Independent research commissioned by Presence technology specialists Followap www.followap.com has shown that while the majority of employees are familiar with Instant Messaging (IM); corporate culture and compliance fears mean that IT departments are blocking access to these services. Followap calls for businesses to embrace Presence enabled technologies as part of their corporate IT policies so that they can fully benefit from improved communications.
The research showed that while 60% of office workers are IM users, only 28% of them use IM for business purposes. Employees cited instant response, convenience, informality and faster decision making as their top reasons for using IM at work. More advanced users highlighted features such as white board sharing, application sharing and cheap voice calls.
With such a clear set of potential benefits to business driving usage of IM, the researchers asked why IM was not actually being used for business. 56% stated the use of IM was against their corporate IT policy. Regulatory & compliance issues and having no permanent record were also cited as a problem, interesting points when most IM systems do in fact allow records to be kept. Fear of security and virus risks at 8% also featured.
Tommy Volsen, Vice President of Marketing, Followap commented, “Properly implemented, Instant Messaging encourages collaboration between team members and can be more easily controlled and logged than for example SMS. Being Presence based IM also indicates when a user is free to communicate so in spite of its perceived informality can actually be less intrusive than a phone call. SMS and email took time to be widely adopted for business, Instant Messaging is going through a similar, but I believe faster, cycle that is driven by home users seeking the same convenience and speed for their business communications as they are used to for personal communications.”
He continued, “As voice, data and mobile communication services converge the actual method our messages are carried by will be come less important. Presence technology will indicate whether people are available and how they prefer to be contacted at a particular time. This will enable users to take more control over their communication, whilst being in touch more readily.”
Full Survey Results
The independent survey was conducted researchers Vanson Bourne in September 2005. The sample was based on 102 UK Instant Messenger (IM) users in the UK.
Q. Do you use an Instant Messenger?
No 39%
- Yes, for personal use only 32%
- Yes, for both business & personal use 23%
- Yes, for business use only 5%
Q. What are your three most important reasons for using an Instant Messenger for business rather than email?
Base: People that use IM for business purposes.
- Response time - it's instant and quick 94%
- Convenience 81%
- Informality 54%
- Speeds up decision making process 40%
- Allows functionality such as free/cheap phone calls, white boarding 27%
- Allows quick file sharing 2%
- Can see who's available 2%
Q. Why don't you use an Instant Messenger for business purposes? Base: People that use IM solely for personal purposes – Free form response.
- Against IT policy 56%
- No permanent record 39%
- Looks unprofessional / too informal 35%
- Not enough customers / contacts use it 30%
- Not technically capable to manage and control it with current infrastructure 2%
- Security issues and virus risks 8%
- Under investigation 2%
- We are Mac based 2%
Q. Would you find Instant Messaging more useful if you could also use it from your mobile phone?
Base: People that use IM
- Yes 62%
- No 38
