credit: Steelcase Corp via Australian Broadcasting

The modern office, as seen above, is changing once again. IT, says David Oakley, Managing Director, ANZ at ServiceNow, “will be spending less time on laborious, manual tasks and can focus more on business driven, valued-added tasks.” In short, that means #noemail.

Writing in an opinion piece for Technology + Games of Australian Broadcasting, Oakley asks (as I do):
Why do we expect and demand easily accessed consumer services – such as shopping, reservations and the like — but tolerate tedious, unresponsive, isolated, and asynchronous communications from an earlier century when in the office?

Nearly 75 per cent of the survey respondents said at least half of their company’s business processes still rely on email. Although emails are delivered quickly, they stall once they hit each person’s email box – hence why it is typically referred to as asynchronous communication. Email requires significant human intervention and doesn’t provide any visibility as to status, ownership, bottlenecks or priority. By primarily relying on email to run internal services, most companies are stuck with inefficient processes.

Oakley doesn’t stop with problem definition, but suggests where to pioneer new processes. Based on a KPMG study, he offers Human Resources, the enterprise’s largest internal service provider touching every employee at every level, as the place to begin offering a new service automation systems — sans email.

Brief, helpful and online since October 2014 (news sometimes travels slowly towards me). Recommended quick read.

It’s time for email to take a backseat and for IT to deliver what their business users want, and their business efficiency demands – more automated services. This will not only drive increased productivity and efficiencies, but an improved bottom line and more satisfied employees.