information Worker Needs in Working with Documents
in Western Europe
Q.

Regarding your specific needs related to working with documents, please rate thefollowing...

Must f ollow my organization's policy f or
publishing documents
Need to f ile/archive document f or f uture
ref erence
Document must look/behave as
intended, even on mobile
Having a record of an approval of adocument is important
Need to make sure people can't edit
once document is f inalized
Seeing others' comments on a document
I'm reviewing would save time
Need to make sure only certain people
can see my document
Need to ensure conf idential inf ormation
is deleted bef ore distributed
Using commenting tools in the document
itself would save me time
Ability to access documents on mymobile device would save time
Ability to comment on a document using
my mobile device would save time
Ability to sign a document on my mobile
device would save time
0

10

20
30
40
50
(% of respondents)

60

70

Activities related to creating/managing documents (personal productivity)
Activities related to review/approval of documents (collaboration)
Activities related to interacting with documents on mobile devices
n = 420 information workers in Western Europe, evenly split across the United Kingdom, France,
and Germany
Note: The figure shows the percentage of respondents who rated each item 4 or 5 on a scale of
1 to 5, where 1 means they strongly disagree and 5 means they strongly agree.
Source: IDC's Information Worker Survey, June 2012©2012 IDC

#23657911

Importance of External Collaboration
IT seriously underestimates the importance of external collaboration to theorganization's information workers. We asked IT respondents in Western Europe
what percentage of their employees collaborate with people outside the organization;
their answer was just 23.4%. (The number wasn't much higher when we asked what
they thought this percentage would be two years from now.) In fact, 91.4% of
information workers already collaborate with people outside the organization on a
weekly basis, and the average information worker spends 4.8 hours per week
doing so.

IT seriously
underestimates theimportance of external
collaboration. The
vast majority of
information workers
collaborate withpeople outside theorganization on a
weekly basis.

SaaS Adoption
In organizations where IT fails to address information workers' external collaborationneeds, information workers devise their own strategies. The need for easycollaboration and sharing of documents with people outside the organization has
driven user adoption of cloud-based (SaaS) file upload/sharing services, many ofwhich are geared more to consumers than enterprises.
IT organizations in Western Europe are aware of this and are struggling to respond by
putting policies in place. These policies range widely from forbidding employees to use
SaaS services that are not expressly sanctioned and supported by IT (54.4%) to trying
to discourage the use of such services (18.9%) to capitulating and letting users do as
they wish (4.4%). Increasingly, IT is engaging with users to understand their needs andput solutions in place to support them — solutions that keep IT in control and ensure
information is secure (15.6%). Some are embracing a cloud-first strategy (6.7%).

In organizations
where IT fails to
address information
workers' external
collaboration needs,
information workers
devise their own
strategies. This has
driven adoption of
SaaS file sharing
services, many ofwhich are geared
more to consumers.

SaaS is on IT's radar: One-fifth of information worker applications in Western Europe
are SaaS today, and IT respondents expect this percentage to grow to more than athird within two years. IT expects to increase SaaS use across a variety ofcollaboration use cases, including email/calendar, online forms, Web and videoconferencing, team sites, extranets, online file sharing, and esignatures.
As we know from other IDC research, concerns around compliance with countryspecific laws that enact the EU Data Protection Directive play a role in deciding how
and where cloud services are used. Still, in this day and age, two years is a long timeframe, and we think IT needs to be more aggressive — especially where external
collaboration is involved. Just 22.8% of IT organizations in Western Europe have
deployed a SaaS extranet solution today to at least 10% of their users. Past efforts todevelop and deploy extranets to meet users' external collaboration needs haven't
been entirely satisfactory: 40.6% of IT respondents say building extranets to enablesecure collaboration and file sharing has been an expensive proposition and theyneed a better alternative. SaaS offers a way forward. Other promising use cases for
SaaS that IT should explore include online forms, online file sharing, and esignatures
where legally enforceable or recognized.

12#236579©2012 IDC

Document and Application Security
While half of IT respondents in Western Europe agree that enabling easier/bettercollaboration with people outside the organization is important to users, IT isextremely concerned about the security of information that is exchanged with external
collaborators: Three-quarters say it's critical to ensure the security and privacy of
information in documents and files — especially when they travel outside the firewall.
IT's concerns appear to be well founded: 21.7% say their organization has
experienced an information leak within the past 12 months (see Figure 5).

21.7% of IT
respondents in
Western Europe say
their organization has
experienced an
information leak within
the past 12 months.

Organizations are employing a variety of document security strategies to protect
sensitive information in their documents, including file encryption, passwords on
individual documents, digital signatures/certificates, secure file upload/managed filetransfer/portals, and digital rights management (DRM) or enterprise rights
management (ERM). Western Europe is in the lead when it comes to the use ofdigital signatures/certificates (60.6% versus 44.4% outside Europe) and DRM/ERM(38.3% versus 23.3% outside Europe), but use of these technologies varies bycountry — both are in wider use in France and Germany than in the United Kingdom.
(Germany and France were early adopters of digital signatures. Legislation in thesecountries is more granular due to strict employment and commercial practices; inGermany, greater government regulation of certificate authorities [CAs] has led to ahigher level of confidence in the security of digital signatures.) Secure file
upload/managed file transfer/portals are in use in about half of organizations(compared with 68.3% in the United States). All of these are valuable strategies andhave different applications, and we recommend IT organizations proactively
investigate those they haven't already put to use.

Organizations are
employing a variety of
document security
strategies to protect
sensitive informationin their documents.

The need to manage and secure sensitive information and documents is also closely
related to application security, another top concern for IT and the number one issue
for 82.8% of IT respondents in Western Europe when it comes to deployment andsupport of desktop applications — ranking higher than cost, compatibility with IT's
existing operating system and application environment, ease of management anddeployment, impact on the complexity of the desktop stack, and the skill sets andadditional support staff needed to support the software, among other concerns.

The need to manage
and secure sensitive
information anddocuments is also
closely related toapplication security.
IT has significant
exposure in thisparticular area,
however.

IT has significant exposure in this particular area, however. Only 29.4% oforganizations in Western Europe have a policy in place to apply security patcheswithin two weeks of release, and only 58.3% have a policy in place to apply themwithin a month; about a fifth have no policy at all. This is further complicated by thefact that it is time consuming for IT to manage desktop software upgrades for the
existing, predominantly PC-based environment: 38.3% of IT respondents say it takes
them more than 45 minutes per PC to roll out an update. Adopting deployment
automation tools can significantly reduce the time and effort required.

©2012 IDC

#236579

13

FIGURE 5
Top-of-Mind IT Concerns in Western Europe
Q.

Please rate your level of agreement with the following statements…

Ensuring security/privacy of inf ormation is
critical — especially outside the f irewall
We don't want to give people f rom outsideaccess to our network
Enabling easier/better collaboration withpeople outside our organization is important
to users
Hackers attacking our network and systems
is a growing concern f or us
Document portability across the myriad
devices in our organization is a concern
Building extranets to enable securecollaboration/f ile sharing has been expensive
Our business processes are still f ar too paper
based
We have experienced an inf ormation leak in
the past 12 months
0

20

40
60
(% of respondents)

80

Activities related to creating/managing documents (personal productivity)
Activities related to review/approval of documents (collaboration)
Activities related to interacting with documents on mobile devices
Activities related to document security and governance

n = 180 IT respondents in Western Europe, evenly split across the United Kingdom, France, andGermany
Note: The figure shows the percentage of respondents who rated each item 4 or 5 on a scale of
1 to 5, where 1 means they strongly disagree and 5 means they strongly agree.
Source: IDC's Information Worker Survey, June 2012

14#236579©2012 IDC

Implications for IT
Given the significant amount of time information workers waste in activities related to
document review and approval and working with forms and forms data, IT should
proactively investigate document-based collaboration technologies that provide thefollowing capabilities:
 Commenting and annotation, which enable information workers to see others'comments on documents they are reviewing Document portability, which ensures information workers can open, view, andprint documents others send to them using their device(s) of choice with full
fidelity
 eForms, which help automate data collection and consolidation
 eSignatures, which streamline the approval process
The significant gap in perception between IT and information workers around theimportance and pervasiveness of external collaboration and sharing may help explain
why information worker productivity improvements have been so difficult to achieve.
The user base that IT needs to support around collaboration and secure sharing of
documents with people outside the firewall is much, much larger than IT realizes, andIT needs to focus greater attention on two key areas: facilitating external collaboration(particularly around sharing of information) and document and application security.

The user base that IT
needs to support
around collaborationand secure sharing of
documents withpeople outside thefirewall is much, muchlarger than IT
realizes.

ADDRESSING INFORMATION WORKERS 'PRODUCTIVITY NEEDS ON THE GO: MOBILE
Information workers want to be more productive "on the go" and are pushing IT for
support. The number of mobile devices on the enterprise network has grown rapidly
over the past few years:
 Half of information workers in Western Europe use a smartphone for work today,
and nearly two-thirds expect to a year from now.
 13.8% of information workers use a tablet for work today, and a third expect to ayear from now.
The push for smartphones has been driven by information workers at all levels of theorganization. Tablets, on the other hand, have been driven largely by executives.
There have been plenty of stories in the press about CEOs marching into IT anddemanding email and network support for their iPads, and our survey data suggests
this trend will continue: More than a third of executive information workers in Western
Europe use tablets for work purposes today, and almost two-thirds expect to within
the next 12 months.

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Mobile Use Cases
Information workers in Western Europe who use mobile devices for work are using
their mobile devices to perform many of the same document-oriented tasks they
perform on their PCs, and they hope to be able to do a lot more with documents in the
future (see Figure 6).

Information workers inWestern Europe
perform many of thesame documentoriented tasks on theirmobile devices thatthey perform on theirPCs, and they hope tobe able to do a lot
more in the future.

FIGURE 6
Information Worker Use Cases for Mobile Devices in Western
EuropeQ.

Which of the following work-related activities are things you are doing today using asmartphone or tablet, and which are things you would like to be able to do?

Use email/calendar
Review documents

Send a document to someone
View own documents

Comment on documents
Create/edit documents

Approve f orms/documents
Fill/submit f orm
Sign documents
020

Do today40
60
80(% of respondents)

100

Want to don = 420 information workers in Western Europe, evenly split across the United Kingdom, France,
and Germany
Base = current mobile device users, n = 215
Source: IDC's Information Worker Survey, June 2012

16#236579©2012 IDCIn our conversations with IT organizations about mobile collaboration, we often hearthat once users are given access to email and calendaring from their mobile
device(s), they then request access to documents. Certainly, the need to open andview email attachments is a catalyst, but as our survey shows, information workers
want to be able to perform the full range of document-oriented activities using theirmobile devices — whether it's commenting on, editing, or signing documents; fillingout forms; or approving forms or documents. As Figure 4 shows, information workers
believe the ability to access, comment on, and electronically sign documents using
their mobile devices will save them time and improve their productivity.
Our survey results suggest that IT is in reactive mode when it comes to mobile
productivity and is somewhat underestimating information worker demand. For example:
 While half of information workers in Western Europe use a smartphone for work
today, IT's estimate is closer to a third; and while nearly two-thirds of information
workers expect to be using a smartphone a year from now, IT's estimate is thatabout half of information workers will be using a smartphone two years from now.
 Three-quarters of smartphone and tablet users would like to be able to performthe full range of document use cases listed in Figure 6. While more than threequarters of IT organizations in Western Europe plan to enable these use cases in
the next two years or are evaluating them, only a little over a third of IT
organizations support these use cases today.

Support for BYOD
As noted previously, a growing percentage of the mobile devices attached to theenterprise network are provided by employees. Here, too, we find a gap in perception
between information workers and IT in Western Europe: According to information
workers in Western Europe, 13% of the smartphones and more than a third of thetablets they use for work are BYOD; IT's estimate is close for smartphones (10.1%)
but is much lower (6.6%) for tablets.
Although IT foresees growth in these percentages over the next two years, IT
appears to be responding cautiously to user demand: Only 19.4% of IT respondents
in Western Europe say their organization is encouraging employees to bring their own
devices to work.

Implications for IT
We believe information workers will continue to push for mobile enablement of
document use cases, and IT needs to provide more proactive support. In someorganizations, mobile support is provided by a separate team (or is outsourced
entirely), which can reduce IT's visibility into emerging user needs. IT needs to decide
whether mobile devices represent a tactical convenience or a strategic platform for
information worker productivity and application deployment — and plan accordingly.
We also expect user demand for BYOD will continue to grow. Embracing BYOD can offer
significant cost savings to the organization: Some IT organizations we have spoken withtell us BYOD is allowing them to shift the responsibility for monthly carrier charges back to
the employee, reversing the decades-old trend to company-provided mobile phones.

©2012 IDC

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User demand for
BYOD will continue togrow. Embracing
BYOD can offer
significant costsavings to theorganization.
17

As employee-owned devices increasingly hold sensitive documents and otherconfidential information, IT's role is shifting away from device management to the
management of the information on those devices. Document security will become
more important.
In addition, IT must also evolve its desktop management practices — especially in an
increasingly multidevice world. Two-thirds of IT respondents are already factoring indevice support when planning new desktop software purchases, and IT is embracing avariety of strategies that simplify application provisioning and management, such assoftware and hardware consolidation, client virtualization, and "hotdesk" strategies. But
managing networks that are characterized by the rapid proliferation of devices of all types— a proliferation that is accelerated by BYOD — represents a major challenge for IT.
Going forward, better automation of desktop and application management will become
increasingly important to freeing up IT resources for innovation and new solution delivery.

IT must evolve its
desktop management
practices —especially in an
increasingly
multidevice world — if
it is to free up
resources forinnovation and new
solution delivery.

IMPORTANCE OF DOCUME NT STANDARDSWith the rise of mobile computing, the importance of document standards has once
again come to the fore: Standards are critical for document interoperability acrossdiverse computing platforms, and given the central role documents play in the life ofan information worker, strong support for widely adopted document standards should
be an important criterion for desktop software evaluation.
Document standards generally fall into two categories: Authoring standards (e.g., ODF and OpenXML)
 Distribution standards (e.g., PDF, EPUB)
Generally, authoring standards are good for document creation but aren't strong whenit comes to document sharing and collaboration, which is where document distribution
standards come into play. Without standards, information workers have no guaranteethat those with whom they share documents will be able to open, view, or print themwith full fidelity.

The PDF Standard
Portable Document Format (PDF) is a file format that encodes and renders documents
in a manner that is independent of both the application software (authoring tools) used
to create them and the computing platforms (hardware and operating systems) used toview them. PDF supports rich media, embedded Web links, CAD information and vector
graphics, and other types of content, including 3D diagrams. The PDF standard, which
includes several specializations defined for specific use cases, is published by theInternational Organization for Standardization as ISO 32000.
PDF viewers are ubiquitous and freely available on PCs, smartphones, and tablets,and PDF is by far the most commonly used document distribution standard inorganizations today. 78.2% of our IT respondents in Western Europe say PDF is
widely used in their organizations, and 70% of our information worker respondents
use it (after Microsoft Office, it's the document tool or technology they use the most).

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PDF is by far the mostcommonly used
document distribution
standard inorganizations today.

©2012 IDCIn addition to printing and distributing documents, PDF is also widely used forarchiving. Use of PDF is higher in larger organizations (77.1% of information workers
in organizations with 50,000+ employees use PDF versus 61.8% of information
workers in organizations with fewer than 500 employees).

PDF-Based Software Solutions
Many vendors have implemented elements of the PDF standard in their software
solutions. Authoring tools, for example, may include a "Save as" PDF option for easy
PDF creation; this helps smooth the transition from document creation to distribution.
Other vendors offer software tools that implement a more significant percentage of
the PDF standard. These tools enable information workers to create interactive PDF
documents that provide a richer user experience; for example, filling out a form orinteracting with embedded rich media or 3D graphics.
Finally, a few vendors offer tools that extend the PDF standard with additional
functionality; these extensions may well find their way into future versions of the PDF
standard. In addition to helping information workers with document creation/management
and collaboration activities, these tools can help information workers automate some of
their document-driven business processes; for example, signing contracts, redacting
sensitive information, or "electronifying" paper via optical character recognition (OCR).

Additional Capabilities of Advanced PDF
Solutions
Advanced PDF solutions can help address all three of our information worker
productivity areas. For example, in the area of document creation and management,
advanced PDF software enables information workers to merge multiple document
formats and content types into a single (PDF) document, preserving the original
documents' look and feel. They can also append new content to an existing PDF.
Support for multiple file attachments and portable collections makes it easy to groupassociated documents together so they can be managed as a single object. These
capabilities can reduce the amount of time information workers waste today pullinginformation from different files and formats together in one document, searching for
documents, and recreating them when they can't be found.

Advanced PDF
solutions merge
multiple document
formats and content
types into a single
document, preserving
the original
documents' look andfeel.

Similarly, advanced PDF software may include OCR capabilities that let information
workers "electronify" their paper documents — making them searchable, reusable,
and much easier to manage and helping information workers reduce their reliance on
paper. The use of PDFs on mobile devices (particularly tablets) offers anotheropportunity to reduce the amount of paper the organization needs to deal with (theneed to print documents so they can be used where it's difficult to take a PC was aleading reason why paper remains prevalent in the organization): As IDC researchshows, tablet use significantly reduces printing.

OCR capabilities canhelp information
workers "electronify"
their paper
documents — making
them searchable,
reusable, and mucheasier to manage andreducing the need for
paper.

Advanced PDF software can help address the myriad challenges associated with
document-based collaboration discussed previously, including gathering andconsolidating feedback on a document and eliminating version control problems
that arise with awkward routing, review, approval, or signature processes. As noted©2012 IDC

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19

previously, electronic forms are underutilized today, and dealing with forms costs theaverage information worker several hours each week.
Advanced PDF software responds to many of IT's document security and information
privacy concerns — especially in regard to documents that travel outside the firewall— with a variety of document protection strategies, some of which (for example,
password protection) are already widely used and some of which (for example, digital
signatures) deserve to be. Support for redaction gives information workers animportant tool for ensuring confidential information is deleted from documents before
they are distributed — a pain point that is highlighted in Figure 4.
Finally, advanced PDF software can provide support for mobile information workers
who wish to create, edit, review, sign, and approve documents on their smartphones
and tablets and interact with forms.

Advanced PDF
software responds tomany of IT's
document security
and information
privacy concerns —especially in regard to
documents that travel
outside the firewall.
Such tools implementa broad range of
document protection
strategies.

Implications for IT
Most organizations aren't leveraging the full power of PDF today, and this is a missed
opportunity. Information workers need strong PDF tools along with training, support,
and best practices, and we believe this is an area where IT can have a significant
impact on information worker productivity at minimal cost to the organization.
First, IT needs to ensure users have basic PDF capabilities. As noted previously, morethan a third of information workers in Western Europe voice frustration that others areoften unable to open, view, or print their documents. This is a problem the PDF standard
has addressed since inception, and yet PDF users struggle just as much with this as nonPDF users. Why has this problem persisted? IT certainly appreciates the benefits PDF
brings in regard to document distribution: 68.2% of IT respondents in Western Europe
agree that a key benefit of PDF is document portability across all their devices (especiallymobile). As the saying goes, however, "the devil is in the details," and PDF creation tools
are not all created equal. IT can help by rigorously evaluating PDF software tools toensure they produce high-quality PDF files with full fidelity across all devices.

Most organizations
aren't leveraging thefull power of PDF
today, and this is a
missed opportunity
where IT can help.
Information workers
need strong PDF
tools along withtraining, support, andbest practices.

Then, IT should explore how advanced PDF software can improve information worker
productivity. Too often, use of PDF begins and ends with document distribution.
Advanced PDF software can help improve information worker productivity in three key
areas: document creation and management (personal productivity), document
edit/review/approval (collaboration), and mobility.

CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONSIn the past, IT has focused plenty of attention on providing users a variety of real-timeand asynchronous collaborative tools that make it easier to connect with others
electronically and work across geographical, time zone, and organizational boundaries.
These solutions are essential to the way we work today: It would be difficult to imagine
returning to a world without email and calendaring, Web conferencing, and so forth.
But these technologies don't address many of the information worker's needs andchallenges related to working with documents. As our research shows, some of thesechallenges arise as information workers work independently on document creation

20#236579

IT has focused plentyof attention on
providing real-timeand asynchronous
collaborative tools.
These solutions are
essential to the way
we work today, butthey aren't enough.

©2012 IDC

and management activities; others are related to document collaboration. In addition,
information workers need to be able to work with documents on their mobile devices.
IT should engage with users to prioritize the most significant document-oriented
challenges for their organization and address them with specific remedies.
The potential payback is enormous: As our study shows, a significant percentage ofan information worker's time is wasted, at a cost of €14,492 per information worker
per year in Western Europe. Just as IT organizations are looking to increase thepercentage of the budget that is tied to innovation (as opposed to "keep the lights on"
activities), organizations need to reexamine how information workers spend their timeand look for ways to shift a greater percentage of it to real value creation. Recovering
lost information worker productivity would enable organizations to invest more of their
existing resources in sales, support, product development, and market development.

Organizations need toreexamine how
information workers
spend their time andlook for ways to shift agreater percentage ofit to real value
creation.

As IT embarks on its assessment of the current state of information work in theorganization, it should keep in mind the following: IT should investigate solutions — such as advanced PDF software — that makeit easier to work with documents and address the information worker productivity
challenges we have discussed in this paper. These solutions complement theorganization's existing investments in collaborative applications, and the cost of
the additional tooling can be modest. Where PDF is already in use, IT should
assess how effectively it's being used because implementations of the standard
vary in completeness and quality.
 IT needs to rethink information worker productivity in the context of theindustrywide shift under way to what IDC calls the 3rd platform — that is, an IT
infrastructure that leverages cloud, mobile, social, and big data technologies. IT
needs to become an enabler of mobile information work, and it should proactively
investigate SaaS solutions for external collaboration, which — as we have seen
— is an important and nearly universal requirement of information work today.
 Because information work involves a significant amount of external collaboration, thetools and best practices that IT provides must, at the same time, address the security
concerns that arise when documents are shared with people outside the firewall. Thisrequires adoption of document-based tools and best practices that minimize thechance of information leaks, which are already a problem in many organizations.
 IT needs to significantly improve its desktop management practices — both to
reduce its exposure to security threats and to reduce the amount of time it spends
dealing with administrative (keep the lights on) tasks. This will become increasingly
important as the number and the variety of devices that are attached to theenterprise network continue to grow and as IT is called upon to manage and secure
information that lives in the cloud, on premise, or in hybrid environments.

IT should investigate
solutions — such asadvanced PDF
software — that makeit easier to work with
documents andaddress theinformation worker
productivity
challenges we havediscussed in thispaper.

IT must also address
the security concernsthat arise when
documents areshared with people
outside the firewall.
Adopting documentbased tools and bestpractices canminimize the chanceof information leaks.

Above all, IT should begin with a gap analysis. The organization's information workers
will be the best source of insight and inspiration when it comes to prioritizing needed
improvements. The first step is closing the perception gaps between information
workers and IT.

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APPENDIX
Methodology
The information for this white paper came from a global survey of 1,200 information
workers and IT professionals in the United States, the United Kingdom, France,
Germany, Australia, and Japan conducted in June 2012. We surveyed bothinformation workers (n = 840) and IT professionals (n = 360) across a broad range ofindustries and company sizes (we screened for companies that have at least 50
employees who have dedicated PCs). Respondents were randomly recruited frominternational panels, and the survey was conducted over the Internet in local
languages. We recruited 200 respondents per country, including 140 information
workers, 30 IT management, and 30 IT staff. Data was not weighted.
For the purposes of our study, we defined an information worker as a full-time (non-IT)
employee who is connected to the Internet and uses a computer to work with
documents on a weekly basis as part of his or her job. Working with documents
includes activities such as creating documents; sending documents around for review,
approvals, and signatures; creating forms to gather data and filling in forms; andreviewing, approving, and signing documents that others send out. Our information
worker respondents represented a good mix of functional areas, and 62% of them weremanagers or above.
IT management included IT executives, vice presidents, and directors (also managers
in Japan) who have decision-making authority over or are involved in evaluating
and/or making recommendations in regard to their organization's desktop productivity
software.
IT staff included managers, supervisors, and others who are directly involved in theevaluation/selection, testing, support, or deployment of their organization's desktop
productivity software.
We asked information worker respondents detailed questions about the time they
spend each week on a variety of document-oriented activities; the time they spend
dealing with various challenges working with documents; their frustrations and needsin this regard; who they collaborate with; and their needs related to mobility.
We asked IT respondents detailed questions about IT's priorities, key concerns, andcurrent practices related to desktop software evaluation and deployment; support formobile information workers and BYOD initiatives; current and planned adoption of
SaaS information worker applications; support for external collaboration; and attitudes
about document and application security.

22#236579©2012 IDC

Information Worker Productivity Cost
Calculations
To calculate the cost of lost productivity for an information worker, we multiply thepercentage of time wasted by average annual compensation:
 Information workers in Western Europe say they work 44.3 hours per week, butwhen they were asked to break down their workweek into the activities listed in
Figure 1, the number of hours totaled 47.1. This has been a common response
pattern in all of IDC's Hidden Costs of Information Work surveys over the past
decade: When information workers are asked about time spent by activity, thetotal invariably exceeds the number of hours the respondents say they spend atwork each week. Although this may be the result of some perceived (thoughunintended) overlap in our list of activities, we think it's indicative of the fact
employees generally aren't asked to perform task-based time accounting (whenthey are, it's not using our specific list of activities; there are no industry
standards here). Our calculations of the percentage of time wasted are all basedon the higher figure (47.1) to be conservative.
 Our estimates of the percentage of time spent dealing with frustrations (referback to Figure 2) that should be considered wasted time are based on a decadeof information worker productivity research, and we believe the estimates areconservative (refer back to Tables 1 and 2). The potential for increased
productivity will be higher in many organizations.
 Cost calculations assume an average annual compensation of €60,000,
including benefits and payroll-related costs (see www.statistics.gov.uk andepp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu). These exclude other fixed per-employee costs suchas office space, equipment, management time, and so forth to be conservative.
To calculate the impact of lost information worker productivity on the organization asa whole, we multiply information worker productivity costs by the percentage of
employees who are information workers:
 According to IT respondents in Western Europe, 80.6% of their employees havededicated PCs (the percentage ranges from 78% in Australia to 84.2% in the
United States); hence they are likely to be information workers by our definition.
This means improving the productivity of the organization's information workers by
10% is equivalent to increasing the overall organization's productivity by 8.06%.

Copyright Notice
External Publication of IDC Information and Data — Any IDC information that is to be
used in advertising, press releases, or promotional materials requires prior written
approval from the appropriate IDC Vice President or Country Manager. A draft of the
proposed document should accompany any such request. IDC reserves the right todeny approval of external usage for any reason.
Copyright 2012 IDC. Reproduction without written permission is completely forbidden.

©2012 IDC

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