Why investing in technology can increase productivity in the workplace

Increasing productivity in the workplace can be challenging. Before the 2007 Global Financial Crisis, global productivity growth stood at around 0.9% per year. Since then, it has all but evaporated. Now that hybrid working is firmly established, productivity remains in the spotlight for many business leaders. Recent research shows 45% of employees now use AI at work at least a few times per year, with those using AI tools reporting an average productivity boost of 40%, whilst workers save 5.4% of their weekly hours through AI-enhanced tasks. These results suggest that the modern workplace, equipped with the right technology and automation, could deliver significant productivity gains for businesses.

Technology is a key factor in boosting workplace productivity. Research shows that firms whose workforces welcome new technologies, and those that invest more and earlier in IT capabilities, such as information security, tend to see executives reporting improved productivity. But difficulty in identifying and implementing the right technology investments hinders some firms' attempts to make changes. For example, many executives acknowledge that information security is important, but their firms are not investing sufficiently in enhancements.

Marrying security and workplace productivity

The story of Cosmopolitan Projects and Central Developments Property Group, a South African homebuilder, shows how investing in technology can increase workplace productivity and security simultaneously.

Having become a leader in affordable housing over the past quarter-century, Cosmopolitan had developed a stock-control problem. Whilst handling a significant volume of building materials across its projects, it was accumulating serious losses due to theft, and had little insight into how materials were ordered and allocated.

Knowing this was a documentation management problem, Cosmopolitan called in Kyocera Document Solutions South Africa to try and solve it. "Kyocera attended multiple workshops to ensure that they understood the pains, could find the root causes and were able to provide accurate solutions," says Kevin Joubert, a foreman at Cosmopolitan.

Kyocera identified an enterprise content management solution as the right tool for the job. "It is highly customisable, and that is what the project analysis and scoping revealed was required," says David Welters, a solutions architect with Kyocera. Using custom business rules, CSS and JavaScript, Kyocera and Cosmopolitan not only tailored the system to track how stock moved between suppliers, stores and subcontractors, but also secured it so that operators could only alter information relevant to their role. That has helped ensure that data integrity is always controlled.

Investments like this can be highly efficient: implementing the business process automation system that Kyocera devised cost Cosmopolitan around 250,000 rand (AU$23,100) and took under 12 months. Stock theft has dropped significantly, whilst document management workflows have been standardised throughout the organisation and the use of paper has been significantly reduced.

Smart search for a small team

Decreased performance due to multitasking and information overload is one possible explanation for the lack of productivity growth in many organisations. In a 2007 paper, Sinan Aral and Erik Brynjolfsson of MIT found that a degree of IT-enabled multitasking raises productivity, but too much decreases it. A sense of information overload may not be new—as early as 1525, the Dutch philosopher Erasmus complained of "swarms of new books"—but technology does give us new ways to master it.

More than 80 years after its founding in 1936, the ice hockey team Krefeld Pinguine (the Krefeld Penguins), based in a small city near Düsseldorf, Germany, was experiencing its own information overload, impacting workplace productivity. A small administrative team of eight people was printing thousands of sheets of documentation every month as it dealt with paperwork for everything from invoices and contracts to fan orders for merchandise. Searching for information in its large file archive had become a burden, and office space was running out.

"We wanted to streamline and digitise," says Fabian Herzog, head of sponsorship, ticketing and hospitality for the Penguins. A local IT solution provider connected the team with Kyocera Document Solutions Deutschland, which identified Kyocera Workflow Manager, a document management solution, as an answer to the team's needs.

Having experts implement the solution sped up progress. It only took the Kyocera team "a few days to set the system up and get it running," says Mr Herzog. Now day-to-day business involving documents is much easier. From health certificates to player contracts and visas for foreign players, "we put everything together so that every employee can access and act on them from anywhere," says Mr Herzog.

AI-enhanced productivity for modern workplaces

Artificial intelligence is transforming how businesses approach workplace productivity. According to recent data, 96% of organisations investing in AI are experiencing productivity gains, with 57% reporting significant improvements. AI tools are particularly effective at automating repetitive tasks—from data entry and email drafting to document processing and customer support—saving employees several hours each week.

Kyocera's workflow automation solutions now incorporate AI-powered capabilities to help organisations work faster and smarter. The Kyocera Intelligent Automation Platform automates business processes across departments, from invoice processing to document capture, eliminating manual intervention and allowing employees to focus on strategic, value-adding activities. With cloud-based technology that connects CRM, HR, ERP and accounting systems, businesses can automate the flow of secure information whilst maintaining accuracy and compliance.

The key to maximising AI's productivity benefits lies in strategic implementation. Research shows that organisations investing more than $10 million in AI achieve significantly higher productivity gains (71%) than those investing less (52%). By combining advanced automation tools with proper training and change management, businesses can ensure their workforce harnesses AI's potential while avoiding common pitfalls such as burnout or disconnection.

Collaborating for increased workplace productivity

Research shows that difficulty with collaboration is a primary reason for decreased productivity among distributed teams. Conversely, executives reporting increased productivity cite the use of digital tools as significantly enhancing collaboration.

Having appropriate technology in place can determine which of these camps a business falls into. Lionel Penarguear, the group IT director for UCC Coffee UK & Ireland, faced this issue when considering the state of his firm's digital infrastructure after 20 years of incremental upgrades. "We were unable to fully utilise the latest collaboration tools, which had the potential to stifle business growth," he says.

Kyocera Document Solutions UK worked with UCC to identify a range of solutions to enable collaboration. New telephony was a cornerstone of the effort to overhaul UCC's systems. "We had been utilising multiple telephony systems, and we knew that a cloud-hosted managed solution would be the best way forward," says Mr Penarguear. "So Kyocera Group UK specified a telephony system which provides VOIP services, instant messaging, video-call capabilities, integrated conferencing facilities and a state-of-the-art contact centre for our service team." Kyocera also introduced a more capable CRM to better fulfil UCC's reporting and customer communication needs, and upgraded its infrastructure to take advantage of public and private cloud technologies.

Now, UCC enjoys what Mr Penarguear describes as "a seamless user experience", with easier network access and 24-hour support to resolve IT issues for customers and staff. With Kyocera's support, "we can accommodate almost any request from the different business teams and build them the tools they need to succeed."

Still more importantly, "the improvement in our ICT infrastructure has led to an improvement in our relationships with our customers," says Mr Penarguear. Whether it is through security and efficiency, overcoming data overload, leveraging AI-powered automation, or easing collaboration and communication, productivity-enhancing technologies give businesses the ultimate advantage of better pleasing those they serve.

Discover how workflow automation and intelligent document management can transform your workplace productivity and help your organisation work smarter, not harder.

KYOCERA Document Solutions provides document management solutions with long-life print technology that delivers greater efficiency, resulting in world-class productivity, reliability and uptime.