The majority of small and medium businesses in the Philippines (80%) are adopting at least four online productivity tools faster than their wealthier counterparts in Asia-Pacific’s developed countries such as Singapore (47%), Hong Kong (50%) and Australia (35%), according to Microsoft’s New World of Work SMB Study.
Productivity tools include email, document collaboration, file sharing, virtual meeting and social media.
With productivity and talent retention being a key concern for budget-constrained small and medium businesses in Asia Pacific, companies can no longer afford to ignore the needs of their employees to provide enhanced productivity as well as better work life integration in the “New World of Work.”
“The goal to enhanced productivity is crucial to SMBs as they don’t enjoy the luxury of scale,” says Stanimira Koleva, General Manager, Small & Midmarket Solutions and Partners Group, Microsoft Asia Pacific.
“SMBs are likely not able to dedicate resources for every challenge, or have a specialist to fill every role. In fact, people in SMBs – whether an employee or entrepreneur – tend to wear multiple hats. Because of this, enhancing productivity – or being able to work on the right things at the right time – is critical to the success of SMBs today.”
SMBs in emerging markets leapfrog
The Microsoft study reveals that employees of SMBs in emerging markets feel they are better supported for a new world of work, are open to harness productivity tools to work better and smarter, according to
They also clearly bring their own devices and services to the workplace to help them become more connected and productive. This was further reinforced by the insight that majority of respondents in these markets are using 4 or 5 productivity services today.
Employees in mature markets live in a world where advanced productivity tools are more readily available, but they do not harness online productivity tools as much as their counterparts in emerging markets. They may also be impeded by stricter policies or legacy processes & systems at the workplace.
Over half (52%) of respondents in Asia Pacific use at least 4 to 5 online services to enable their work needs (email, social, collaboration, virtual meetings, and cloud-based file sharing services). In the new digital world, employees in emerging markets will leapfrog those in mature markets in becoming workers of the future.
When ranked, the top 5 online services being used by employees in SMBs for work are: email (89%); social tools (66%); file sharing services (62%); document collaboration tools (61%); and virtual meeting tools (56%).
Lack of formal policies for remote working
However, While 74% of employees considering themselves to be mobile workers, only 31% work for SMBs that have formal work policies to support remote working.
The study also found limited mobile productivity in a highly mobile workforce: The top 2 reasons why they need to be present in the office was to have access to important equipment or tools (60%) or important information (41.5%). Only 25% feel they are productive outside the office (home, customer site, public venues).
Bring-your-own-device and bring-your-own-service culture is increasingly becoming pervasive. Employees are using as many personal devices (52%) compared with employer-issued devices (48%) to get work done today.
Fifty-two percent are also using online tools (mostly free) that go beyond just email – document & file sharing, storage, virtual meetings, social.
Despite the increase in work flexiblity, achieving work life balance is challenging. Seventy-nine percent of respondents said that work life balance is a very important aspect of their job, but only half of respondents (50%) felt that they had adequate balance today.
The report also reveals SMBs are making progress to have sustainable practices with 73% of respondents saying their organizations are increasingly becoming paperless.
