One of the signs of economic progress is an increase in productivity. And since much of the world runs on some software or the other, it is obvious that there is keen interest in the link between IT and productivity via performance. The news on productivity is not encouraging but not hopeless that a solution cannot be found but we need to think afresh. We don’t need AI or algorithms but simple thinking
Ever since information technology (IT) has governed work and work processes, there has been this unspoken assumption that it has led to increase in productivity at work place in general without making any qualification for the size of an organization or any other factor. This view has held firm as if it is self-evident but to anyone who has followed the enterprise software and systems sector, it will come as no surprise that this is not the case, at least not the general case. The answer is not simple and reducible to one factor, which is what everyone will hope for as it facilitates an easy solution.
Most of us will easily recall the number of software failures that have rocked the world and continue to do so, which clearly adversely impacts performance (https://www.computerworld.com/article/3412197/top-software-failures-in-recent-history.html). If you searched, you will find any number of calculations of the loss occasioned by IT downtime. But we will leave such mishaps aside and focus on ‘normal happenings’.
Mismatch
CovIT – a new term coined by Joe Peppard and Kristine Dery to portray workplace technology (and processes). They ask: Why workplace technology is more difficult to use than personal technology? WSJ, March 10 2022 (https://www.wsj.com/articles/why-work-technology-harder-to-use-than-personal-tech-11646430437?mod=hp_jr_pos2). Dr. Peppard, a technology researcher, was previously principal research scientist at MIT Sloan School of Management. Prof. Dery is a professor of work, technology and innovation at Macquarie University Business School in Sydney and an academic research fellow at the MIT Center for Information Research. This is their definition of CovIT: a mishmash of modern solutions and legacy tech that is tied to old ways of working. Adding to the problem is that in the rush to support remote working, products from different vendors providing similar capabilities were frequently deployed at the same time.
Readers of this site will recall I have been crying hoarse at the complexity in software systems partly as a result of expanding scale and complexity of businesses but also because of the proliferation of software which leads to the problem of system integration. System integration is a good business to be in but a headache to go through. Things get more complicated when there are legacy systems that need to be maintained for regulatory reasons, especially in the financial services industry. And data migration! Anyone who has gone through data migration will recall what a nightmare it can be. And with networks, security, cloud, distributed computing, software defined networks and so on, the picture is not exactly one of a simple world, but as Peppard and Dery observe, “the truth is that the gap between personal and workplace technology doesn’t have to be nearly as large as it is”.
Part of the reason could be the decision-making process itself on which there has been continuing substantive debate – should it be IT or business users, which becomes further complicated when there are free apps that can be and are downloaded by employees. Peppard and Dery do recommend five steps to move towards a better situation, which I find rather simplistic but will mention: Involve all users in the design process, Co-develop workplace experiences, rather than solutions, Put everything on the same platform, Adopt a cloud-first, mobile-first approach, Use AI technologies to help employees get more out of digital tools. Let me just say I am extremely skeptical of such advice; it is nice to read but difficult to implement. Some of my writings on this site have addressed this dimension more than once.
Counterintuitive
In an article titled, ‘The battle of enterprise vs individual productivity’, (March 31, 2021), Teem, a technology consulting firm, says that employees today have access to a lot more tools than 20 years ago but that hasn’t led to increased productivity (https://www.teem.com/blog/battle-enterprise-individual-productivity). A survey of 400 frontline customer service and success employees two years ago in the US showed that “U.S. sales and service agents waste a combined 516 million hours a year trying to navigate the software they are forced to use. The wasted hours searching for information, clicking through confusing menus, working around glitches and missing functionality represent a whopping $8.3 billion in lost productivity every year” (https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/survey-shows-sales-and-support-agents-waste-over-a-half-billion-hours-every-year-using-bad-software-us-companies-lose-over-8-billion-in-productivity-300912416.html). Inappropriate software selection was identified as the principal cause.
In a small but advanced economy like Holland, “The average Dutch employee loses 7.6% of productive time due to poor IT resources or inadequate personal computer skills. To date, this problem seems to have escaped the attention of both employees and managers. Potential solutions include appropriate training, a more prominent role for the helpdesk, and better support from informal networks such as colleagues, whereupon the productivity losses can be reduced”, according to Alexander van Deursen of the University of Twente (https://www.utwente.nl/en/centrefordigitalinclusion/Blog/01-ctrl_alt_delete/) – this is worth reading in full, especially given the calculations he has done and which can serve as the basis for us to undertake a similar exercise for India and be completely shocked!
Why build when you can buy? Many think this is a ‘profound’ question, when it comes to deciding whether to build customized software or buy off-the-shelf software or what is called COTS. Equally ‘profound’ is the ‘advice’ not to reinvent the wheel, when they don’t even know what the wheel is! In a July 2018 article, Lance Keen considers just how one piece of purchased software that does not integrate well with five other pieces can actually lead to a loss of about $450 billion every year apart from the enormous waste of time (https://www.keenesystems.com/blog/off-the-shelf-software-is-limiting-your-companys-productivity). A customized software would have taken as much time to develop as COTS would have taken to implement, without the advantage of a system that is tailor-made for your needs. And yet there is an abiding bias in favour of COTS.
Interfaces
More interesting and shocking is data on software as a service (SaaS) currently the darling of Startups and hence VCs. IT Business Edge, in an article on June 16, 2021 talked of a report based on three separate surveys of 1,000 participants conducted by Qatalog, a provider of a platform for managing workflows, in collaboration with Cornell University’s Ellis Idea Lab, finds more than half of respondents (56%) are finding it difficult to keep track of information across multiple applications (https://www.itbusinessedge.com/applications/saas-apps-productivity-loss/). Qatalog CEO Tariq Rauf, quoted in the article, notes the irony of this as IT is supposed to make employees more productive. Rauf says that “workflows that need to span multiple applications that are not especially well-integrated are requiring employees to spend more time completing tasks” and “reliance on SaaS applications that each have their own user interface that needs to be learned only complicates matters”. CRM, the first to be offered as SaaS, succeeded as SaaS because it didn’t have to communicate with the whole system, thus limiting the need to the most minimal interface. However, as businesses began adopting many more software under SaaS, things became problematic, as interfaces began to multiply and managing them itself became a problem.
Hence, I am surprised that hardly anyone talks of interfaces and their management as a problem that could adversely affect performance and productivity, given that multiple software used by employees in one organization inevitably raises the question of interfaces and their management. Marc Andreesen, the well-known technology investor and entrepreneur, specifically said some years ago that some of the most important innovations will take place in interface management. The jury is out on this.
Communicating more by speaking less
Asking ‘Does enterprise software make us more productive?’, Rachel Muller Heyndyk argues that “if businesses are looking for a fundamental way to improve employee engagement and people’s working lives, there’s no guarantee enterprise software will provide the answer” ((https://www.raconteur.net/business-strategy/productivity/enterprise-software-productivity/). During the ‘work from home’ environment occasioned by the pandemic, quick communication became necessary without disrupting work.
According to her, social media offers instant access but also asks, “Is this what employees want in their working lives? Or is employee enterprise software just another distraction from creating good work?” Rachel refers to RescueTime, “which provides time management advice and tools, noted that out of the ten hours employees spend sitting at their screens each day, half of those are on chat messaging apps like Slack, Teams and Workplace. Notably, it also found that employees had not spent less time communicating with each other than they had done six years ago”. Robby McDonnell, chief executive at RescueTime, suggests that we “need to think really critically about how we use these tools”.
Anyone of us can relate to the enormous amount of time lost in excessive meetings leading to extremely limited communication seriously disrupting regular work and leading to a vicious cycle. Too many WhatsApp groups, too many messages are all indicative of poor communication leading to loss of productivity. In fact, there are too many messages going back and forth for what could have been communicated clearly with one phone call. To compound the problem, people failed to deliver on even one task as they are busy ‘multi-tasking’! The real problem is either the absence of or an inadequate working protocol. Remote working makes an agreed working protocol including emergencies or simply a communication other than regular vital and can make the difference between smooth and harmonious functioning and acrimonious battles and finger-pointing.
The challenge of learning new skills
An article in The Wall Street Journal says that enterprise software is so complex that employees have to undergo specialized training to be able to use it. Most of you would remember the enormous business over the years in ERP training offered by so many in India and elsewhere. And yet, studies show that a few use more than 50% of any ERP. Or in Business Intelligence or Analytics. Or database management. Nothing gets easier. Apple has recently announced (ET, March 31, 2022, page 2, print edition) a $50 million Supplier Employee Development Fund that will expand access to learning opportunities and skill development, through which it hopes to provide best-in-class content to people across its supply chain in India. Imagine the consequences if you lost well-trained employees. Is it any surprise that employee attrition is a major problem?
In the early stages of their growth, most Indian IT services companies were largely involved in implementation of packaged software, each of which was different; employees did nothing but this every day. In fact, this became their comfort zone from which most were unwilling to move except laterally to another organization. Software implementation became a CV tool and not something that the organization required. In one large IT services company, this became a bottleneck in getting into new businesses where there was no packaged software to implement.
In sum, it will be simply inappropriate to see this problem as one of productivity. Productivity is the result of what we do and how we do. And there are newer and newer ways of doing things but every new opening comes at some cost but people think of these openings as panacea. At present it is cloud & smart but people forget that, while the cloud gets rid of on-premises problems. It has begotten its own set of problems. And, smart is vulnerable too!
Perhaps, we need to get rid of the many cobwebs we have gotten ourselves caught up in. Think afresh. That’s the call.
Takeaways
IT has not positively impacted productivity
Not just loss caused by ‘breaches’ but even ‘normal functioning’
SaaS, the current favourite, is no exception
Interface management (among different software) is a serious problem
Software skills are becoming more and more specific and have to be learnt on particular software
The IT industry really needs to focus on the ability to learn
