Don’t write off e-mail in the workplace just yet
Conventional wisdom has it that e-mail is going out of fashion. The perception is largely driven by large brands that regard the youth audience as the key to their markets.
Because under-25s are seen as using instant messaging more readily than e-mail, and under-18s barely use it, e-mail must be dead, and businesses should stop relying on it as a communications tool. Right? Wrong. New research released this week by World Wide Worx shows that access to e-mail while out of the office remains the single most important purpose of mobile access among South African corporations.
According to the Mobile Corporation in South Africa 2018 report, conducted in partnership with enterprise software company Syspro, 82% of enterprises in
South Africa see e-mail on the go as a vital use of mobile technology.
Being available in emergencies ranks a distant second, at 72%, slightly ahead of keeping up with office activity and managing time.
Communication with colleagues comes in behind these benefits, revealing that mobile access is more about ongoing communication within the broader business environment than within the business itself.
This further tells us that the business ecosystem as a whole still relies heavily on e-mail.
So, when Thierry Breton, CEO of French information technology services company Atos Origin, banned e-mail from the workplace in 2011, he was probably both visionary and short-sighted at the same time.
It may have gone down exceptionally well with his younger employees — and possibly even attracted more bright young things to the firm — but it equally could have lost many traditional businesses as customers.
In reality, Breton was only able to reduce e-mail by 60%.
There is nothing wrong with a company trying to reduce “e-mail pollution”, as Breton called it.
Too much e-mail adds up to clogged inboxes and massive inertia in the organisation. A 60% reduction in this virtual paperwork is likely to result in a more efficient organisation.
However, it is more feasible in some industries than others.
The Mobile Corporation survey found that mining, for example, is the industry most heavily dependent on mobile access to e-mail, with every single respondent rating it as vital.
This has much to do with the fact that the key activity of mining companies is very much away from the office.
The same apples to the next heaviest e-mail dependant, freight and logistics, with a 90% rating.
The retail trade falls well behind the average, at just under 70%, suggesting that methods even older than e-mail — the phone call and the decidedly unfashionable faceto-face sales call — still work for many in this industry.
At the other end of the technology extreme, however, online procurement portals have also replaced old ways.
At both extremes, e-mail is an irritant, or a tool for resolving issues, rather than the glue of business.
The real key is not how fashionable e-mail is, but how efficient it is, says Mark Wilson, CEO of Syspro Africa.
“It all comes down to efficiency and effectiveness. If the technology makes the business as a whole more efficient, and its individual users more effective in doing their jobs, then it will make the business more competitive.”
The key is not how fashionable e-mail is, but how efficient