Ricoh Europe, specialist in office solutions, managed document services and production printing today revealed the findings from a series of focus groups conducted by leading global market intelligence firm, IDC.  The groups included more than 250 CIOs in nine European markets¹. They discussed the challenges that CIOs face in managing the increasing volume of information within their business today.  IDC predicts that by 2020 digital information will have grown by factor of 30, yet the number of global IT professionals expected to manage it, will only have grown by factor of 1.4².
The focus groups considered the most effective ways to transform business information and business documents into a valuable asset for the company.  Centralising document management was listed alongside the need to further maximise the benefits of Managed Document Services.  The majority of participants agreed that effective management of documents stored, shared and created internally is a business priority but confessed to simply not having the time to begin tackling the problem. According to IDC, an organization with 1000 knowledge workers is losing $6 million annually, as employees search for; recreate and reformat information¹.

The study also confirmed the results of Ricoh and IDC’s quantitative study launched in Europe in October 2010, “Managing Documents for Success in the New Business Information Paradigm [4]. Despite an understanding of the benefits of managing information more efficiently, and the role Managed Document Services can play, many senior IT professionals still underestimate the benefits it can bring to their business. Benefits include cost reduction, improved security, lower environmental impacts and increased productivity as a result of streamlining access to critical information.

The majority of the CIO’s within the focus groups agreed that the successful implementation of Managed Document Services is dependent on the combination of three key elements – Process, People and technology.  Successful deployment of the technology and the return on investment is significantly increased by ensuring it is embedded into the heart of the businesses processes, and its employees receive support to adopt any changes introduced.

It was noted that a key area for improvement within organisations was to increase the support required when changing internal processes, and helping employees inside their organisations adapt to the changes. Many called for senior management to lead by example in terms of managing the change process internally.

As a result of the findings, Ricoh has created five guidelines for CIOs to ensure they can more effectively manage information flow across all business divisions into the future:
 
1. Ensure focus on people and...