News Feature | September 1, 2015

AIIM Report: Significant Gap Between Your IT Clients' Business Objectives And Mobile Implementation

Christine Kern

By Christine Kern, contributing writer

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A report published by AIIM has found that while three-quarters of enterprises cite mobile applications as being essential for their competitive edge, just 10 percent of them currently have a well-run mobile program in place. The report highlights the significant gap that exists between business objectives and implementation of mobile and cloud programs and platforms.

The AIIM report also measures the benefits, the barriers, and offers several suggestions for creating a mobile strategy that balances collaboration and control.

Among the report’s key findings are:

  • When it comes to cloud policies and adoption, 16 percent of responding organizations are unequivocal about cloud for all core IT applications, 42 percent review apps on a case-by case basis for cloud, 13 percent have a wait and see policy, and only 10 percent do not use cloud at all.
  • Individuals are more positive about moving enterprise content management and document management (ECM/DM) content to the cloud than their organizations: 87 percent of individuals respondents support it, while just 42 percent of the organizations they work in did.
  • Three-quarters feel security by cloud providers is the same or better than that of their own servers, with a larger percentage of larger organizations (38 percent) than smaller organizations (15 percent) believing their own security to be better.
  • About one-quarter (26 percent) of surveyed organizations are using some form of cloud ECM or DM, with 27 percent of non-users planning to deploy cloud in the next two years.

The study also found that the two biggest operational benefits of cloud ECM were more effective collaboration and more modern and flexible applications, followed by extending access to partners and customers and teleworking for staff. And 44 percent of cloud ECM users saw cost reductions compared to on premise solutions, although only 18 percent saw reduced staffing as a result.

And while three-quarters of respondents said that mobile applications are imperative for their business goals, only 9 percent are reviewing every process to take account of mobile, and just 5 percent have a chief mobile officer, and just 17 percent have a mobile information governance policy that is appropriate to business needs.

As the study concludes, “Security concerns are still holding back cloud adoption, but the majority of users now admit that cloud service providers actually have better security in place than they have on their own servers …We have seen that more effective collaboration, internal and external, and a range of more modern and flexible applications are the biggest operational benefits of cloud-based content systems, but also that nearly three quarters of those who have made the move to cloud are saving money — although not always as much as was anticipated.”