Email is a useful tool for communication but not the answer to collaborating and increasing producti

-4Retail White Paper-
Email is a useful tool for communicating
but is not the answer to collaborating
and increasing productivity

If you find yourself under the burden of mass emails and wasting valuable time sifting through volumes
of unnecessary information, read on to find out why you are not alone and how you can change your
working practices by looking to alternative ways of communicating.
In this paper, we discuss:
? How email has developed as a communication tool ? Why email hinders Workflow ? The burden of growing email inboxes ? Our different interpretations of email ? The limitations of email systems ? The problem of spam ? Emails spread viruses ? Email is not the solution ? Online collaboration is the key to improving communication in retail ? The benefits of 4Retail



1 -4Retail White Paper-
The history of email
Email predates the internet and was first set up to allow users to exchange messages digitally. In a similar way to writing a letter or sending a telegram, email was used as a form of simple communication between two parties. Despite the development of the internet over the years and the creation of many different forms of communication such as mobile phones, instant messaging and social networks, email remains the most important application of the Internet and the most widely used facility it has. Now more than 600 million people internationally use email because it is still a useful tool.
Indeed, as a form of marketing, email can help promote a product or inform customers on a mailing list of a special offer. Not only does email marketing allow a company to target a specific audience but it is also data driven, builds relationships, loyalty and trust. According to research conducted by the Direct Marketing Association, email marketing generated an ROI of $48.34 for every dollar spent on it in 2007. The expected figure for 2008 is $45.06, and the prediction for 2009 is $43.52. As such, it outperforms all the other direct marketing channels examined, such as print catalogues. This indicates that email can be an effective marketing tool for businesses. On the other hand, emails can also become a burden to workers and ineffective when used as a business process management tool.
28% of a worker's day is spent on unnecessary email messages
Overfull email boxes are often the consequence of trying to run a project via emails. This has a knock on effect for employees because they have to spend time searching through their inbox to find important instructions for work and then double-check just in-case they have missed a necessary action or comment from their work colleagues. So rather than improve employee productivity, emails in fact hinder progress because they are used as the main way to collaborate and communicate within the work environment. When studies by research companies such as Bassex, show that 28% of a workers day is spent on interruptions by things that aren't urgent or important, like unnecessary emails messages and the time it takes to get back on track, the overuse of emails can be seen as taking its toll on the running of a business.
Workflow is hindered
Having to search through emails is only one of the problems faced by companies relying solely on emails. It becomes very difficult to trace the different stages of say a design project and pinpoint the last actions taken because the emails are simply too long and very hard to follow. A number of changes can also occur within a design or sourcing project such as teams restructuring, employees covering holiday or a member of a team sent to work on a different project. What this means in real terms is that those taking over do not have all the necessary information contained in the previous email correspondences and are therefore unable to un... [download for more]