The reality of the world’s most

broken processes
The world’s most
broken processes
In 2021, we conducted a survey to investigate the state of the world’s business
processes. It’s clear that although organizations across the world may be taking
steps towards automating and putting better processes in place, there are significant
broken processes that remain. Nearly 50% of employees we surveyed say that many
of the processes within their organization do not work effectively.

We asked participants questions such as:

• How much of your working week • Do you believe in your

is spent on manual tasks that organization’s ability/commitment
could be automated? to fix broken processes?

• Which department of your • Is your organization undertaking

organization has the most broken process improvement initiatives?
processes?

• Which specific processes do you

regard as being the most broken?

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 79.5 %
The results paint a picture of the
world’s organizations’ continued
struggle with broken processes, made
worse by the COVID-19 pandemic.
of survey respondents are working remotely
at least some if not all the time. This increase
in remote employees only amplifies the need
to have better company processes in place.
According to the Zinnov Global Automation
77%
CXO Survey 2021,
of Global CXOs claim that their automation
investments have gone up due to COVID-19.
22%
In fact,
of enterprises say their investments in
automation have surged by more than
25%
By understanding where the breakdown in process
is occurring, organizations can see these areas as
opportunities to improve employee productivity,
retention, and ultimately the bottom line.
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The reality
of broken
processes
64 %
of employees in the technology
industry note that their company’s
broken processes prevent them from
maximizing their productivity.
IT, HR, operations, and shared services
are the departments most often cited
within organizations as having broken
systems and processes, or needing
improvement.
77%
say that they can’t automate
processes on their own because
they are reliant on IT or
operations to automate tasks
and processes.
52%
The majority of employees would
leave their organization within the
next 12-18 months for another
organization in the same industry if
the new organization made it easier
to get work done and had fewer
manual processes.
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 A perfect storm for process problems
It seems clear that the COVID-19 pandemic has created a “perfect storm” for organizations all
around the globe. Some businesses have been stretched thin by outdated, manual, paper-based
processes that have struggled to function for remote and dispersed workforces.

TOP 10 BROKEN PROCESSES

EMPLOYEE WORK-FROM-HOME CONTRACT INVENTORY COMPLIANCE AND

ADMINISTRATIVE PROCESSES AND PROCESSES MANAGEMENT REGULATORY
PROCESSES REQUESTS PROCESS PROCESSES
EMPLOYEE COVID-19 AND/OR CUSTOMER/ FINANCE AND CUSTOMER/
ONBOARDING HEALTH CHECK CLIENT/PATIENT ACCOUNTING CLIENT/PATIENT

41
PROCESSES SERVICE PROCESSES ONBOARDING
% OR SUPPORT PROCESSES
PROCESSES

36 % 36 %
34 %

28 % 28 % 27 % 26 % 26 %
24 %

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IT departments are
under pressure
More respondents singled out the IT
department than any other as having broken
systems and processes. But any dissatisfaction
with IT processes could be partly due to the
strains that IT departments operated under
during the pandemic.

Stretched before the pandemic due to lack of

investment in digital transformation, IT may be
feeling the brunt of respondents’ frustration.

Regardless, it’s important to note that

77%
of those surveyed see IT or
operations to be a barrier,
noting that they can’t automate
processes on their own.

73%
said that IT or operations
impedes their organization’s
ability to efficiently automate
tasks and processes.

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HR faces remote
onboarding challenge

HR was also widely identified as an

40%
area packed with broken processes.

indicated that employee administrative

processes (raise negotiations, time off
requests, etc.) were seen as the most broken.

For respondents who focused on employee onboarding, there was

a rise in criticism of access to tools and documents that enable good
job performance compared to previous survey results. This is likely
to have resulted from the challenges of provisioning technology for
remote workers. As remote working looks like it will continue in some
form after the pandemic, this is a significant area for organizations to
concentrate on correcting.

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 Types of process improvement required

NEEDS TO BE BETTER NEEDS TO BE BETTER NEEDS TO BE BETTER NEEDS TO BE BETTER

MAPPED OUT DOCUMENTED AUTOMATED OPTIMIZED

Employee onboarding processes

14% 16% 16% 15%

Employee offboarding processes

9% 11% 10% 9%

COVID-19 and/or health check processes

15% 16% 13% 12%

Work-from-home processes and requests

13% 16% 15% 13%

Employee administrative processes – e.g., issues related to raise negotiations, time off, etc.

15% 19% 17% 16%

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Paper-based processes are at odds
with a dispersed workforce

63%
of employees state that their
organization doesn’t have specific
67%
say that their organization doesn’t have an
overall approach to mapping out, documenting,
initiatives to move away from paper and optimizing processes.

Ineffective and manual and/or paper-based processes are greatly impacting

productivity, especially when most employees are working remotely at least
some of the time. New processes that have been put into place are also
not as effective as they could be due to conflicting processes, disconnected
systems and/or poorly documented processes.

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The impact
of broken
processes
The results from our survey into the
world’s most broken processes shine
a light not just on which processes are
causing problems for employees but
also on the impact this has on people
within an organization.

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 Productivity loss
There are significant productivity and efficiency losses that
result from broken processes.

More than half (55%) of the world’s employees spend or

waste at least 25% of their time working on manual tasks
that could be more automated – that’s a minimum of 10
hours a week based on a 40-hour work week.

55 of world’s employees

waste their time 25% = 10hrs working on manual processes

Employees who work in finance, insurance, real estate and

the technology industry are more likely to note that their
company’s broken processes prevent them from maximizing
their productivity than any other industry surveyed.

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Loss of productivity with
broken processes

69% 67% 64% 63% 62% 60%

FINANCE TECHNOLOGY MANUFACTURING HEALTHCARE EDUCATION GOVERNMENT
/INSURANCE /PUBLIC SECTOR
/REAL ESTATE

The efficiency increases and productivity gains if these processes were

properly automated are immense. Employees can spend this time on
higher-value work that is ultimately more profitable.

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The benefits of positive
employee morale
Work and company culture are crucial to maintaining productivity Given these findings,

52 %
and staff satisfaction. The pandemic has highlighted how vital it’s not surprising that
intangible areas of the business—such as culture —truly are. most respondents

Trusting that your organization supports you to achieve your

collective and personal goals is key to this. This includes
optimizing processes. When optimization is lacking, the
frustrations of disengaged employees can quickly spread
around otherwise-content employees. would leave their
organization within
Survey results indicate the more hours that employees believe they 12-18 months for
waste, the more likely they are looking for other jobs – all influenced another organization
by their organization’s broken processes: in the same industry if
the new organization
Of those surveyed, over a quarter of respondents were looking made it easier to

40%
for another job. get work done and
had fewer manual of wo
processes.

of those people said that the organization’s

broken processes were influencing their
decision to look for another job.

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The Power of Process®
In an increasingly digitized and globalized world, process excellence has a vital role in
employees’ productivity, morale, and ultimately the bottom line.

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Why build a Process
Center of Excellence?
While 56% of respondents say that their
company has a Process Center of Excellence,
they also reported that their organizations
don’t have a central process repository; they
don’t have an overall approach to process
excellence; and they don’t make it easy or
encourage employees to contribute to
process improvement.
In fact, 71% of companies (with 500+
employees) struggle with having multiple,
conflicting processes in place and/or various
workflow systems that are not connected.
This indicates that many companies still don’t
embrace a process culture. That while there
may be the foundations of process excellence,
the real-world application is lacking.
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How broken processes can be improved

38% say that there are multiple, conflicting processes in place.

34% say that the various workflow systems are not connected.

28% say that the processes are not well documented.

28% say that it’s not easy to follow the existing processes.

26% say that no one seems to be updating processes as people and systems change.

21% say that the processes in place aren’t relevant to the tasks that need to be completed.

17% say that no one follows the existing processes.

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Enabling positive
process change
With clear lines of sight into automated processes within the
enterprise, everyone can see which workflows are working well—
and should be replicated and repeated in other areas—and which
ones need to be optimized for better results.

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69 %
of those surveyed say they look to IT to automate tasks
and processes. And while IT will lead the charge towards
positive process change, non-technical employees should
also be empowered to take up the effort.

Ideally, the right solution will require minimal assistance

from IT, so users can work to improve everyday processes
quickly and with autonomy, rather than adding to IT
professionals’ already heavy workloads.

These results point to a need to improve the visibility,

planning, and management of processes in the world’s
organizations. The good news is that of those surveyed,
69% say that their organization is focused on
automating business processes across the company.

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Empower your
organization with Nintex
We hope you found the findings of this report as insightful and valuable as we do. Now
that we have highlighted some of the world’s most broken processes, you may have ideas
of where you need to improve your own. The good news is that 69% of respondents say
that their organization is focused on automating business processes across the company.
Meaning it’s likely your organization is on the path to process excellence.

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Zoom supports
boom in channel
business with
Nintex
Zoom already needed to scale up its
processing of channel orders to meet
rising demand when the company
experienced a boom in business during
the COVID-19 crisis.

Then, the need became critical. Zoom

replaced its largely manual order tracking
and management process with a solution
built on Nintex Workflow Cloud that
integrates with Zendesk and Salesforce
to automate the steps from order intake
through purchase order confirmation and
provisioning.

Benefits include supporting significant

increase in channel business, 1/3
reduction in staff contractors, and a
boost to competitiveness.

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Lands’ End learns
to thrive in the
“new world of
work”
Lands’ End had a manual, time-
consuming, error-prone process for
managing custom orders for logoed
apparel. It wanted to streamline that
process to get orders to customers faster
and more cost-effectively.

Lands’ End created a streamlined solution

using Nintex forms and workflows on
SharePoint and Nintex Workflow Cloud.

Benefits included 76% reduction in

workflow steps, to just 25; 120% ROI;
and special-order accuracy boosted to
95%, up from 50%; reducing the need
for rework.

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At Nintex, we can help drive digital change at your organization. We can provide the
automation tools required to fix, optimize, and transform processes. We can advise on
how to make processes work as well as possible, across all operations, and help build the
roadmaps required to reach the change that organizations need. With Nintex, you can
empower everybody with The Power of Process®.

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

Whitepaper: Why your business processes are still broken

eBook: 7 roles that power a process culture
Whitepaper: Why top-performing companies create process centers of excellence

Nintex | The reality of the world’s most broken processes | 22

ABOUT NINTEX

Nintex is the global standard for process management and automation. Today more than 10,000 public
and private sector organizations across 90 countries turn to the Nintex Platform to accelerate progress
on their digital transformation journeys by quickly and easily managing, automating, and optimizing
business processes. Learn more by visiting www.nintex.com and experience how Nintex and its global
partner network are shaping the future of Intelligent Process Automation (IPA).