Half of the Workday is Wasted

Knowledge workers at SMBs spend 50% of their workdays on unproductive but necessary tasks like dealing with spam or scheduling meetings, says a study conducted for cloud-based VoIP and unified communications company Fonality. The impact of inefficient communications shows a need for immediate change, said Steve Taylor, editor-in-chief and publisher for Webtorials, which conducted the 2011 Report on UC and Cloud-based Services for SMBs. The report says reducing a worker’s unproductive time by 25% adds the equivalent of six productive weeks each year; a business with 50 employees making between $40,000 and $110,000 per year could save $950,000 annually. Fonality, a unified communications vendor, unsurprisingly touts unified communications as a way of realizing such efficiencies. “You’re going to see the change toward cloud service – it’s going to start with small business,” said Wes Durow, chief marketing officer of Fonality. “All that time that’s wasted seeking information and trying to connect others can be greatly reduced.”