The results of the 'State of Enterprise Collaboration and Productivity in South Africa' study, conducted by World Wide Worx found that factors like new-age hybrid work arrangements, changing employee preferences, and macroeconomic conditions in South Africa have influenced technology priorities for businesses.
At a Zoho media event where the results were released Hyther Nizam, President, Zoho MEA said that the company was seeing an uptake in adoption of Zoho Workplace, an unified enterprise collaboration platform. “The study substantiates this trend, and further helps shed light on specific collaboration and productivity roadblocks for businesses. As Chief Experience Officers (XOs) increasingly turn to a unified collaboration platform to tackle organisational needs, Zoho's offerings are well-placed to help them implement and drive change."
"Digitalisation and adoption of productivity and collaboration tools have immensely helped South African enterprises," said Arthur Goldstuck, CEO, World Wide Worx. "When we take a closer look at the data, we find that there is an obvious need for a unified collaboration platform, especially for mid-market companies and for those adopting a hybrid model. While loadshedding and poor Wi-Fi emerged as top challenges, unsurprisingly, the next biggest challenge was of data silos, which can hold back companies in a demanding market."
World Wide Worx surveyed 410 medium and large enterprises across South Africa using a comprehensive questionnaire in June and July, 2023. Companies were selected randomly from a large database of South African enterprises, and filtered to ensure the sample base matched up to a representative sample frame of medium and large enterprises. Interviews were conducted telephonically.
Hybrid vs on-site
The study found that 98% of the workers have returned to office either as fully on-site (56%) or in a hybrid (42%) mode. Remote work exists only for roles in middle management and above, and exclusively in IT software/hardware/services, and financial service/insurance/real estate industries.
While collaboration has become easy with adoption of productivity and collaboration tools, there is a difference in the ease of communication in hybrid vs on-site model. In a hybrid model, 61% found team collaboration to be extremely easy, as against 72% of those fully on-site; 49% of the hybrid workforce found communicating with other teams extremely easy as against 61% of those fully on-site; 50% of the hybrid workforce said communicating with their managers was extremely easy, as against 65% of those on-site.
There was also a difference of opinion regarding top ways to improve productivity: 53% of the hybrid workforce chose having quick access to contextual data across apps, against only 26% of the on-site workforce. Similarly, 27% of those in hybrid work mode felt the need for communication tools in business apps (like CRM), as against just 7.4% of on-site workers. 20% of the hybrid workers also felt it was necessary to have a single source of files for better productivity, as against just 7% on-site. On the other hand, 25% of on-site workers felt there was a need for using custom apps to put processes in place, as against just 12% of the hybrid workers.
Apart from loadshedding and poor wi-fi connectivity, 23% of the hybrid workforce said digital fatigue hampered productivity as against 8% of on-site workers.
Need for a unified collaboration platform.
While respondents were divided about the most effective ways to improve their team’s productivity, 37% felt the key was having quick access to contextual data across apps, while 28% chose having fewer meetings, and 19% said using custom apps to implement processes.
The biggest challenges to productivity and collaboration were: loadshedding (46%) and poor WiFi connection (40%), while 20% of the respondents also felt that information spread across too many apps was a hurdle.
Those using 6-10 apps chose information spread across too many apps (39%) as a bigger challenge to productivity than loadshedding (34%) and poor wi-fi (30%)
All sectors, with the exception of IT software/hardware/services, said there was no technological challenge causing competitive disadvantage. They chose switching between too many apps (36%), and not using or slow adoption of new tech like AI (31%) to be factors causing competitive disadvantage. 81% of the respondents that have a single unified view of their tasks say they are able to save a significant amount of time. 77% of those who had a unified view (57% very ready; 20% ready) felt positive that their company was ready to face macroeconomic challenges, as against 68% of those without a unified view of their tasks (38% very ready; 30% ready).
Other Trends
59% of the respondents say the meetings disrupt work and hamper productivity, with the worst affected being those in middle management (70%). In smaller companies (<100), only 49% say that meetings disrupt work
Zoho Workplace
"Zoho Workplace pioneered the unified experience way back in 2017, far before the industry giants took note of its need," said Andrew Bourne, Regional Manager, Zoho Africa. "This study reiterates the need for it in modern businesses, especially in the current market conditions. We believe in not just a unified interface, but a solution that brings in contextual data that saves time, and helps users focus on what's important. This has helped us gain upmarket traction across the globe."
