Commissioned by Wrike, the findings of a new report titled, “Dark Matter of Work: The Hidden Cost of Work Complexities,”, established that up to 55 per cent of the work that takes place within an organization is not visible to key stakeholders. This US-based finding has the potential to cost organizations up to $60 million a year in wasted time, delayed or cancelled projects, and employee turnover. This lack of visibility has created the “dark matter of work,” a term coined by Wrike founder, Andrew Filev, to describe the inefficiency of projects that aren’t accurately captured, tracked or measured against goals because they happen within synchronous applications and unstructured ways.
Wrike, a Citrix company, is the most intelligent, versatile work management platform for the enterprise. It can be easily configured for any team and any use case to transform how work is done. Wrike’s feature-rich platform puts teams in control of their digital workflows, enabling them to prioritise work, maximize potential and accelerate business growth.
“The current economic climate has created an urgency for organizations to increase efficiency and drive-up productivity, while providing employees with a genuine sense of purpose,” says Filev. “What we’re finding is that the Digital Era has created a new level of chaos and misalignment, exacerbated by the over-proliferation of apps and data. It has begun offsetting major projects and losing organizations their best talent. Neither of which organizations can afford as we move into a turbulent economic market. In order to survive this next stage with optimum efficiency it is going to be critical for organizations to both understand the depth of their respective work complexities, as well as what they need to do right now to overcome these potential stumbling blocks.”
65% of business leaders encounter problems with projects at least every week that could be avoided with real-time insight into project management.
Wrike surveyed 2 800 business leaders and knowledge workers to determine the root causes of work complexities and the potential impact on businesses, teams and individuals that these have. The financial and human cost of the “dark matter of work” is staggering. Organizations with approximately 3 200 employees – the average number surveyed – stood to lose up to $52 million annually in wasted time caused by unproductive meetings, duplicated efforts, information seeking and status check-ins; $8.2 million in delayed or cancelled projects; and $427,000 in employee turnover. Organizations with 100 employees could lose over $1.65 million annually, and those with 100 000 can lose over $1.65 billion.
Work complexities have been growing steadily over the past decade, but it isn’t until recent years that they began creating significant gaps in information visibility and collaboration. This is a result of the surge in applications and data processed, as well as the general pace of work today.
94% of knowledge workers say that a single source of truth for information would reduce stress within their respective teams.
This “dark matter of work” lives in synchronous applications and unstructured work, such as instant message threads and video calls, as well as the gaps between systems and applications that aren’t yet integrated. Without a single, dedicated work platform in place powerful and versatile enough to track, manage, action, and align all goals across an organization, there exists a dangerously low level of visibility amongst knowledge workers and leaders.
“Left unchecked, the Dark Matter of Work has the potential to devastate organizations,” says Alexey Korotich, VP of Product at Wrike. “We are on a mission at Wrike to shed light on these work complexities, bringing all forms of work, no matter where it originates, into a single source of truth for organizations large and small. We have taken steps over the years to innovate in the areas of AI, ML, workflow automation, integrations and more to keep up with the pace and changes in modern work environments.”
“Only through work management software can organizations bring all work into one place,” says Filev. “Teams get a holistic view of projects in play and can work as one, while business leaders gain full visibility for a better understanding of how best to support strategic initiatives and organizational goals.” DM/BM