When launching products, creating manuals, providing customer service and doing other tasks that involve documentation, you cannot afford inefficiencies. IDC, the premier global provider of market intelligence, surveyed hundreds of companies to uncover common content-related inefficiencies and their costs. See the results in this white paper.
mo W H I T E P AP E R c.c di.w T h e H i d d e n C o s t s o f P u b l i s h i n g D o c u m e n t s ww Sponsored by: Arbortext 5104 Joshua Duhl Susan Feldman .539 November 2003 .805.F This White Paper examines the use of XML authoring and publishing software to 00 quantify the impact that inefficient content-related business processes have on the 28. bottom line. 278.805. M E T H O D O L O G Y P A In the spring and summer of 2003, Arbortext and IDC developed and administered SU two surveys that probed the use of XML authoring and publishing software, the 10 reasons for investing in it, and the savings either expected or documented as a result 710 of that investment. The first survey was administered to a list of companies and A organizations that had expressed an interest in XML authoring and publishing M , software. From this list, 349 responded. The second survey, which probed more mah deeply into reasons for and savings from XML authoring and publishing, was gni distributed to Arbortext customers, of whom 81 responded. marF The profile for both groups was similar: The largest group of respondents in each te survey stated that they were from very large (5,000 or more employees) ertS organizations. When asked to describe the type of work they did, over 40% of ne respondents in each group chose technical publications/documentation. Professional ep services and discrete manufacturing represented, respectively, 38.2% and 23.6% of S 5 the respondents in the larger study, and those numbers were mirrored within a :sr percentage point by the smaller study of Arbortext customers. Respondents etr described their jobs as creating, managing, and publishing content. auqdaeH la P O R T R AI T O F C O N T E N T P R O C E S S E S bolG Respondents were concentrated heavily in technical publishing. Technical publications accounted for 78.3% of the documents that they created, with service information a distant second at 47.1%, and field service manuals at 38.7%. Again, these results were mirrored by the smaller survey. Multiple responses were allowed on these questions; therefore, the total percentages add up to more than 100%. In the larger study, respondents indicated that they are publishing XML content to multiple media simultaneously, with print (84.4%), Web (84.1%), and CD-ROM (69.5%) predominating. Help files at 40.6% was the other significant area.
Our shorter survey asked respondents how much time they spent on a variety of content tasks. Table 1 shows the tasks and the average time that respondents spent on each task in an average week.
T A B L E 1 TASKS AND TIME SPENT IN AN AVERAGE WEEK
Task Mean Hours Spent per Week
Write copy/text for Web site 2.36
Write copy/text for print publication 12.09
Create graphics 3.8
Search for materials that already exist for reuse 3.4
Approve written copy 5.19
Edit or rewrite written copy 6.01
Prepare materials for publishing to Web site 2.03
Prepare materials for publishing to print publication 4.32
Prepare materials for publishing to other media 3.4 (please specify)
Update/refresh copy/text originally published on Web site 0.98
Update/refresh copy/text originally published to print 3.35 publication
Update/refresh copy/text originally published to other 1.9 media (please specify)
n = 81 Source: IDC/Arbortext long survey, 2003
Not surprisingly, the greatest number of hours was devoted to writing copy for print publication (12.09 hours), followed by editing (6.01 hours) and then approving (5.19 hours) copy. Note, though, that a significant number of hours were devoted to relatively routine tasks, such as searching for materials that already exist (3.4 hours), updating copy that was originally published to print publication (3.35 hours), or preparing materials for publishing to print publication (4.32 hours). For organizations that devote significant man-hours to publishing, these hours add up to major expenditures. That might be why most respondents in the larger survey had such high hopes for XML authoring and publishing software.
Table 2... [download for more]
