There was a time when a computer was the size of an entire room and the only people who knew how to use it were the technology buffs at universities. Those days are over. Today almost a billion people worldwide have access to a computer or the Internet. Those billion people have also become accustomed to a flexible and personalized interaction with their computing devices and are today demanding the same from the systems they use in the workplace.
Accustomed to the latest Internet applications available in their homes, technology users at work are asking for more from the standardized information technology systems they use in the office. A recent study carried out by IFS showed that 80 percent of users want to be able to individualize their working environment, as they can on Google, Twitter or Facebook to boost their productivity. The ability to adapt business applications to a specific task, experience level and even the physical environment (on the road, for example), goes beyond simply the look and feel of an application interface and increased productivity. The idea is to design an ergonomic business application that can be truly tailored to the individual’s needs.
Enterprise software companies that manufacture organization-wide IT solutions have been slow to recognize the change in end-user expectations. The ‘20-somethings’ who grew up with the Internet are now taking on management roles and bring with them a level of expectation from software in the workplace that hasn’t been seen before. A total of 64 percent of our survey respondents said that these elements influence their buying decisions.
As such, the “add-on sale” business model that enterprise resource-planning software — the formal name for organization-wide software — offered in the 1990s is no longer up to par with component-based, agile systems that provide a significant level of individualization, which have become commonplace.
Web-based sites and applications, such as MSN, MySpace and Facebook were all designed to be as simple and easy to use as possible, not to mention readily accessible through different browsers and devices. Hence, it’s no surprise that 34 percent of people surveyed believe web-based applications are the most intuitive types of software to use.
With businesses beginning to seek applications which require less training before workers can be proficient users, ‘zero training’ applications such as those designed by Google are becoming the benchmark for the business application industry.
With only 6 percent of respondents to our survey claiming they do not waste any time using enterprise applications, there are clearly many software companies that need to improve the usability of their products in order to help staff do their job better.
So how can things be improved?
First, enterprise resource planning solutions need to provide users with the ability to personalize the user interface, something 80 percent of survey respondents agreed would help them improve personal productivity.
Second, solution providers need to enable their applications to incorporate, share and store information from web-based resources such as maps, travel information, prices and weather reports. These elements will prove essential to providing background information for business activities as diverse as planning work orders, scheduling visits from service engineers or adjusting project-based activities to fit with changes in demand, pricing, costs or available resources. Seventy-eight percent of survey respondents would like to have such capabilities.
The ability to easily search for and find information is also an essential item that has been generally overlooked by solution providers. According to the survey, searching for information was the second largest time-wasting activity for professionals. Integrating an intuitive Google-style search tool would make it easy and quick for users to find what they are looking for within business applications.
Finally, our research also showed that 89 percent of respondents agree that better collaboration with colleagues would improve the productivity of their organization. Today, users are accustomed to multiple channels of communication and data sources. Enterprise applications must also make it easier for workers to enlist the assistance of colleagues, delegate to team members, and follow up on others’ actions, while working with the processes and data held within the application.
Working with different types of information, colleagues and suppliers in a global and mobile market is a business reality we all face. Employees need and deserve a modern business system that they can individualize to enable them to work smarter to meet the demands their company places on them. This gives them the ability to individualize their working environment to fit their role, how they work, where they work, how they like to communicate while integrating multimedia web content to improve productivity and aid collaboration in the workplace.
A software application with these capabilities will deliver a unique working environment for each member of staff. It will improve their productivity and their relationship with the system, bringing about a sea change in application design and delivering the vision of the ‘individualized’ business system. Solution providers would do well to listen to the call of the market.
Ian Fleming is managing director of IFS, Middle East, Africa and South Asia
