How organisations can combat information overload in the digital age
As the pace of digitisation continues to accelerate across the globe, organisations are becoming inundated with continually growing volumes of data. George Harb, Regional Vice President for ANZ at OpenText, outlines how organisations can successfully combat the mounting information overload.
While information is the most valuable commodity in the digital age, information overload can disrupt the success of every digital transformation effort. This is because the volume, velocity, and variety of information that organisations must manage, store, and protect often overwhelms the functional capability of the technological systems they have in place for managing information.
Consequently, when information overload occurs, it frequently results in suboptimal decision-making and limits the progress of digital transformation initiatives.
This issue has worsened over the pandemic with the rise of hybrid working. An organisation’s employees rely on being able to quickly access the information they need to be able do their jobs, and they need the right digital tools to deliver that seamless access to information, wherever they work. Without these critical components, productivity suffers.
Recent OpenText research revealed that just two in five Aussie workers (42 per cent) feel they have the right digital tools to work at home, compared to 66 per cent at the beginning of the pandemic.
To make matters worse, whether working from home or the company office, 41 per cent of Australian employees say that they normally spend, on average, one or more hours per day searching on company networks or shared systems for specific work files or pieces of information just to do their job.
Life under pandemic conditions has exacerbated the effects of information overload
The global pandemic has not only driven new ways of working and accelerated digital transformations but has effectively squeezed ten years of change into two. The speed of this change however has made a huge difference in the extent to which workers are experiencing information overload in comparison to two years ago.
Our recent research found 80 per cent of Aussie workers are suffering from information overload, compared with just two in five (40 per cent) who felt the same way back in 2020.
Some of the key drivers for information overload include too much information across devices, being constantly bombarded by information, too many applications to check to get their work done as well as well as too many passwords to remember.
As a result, 47 per cent of Australian employees say that the amount of information they need to process each day is negatively impacting their performance at work, 48 per cent say it is adding to their stress levels and 37 per cent say it is having a detrimental effect on job satisfaction.
This situation is also creating a security nightmare for businesses because half of all workers are resorting to using personal file-sharing tools to get their jobs done. Those same workers also think they’re doing the right thing, believing their organisations don’t have any policies preventing them from using non-official tools.
The reason they’re using these workarounds is because they feel they can’t easily collaborate with colleagues while working from home, nor can they easily access shared resources. Over one-third of workers also struggle with not having the same setup at home as they do in the office.
A guide to alleviating information overload
The good news is information overload problems can be resolved, and companies with a hybrid workforce can achieve an ‘information advantage’ by putting into place some simple strategies.
The first step is to create a single source of truth. Using an enterprise content management system, businesses can eliminate data silos and create a central platform that will streamline information access.
Step two is to integrate applications that allow workers to access data from originating systems, for example, Microsoft Office 365 and Salesforce.
Using cloud-based platforms is the third step to achieving an information advantage, as they offer the same access regardless of where workers are located. Cloud platforms make collaboration simple and have the bonus of being administered by a cloud service provider (CSP), minimising the burden of having to manage IT systems internally.
Related news: Cloud-based applications can help businesses reduce emissions.
By utilising these tools, businesses can alleviate information overload and streamline their digital operations. Employees no longer have to work across dozens of applications in order to deliver good business outcomes.
With hybrid work becoming the new norm, organisations must put in place tools to efficiently and sustainably manage their data and combat information overload. By using cloud systems, as well as providing a single source of truth, businesses can achieve these goals while their staff work from anywhere, be it home or office.
The rise of the digital age and access to powerful and low-cost data collection on an automated basis have brought us more information than at any other point in history. Managing information is no longer just a personal problem but it is also an organisational and collective issue that employers need to address.
