Businesses Need To Address Employee Internet Productivity In Order To Survive The Recession

New research published today shows that up to 11 hours a week are typically wasted by employees using search engines to research a subject or look for information with frustrating end result. The research, conducted for Artesian Solutions, a provider of web-based market intelligence and surveillance software, also found that 36% of sales and marketing executives admitted to not finding the relevant information they were seeking and 51% reporting they were left ‘highly frustrated’ after using search engines. Artesian’s research is supported by the recent findings of the IDC which concludes that a typical sales executive spends 22 hours a week on sales call and customer meeting preparation, which includes searching for customer information using the internet

The survey was conducted by an independent research company on behalf of Artesian Solutions and consisted of in-depth telephone interviews throughout December 2008 and January 2009 with sales and marketing executives in 151 UK companies.

Further findings from the research have enabled Artesian Solutions to attribute a monetary value of €$ 3,194 for 1 hour of an employee’s time in enterprise organisations whose sales people have a typical €$1,000,000 average sales quota.

This figure came out of average productivity findings again backed by IDC centring around 260 working days in a year of which only 51% are productive selling days once holidays, training time, sickness and sales administration are considered. Of the remaining 134 working days (938 hours) with an average close rate of 1 in 3 this leaves an enterprise quota carrying sales person with only 312 effective selling hours which divided by the quota equates to the 3,195 figure. This formula is applicable to all organisations with different sales quotas and close rates.

Andrew Yates, CEO at Artesian Solutions, comments:

As the economy continues to worsen, companies need their employees to be focusing on areas of the business that are most likely to achieve results. The fact that each employee is spending so much time un-productively in any working week with so much at stake further illustrates the need to address this key area of competitive advantage. The internet is an essential business tool – when used correctly – and should be used to gain valuable sales and competitive intelligence but there are better ways to achieve this than traditional key word searches and news alerts. Web 2.0 and the semantic web have gone a long way to ensure that this is possible but I think the time has come for software companies like Artesian to step up with business applications that make this possible on a large scale to make certain that the internet is being used in the most productive way.