Cisco has published the survey results, which shows that email remains the primary method of collaboration in the workplace, but it’s time for it to evolve.
The study found the most frequently used application for collaborating with others is email with 91%, but users want their email to change. The poll also found that out of the respondents using social networking for work, 59% say that their usage of social networking has increased over the past year.
The study, conducted by Harris Research, polled more than 1,000 end-users from across the US and found that email is the preferred collaboration application at work for a variety of reasons.
Nevertheless, 40% of users complained that they receive too much irrelevant email (40%) and that they lack the ability to collaborate in real time (32%). About quarter of respondents complained that they have very limited storage while 21% say that large volumes of email come into their inbox with no organisational structure.
The Harris poll found that other applications being used by respondents to collaborate with others in the workplace include shared spaces (66%), voice calls and teleconferencing (66%), web conferencing (55%), video conferencing (35%), instant messaging (34%), and social networking (17%).
Cisco said that the study participants who prefer to use social networks indicated they would like to have privacy of their content as well as be able to share with groups of users using different tools. The respondents also indicated the desire to collaborate in real time without having to open up an additional application.
Duncan Greatwood, senior director of engineering at Cisco Collaboration Software Group, said: What the study is really showing is that there is a need to innovate from current email offerings. People want to use email as a platform to collaborate on documents, initiate an instant message or video conference, and have ample storage. They want to link their email into social networking tools that are tightly integrated and can help boost productivity.
