Micro-disruptions are having mega-implications for the local economy. Employees surveyed by Altron Digital Business, for instance, lost an average of eight working days annually just fighting internal IT systems.
Now Adriaan Venter, CEO of Cube ICT Solutions, is sounding a warning against the insidious effects of slow apps, constant re-logins, failed support tickets and more.
He notes that industry research shows employees lose significant working time to IT-related issues linked to slowness and disruptions. Across a team, this quickly adds up to measurable losses in output.
“Sudden, catastrophic IT failures receive all the attention. Yet, it is small, repeated delays that interrupt work, slow teams down and shift focus away from what matters,” says Venter.
Continued lacklustre growth means we should all be looking to run tighter ships.
“Unfortunately, many business leaders are so focused on fighting the cybercriminals attempting to extort millions that they are missing the daily micro-disruptions disaster that is quietly siphoning tens of millions from the bottom line,” Venter adds.
Localised slowdowns experienced by end users like app freezes, WiFi jitter and slow boot times are leaking minutes and seconds from the productivity bucket.
Three effective ways to engage in proactive prevention before employees experience digital friction, according to Cube ICT Solutions, are as follows:
- Firstly, companies should shift from reactive ticket handling to tracking the real time endpoint data of individual users. This will allow IT teams to fix performance bottlenecks before they interrupt daily workflows.
- Secondly, instead of simply monitoring server uptime, rather track user journeys by monitoring daily workflows such as login speed, video call stability and application launch times.
- Thirdly, enabling guided self-service via user-friendly portals will allow internal end users to immediately resolve minor issues.
Finally, Cube ICT Solutions notes that inefficiency builds quietly. It is most often due to stretched internal IT support that is capable, but lacking capacity. Fortunately, this hints at a simple solution in the form of SLA-based IT support by external partners.
“A trusted IT support partner can prevent the negative impact from daily micro-disruptions from spreading across the business. An IT partner who understands this impact and takes responsibility for resolving issues is worth their weight in gold,” concludes Venter.