Every company needs an email system, right? Wrong. At least according to French tech firm Atos who launches an initiative to eliminate corporate email within the next year. CEO Thierry Breton claims only ten percent of the emails his employees receive each day contain any useful information, and eighteen percent is simply junk mail. Middle management at Atos believes they spend as much as one-quarter of each business day searching for specific information, so the 72 percent of non-spam emails containing one-word replies, vague or incomplete responses or requests for further clarification of earlier requests are viewed as hampering progress. The zero email policy began six months ago and only applies to internal company email, but Breton says the volume of message traffic has already dropped twenty percent. In its place, Atos looks to modern alternatives, including a wiki and corporate instant messaging, file and application sharing, and videoconferencing using Microsoft Communicator. Atos spokesperson Caroline Crouch says the 74,000 employee company’s response “has been positive with strong take up of alternative tools.”
Time will tell if this marks the beginning of a new trend in managing inter-company communications or if it will ultimately result in little or no long-term productivity benefits. In my opinion, employee training on proper and more efficient use of corporate email might accomplish the same goals without an expensive investment in new software. I can’t imagine employees using instant messaging in a more productive manner than the existing email system. On the other hand, there’s probably no harm in centralizing a knowledge-base of company information with an internal wiki either.
Now, excuse me, I have some emails to read.
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