iWorker Productivity - Overview

Businesses are looking at iWorker¹ productivity, especially in customer-facing positions, to improve competitiveness and top-line performance. The availability and effective use of business critical information is fundamental to innovation, agility, and competitive positioning.

Executives are aware of the opportunities: “85% of companies believe more fully leveraging their human capital is ‘crucial’ or ‘important’ to their business effectiveness. Executives see two functional areas — operations (58%) and sales (33%)— as likely to see the greatest productivity increases in the next year.”² Learn more about the benefits of better information management for executive managers...³

McKinsey studies have shown that business executives need to consider carefully how they enable iWorkers with business critical information, from free-access to more structured information tools.⁴

Different types of knowledge workers require different kinds of support technologies5

The benefits of increasing iWorker productivity through better information management can be compelling. Just one example: according to CIO Insights, a 10% increase in the usability of corporate data can result in substantial revenue benefits:⁶

• The median Fortune 1000 business would increase total sales by $55,900 per employee
• Sales per employee in the retail sector would jump 49%
• The average telecommunications company would increase sales more than $9,600 per employee
• The average commercial bank can improve return-on-assets by 32% by implementing a 10% increase in data intelligence and accessibility

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iWorker Productivity - Business Outcomes

Reducing Response Time

You need to reduce the time it takes sales and service reps to respond to customer’s requests for information — and reduce the frustration these iWorkers experience trying to find the right information.

When you pinpoint specific barriers to getting sales and service reps the right business critical information at the right time, you can adjust the business processes, the technology and, most importantly, the way these iWorkers use information. Sales can close faster and service reps improve response time and customer satisfaction.

Ricoh MDS Process Analysis can help by examining the role of business critical documents in customer-facing processes and measuring satisfaction levels and establish Key Performance Indicators (KPI). Ricoh MDS can present you with a map of your business critical information usage and flow, bottlenecks, and suggested areas for potential information access improvement as they impact customer-facing processes. The KPIs can be designed to measure ease of access to timely, accurate information, as well as impact on existing KPIs like length of sales cycle or time to resolution for service calls.

Ricoh MDS Process Solution Design is able to build upon this analysis to provide quantifiable recommendations you can use to improve timely and accurate information for your customer-facing business processes. These recommendations can be designed to fully align with your productivity goals. These may include improvements in conversion and data extraction, as well as document management technologies like classification and indexing, and use of a central information repository (e.g., in the cloud).

Managing Change

Your iWorkers are reluctant to making changes in the way they do their jobs. They may be wary of using information sources or formats new to them, or concerned that their unfamiliarity with new processes may make them appear less competent to customers.

The people component of business transformations requires a strategy and a plan, as do the technology and processes. A tested organizational change management framework is what is needed to anticipate and address these natural concerns.

Ricoh MDS Organizational Change Management employs individual change management practices based on the Prosci® ADKAR®Model, one of several core components of the overall Prosci® Change Management Process®. The Prosci® ADKAR® Model is a model of the change process at an individual level which can be applied organizationally through the broader Prosci® 3-phase Change Management Process®.

Education and training tools should be in place before launching an initiative, as it may encourage people to believe they have what they need to succeed, making the transformation seem less daunting.

As part of a successful business transformation, Ricoh MDS Education and Training can be designed to ensure end-users, administrators, and support staff are able to acquire the skills and knowledge that usually are necessary to realize the benefits from all MDS products, services and/or solutions. Options range from informal programs like lunch and learn sessions on-site, to self-paced online training, to formal, customized trainer-led courses.

Having Information in the Right Form

Your iWorkers’ productivity is hampered by not having the information they need in the right format—this includes the increasing number of mobile iWorkers and those working in remote offices. Reformatting information or waiting for malfunctioning output devices to be fixed takes time away from serving customers or getting new products out the door.

Offloading some or all of the specific day-to-day business critical document-related tasks — not only format conversion, but also distribution, output, archival and disposal — frees your resources to more productively apply available information to revenue generating opportunities.

Ricoh MDS Document Lifecycle Services can be designed to provide on-demand document services to customers who want to focus on core business processes and take advantage of Ricoh’s expertise and scale.

These services can also be designed to transform fragmented, unstructured and labor-intensive business critical document information activities and optimize access to valuable information for your iWorkers. For example:

• Scanning services that extract data, index scanned documents, and format information for virtually any business critical application, including defined security protocols and quality control Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)
• Mailroom services that manage both hardcopy and electronic communications, provide for paper mail to be scanned, delivered, and archived electronically, integrate with document management systems and improve response time, error detection and consistency of service
• Storage and archival services that provide secure access to business critical information, 24/7, to distributed iWorkers with uninterrupted service, real-time back up, and automatic failover capabilities

Ricoh MDS Onsite Services can be designed to ensure greater availability of your organizations’ MFPs, copiers, faxes, and printers across all locations. Increased availability allows your iWorkers to keep working without interruption. Your IT resources can focus on mission critical initiatives rather than the care and feeding (and fixing) of devices.

To further support iWorkers, regardless of the brand of the device they use, Ricoh Remote Management provides services for proactive device management, monitoring, and reporting on networked and compliant output devices from one or more onsite or offsite centralized locations.

Updating Document Processes

Current document processes are not designed to address the specific needs of different types of iWorkers.

The document processes in customer-facing operations differ from those used by other iWorkers who also contribute to top-line revenue (e.g., new product development, manufacturing, etc.). Each group has unique requirements for information access and use, formats, and workflows that impact their productivity.

Ricoh MDS Document Process Optimization service can help streamline end-to-end information solutions related to specific documents and their related workflows. Ricoh MDS has experience optimizing iWorker productivity in many different types of document processes, including:

• Customer-facing Document Processes (on-demand fulfillment for customer communications such as invoices, account information, updates and alerts)
• Technical Document Processes (production and fulfillment of technical documents, usually between business units or corporate enterprises. Examples include product design specifications, technical service bulletins, and supplier technical documents)
• Marketing and Communications Document Processes (externally-facing document processes related to marketing and one-to-one communications programs management)

Measuring Improvement

You need to validate whether changes in the business critical document processes are indeed increasing iWorker productivity.

Measurement of key performance indicators (KPIs) against the baseline can be designed to show you the level of productivity benefit. KPIs can reveal not only the progress of individual iWorker’s progress but also overall business transformation performance in meeting productivity objectives.

Ricoh MDS Organizational Change Management Service offers reporting tools, and trains staff in their use, to help provide the insights required by management to make informed business decisions, as well as reinforce ongoing improvement in the MDS environment.

In addition, Ricoh MDS Management Information Reporting can give you visibility into the elements of your MDS program. Reports including agreed-upon KPIs can be designed as departmental or global, and aligned with productivity metrics that are important to different types of iWorkers. Ricoh MDS Management Information Reporting can provide end-to-end performance metrics against Service Level Agreements (SLAs) or KPIs — the fundamental measures of continuous process improvement.

iWorker Productivity - Best Practices

Improving the availability and effective use of business critical information makes iWorkers (especially those in customer-facing roles) more productive. In addition to an increase in top-line revenue, your business gains a competitive advantage through the ability to be more innovative and agile in pursuing strategic business goals.

Ricoh is a global leader in MDS. The knowledge and best practices we accumulate in thousands of engagements worldwide become powerful assets in our Ricoh MDS portfolio. Application of this knowledge and these best practices is the engine that drives our continuous improvement efforts.

Below are some best practices derived from Ricoh MDS customer deployments that help you realize the benefits of improving your iWorker productivity:

• Establish a Baseline for Current iWorker Productivity
• Take a Phased Approach to Implementation
• Enlist and Encourage Employee Adoption of New Processes
• Build an Organizational Change Management Team with the Right Competencies
• Secure Executive Sponsorship
• Develop a Communication Plan

Click below for detailed descriptions of these best practices:

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iWorker Productivity - How We Solve This

The Ricoh MDS Services Delivery Portfolio offers all the services required to design, construct, maintain, and optimize a highly efficient information infrastructure that is aligned with your iWorker Productivity goals for a smarter, more agile work environment. Examples of Ricoh MDS service offerings are:

• Process Analysis
• Process Solution Design
• Education & Training
• Document Lifecycle Services
• Document Process Optimization
• Onsite Services
• Remote Management
• Management Information Reporting

The Ricoh MDS Services Delivery Portfolio offers all the services required to design, construct, maintain and optimize a highly productive information infrastructure that is aligned with your business goals. Ricoh MDS encompasses the three fundamental parts of business critical document processes — input (the creation of information), throughput (how information moves around a business), and output (processing information in a way to add business value).

The Process Analysis and Process Solution Design service offerings support the planning and design of more productive business critical document processes, including establishing Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to help benchmark iWorker productivity. Education and Training provides end users, key operators, administrators and stakeholders with the necessary skills and knowledge to fully leverage new processes.

Document Lifecycle Services and Document Process Optimization help you implement more productive business critical document processes, whether internal to your organization or leveraging on-demand services from Ricoh. Onsite Services and Remote Management alleviates the workload from your IT staff allowing Ricoh to manage your entire universe of decentralize print devices on-site or remotely.

Finally, Management Information Reporting provides true end-to-end performance metrics against Service Level Agreements (SLAs) or KPIs — the fundamental measures of continuous process improvement.

While every Ricoh Managed Document Services Engagement is unique and tailored to your environment, you can see examples of Ricoh MDS services that address the need to enhance iWorker Productivity.

iWorker Productivity - Related Info