Lacking access to information: The biggest obstacle to collaboration

What kind of problems do project teams of German companies run up against in collaborative work? To get answers, the SER Group surveyed 1,826 CIOs, process managers and IT managers as a part of its market research series ECM Insights 2018. The biggest challenge to collaboration 32% say is that the project team members do not work with the same basis of information. Every fourth company (25%) also complains that project documents are not up-to-date; 20% do not even find the documents when they are urgently needed. "This situation is detrimental for digital collaboration in teams and, in the worst-case scenario, stops the project," warns Manfred Zerwas, Managing Partner of the SER Group.

Unsuitable tools for collaborative work

The problems always arise when companies use tools that are poorly or not at all suited for digital collaboration. Case in point: over half of the respondents (51%) say email is their main tool for sharing information among distributed teams. Around every third respondent relies on FTP/file servers. More often than not, this leads to document version chaos; no one has an overview anymore of the current project information. What's more, information stored in complex folder structures and email mailboxes are either forgotten or lost.

Equally striking and alarming is the fact that 17% of the respondents use cloud solutions from the private sphere to share information with external customers and partners. They often do this without informing their own IT departments. The result: companies no longer have control over important information, which may end up in the wrong hands. This compliance risk can be avoided all together by deploying an enterprise content management (ECM) system from the outset.

Secure collaboration around the globe with ECM

Many companies are still not aware that ECM is the best solution for information management in collaborative work. A certified and multilingual ECM platform such as Doxis4 is indispensable for companies that want to provide their global teams the most current basis of information for collaborative work. Such an ECM platform enables companies to implement numerous business solutions, for instance, for digital collaboration, and tailored to their specific needs. This also covers virtual project rooms, as Manfred Zerwas explains: "Digital collaboration thrives on a common basis of information in a secure work environment. Virtual project rooms embody this. Here, teams around the globe can structure, work on and share information together – and it's always current and accessible."

_{*Study framework: SER study, ECM Insights 2018; conducted in German-speaking countries from June 2017 to June 2018; n = 1,826 CIOs, process managers and IT managers of companies from all industries with over €100 million in revenue}