Middle East technology consultants implement new Economist Intelligence Unit findings

The survey, part of a research report titled Disciplined Autonomy: Resolving the tension between flexibility and control, produced by EIU on behalf of Laserfiche, aimed to discover how organizations manage the tension between the autonomy sought by professionals and the centralized control required for efficiency and risk management.

Laserfiche representatives in the Middle East include BMB sal, Lebanon; Integrated Solutions for Business, Saudi Arabia; and Mazroui & Partners, United Arab Emirates all have adopted this philosophy to ensure that their customers can achieve organizational control while providing their staff members with the independence they need to be productive.

"Study after study—including ones conducted at the Economist Group—show that the more employees feel empowered, the more productive they tend to be. As long as there's transparency into employee activities, there's often no need to impose strict processes and control, which can inhibit innovation and drive away talent,"

said EIU Senior Editor Dan Armstrong.

Among the survey findings were:

- Employees feel that greater freedom leads to better job performance.
- Over the past five years, 68% of organizations said they increased centralization to control risk and increase efficiency, while simultaneously increasing autonomy to enable employees to work more closely with customers and give them more freedom over how much of the work gets done.
- More than half (51%) of respondents occasionally or frequently 'bend the rules' to be more productive, while 32% said they did so to make a quick decision to close a sale or retain a customer.
- 57% of respondents said business pressures, over the past five years, to bring products to market faster or respond to customers more quickly caused decision making authority to be given to operating units our other groups outside headquarters.

The survey also suggests that to balance the advantages of control and autonomy organizations should keep the following principles in mind:

- Use IT as an enabler, not a driver.
- Over-communicate with key stakeholders when rolling out a significant change initiative.
- Commit to proper training and support during and after the implementation of new processes and systems.
- If possible, standardize rather than centralize. Standardization leads to greater efficiency and more effective corporate governance.

Respondents from the private sector came from companies with average annual revenue of about $1bn. A significant portion of the respondents also came from the government and education sectors.