SMEs consider time-wasting their biggest challenge when managing multi-channel communications.
A study of UK SMEs found 47 percent considered time-wasting the biggest challenge with handling their communications over physical and digital channels.
The time wastage came from adding attachments to documents, manually editing them, and merging different document types.
Time-wasting was closely followed by the risk of human error at 45%. Traceability of outgoing documents was also considered an issue, with 51% noting that they found it difficult to record communications across every channel.
The survey of 280 UK SMEs, commissioned by Neopost and conducted by Opinionway, found that on average an SME generates 641 documents each month and 59 percent use both physical and digital channels for general correspondence and 53 percent for invoicing.
However, the evidence shows that some SMEs are still struggling to manage these methods effectively.
Erwan Kernevez, Digital Solutions Director at Neopost, said: "Small companies waste far too much time manually preparing documents, and the chance of human error is simply too great. Compliance is also a big problem, with over half of SMEs unable to track their communications, which means they will only face problems when asked to show, or provide the status, of specific documents by the tax office or auditors.
