To help ease the administrative burden often associated with research, many organizations invest in new digital tools or software. Unfortunately, they frequently ignore the bigger system-wide picture regarding how these tools will work together. The result can be a jumble of disconnected technology systems causing more problems than they solve.
By understanding the true costs of disconnected systems, research teams can take the first step toward preventing these issues and achieving a more unified system for greater efficiency.
What is disconnected technology?
Disconnected technologies are digital tools that work independently from each other. They lack integration — also known as interoperability — meaning they cannot use the same data set or share data. Each system requires separate data entry, thus creating data silos. These data silos can lead to many inefficiencies and unexpected costs.
The costs of disconnected technology
No matter the scale of your research organization, disconnected technology can negatively affect your team’s performance and efficiency in many different ways, including the following:
- Duplication of effort: One of the most significant problems with disconnected technologies is the need to enter the same data multiple times. Not only does this increase your team’s manual work, but it also wastes time and resources.
- Greater risk of errors: As the same data is entered into different systems, the chances of keystroke errors increase, which can cause inaccuracies affecting the data’s validity. If inaccurate data is used for approvals and grant proposals, it can create discrepancies and compliance issues, hindering research and impacting your organization’s reputation.
- Increased workload: Disconnected technologies increase the workload on research teams and not just because they must enter data multiple times. Team members must also reference data across systems, resolve discrepancies, and clean up redundancies, adding unnecessary complications to data management.
- Unsatisfactory user experience: Disconnected systems have different usernames, passwords, interfaces, and commands to keep track of, which can add frustration. Moreover, with so many things to remember, research teams are more likely to make errors and become locked out of systems or create internal errors requiring IT support to resolve.
- Upgrading and maintenance pains: All systems must be upgraded at some point, but disconnected systems can result in a more complicated upgrade schedule and disturb workflows. If the upgrades lead to incompatibility problems, they can cause system-wide errors or data corruption, bringing work to a standstill.
- Higher costs: Each of the issues mentioned above results in tasks taking longer to complete, which ultimately delays your team’s efforts and costs more money. Furthermore, if you are looking to add a new member to your team, they will need to learn each system, which means lengthy training requiring more time and money.
- Institutional silos: When employees across departments utilize separate, disconnected technology systems, it can become more difficult to collaborate with other teams. This can further exacerbate the issues stemming from disconnected technology mentioned above.
The benefits of connected technology
All the problems associated with disconnected technologies can be solved by using a unified system with the necessary functionality and data storage in a single centralized location. With this type of system, data is accessible and shareable, limiting manual data entry and reducing the burden on your team and the number of data redundancies. A smarter, connected system can also offer the following benefits:
- Less likelihood of error, increasing data accuracy
- Better access, retrieval, and integrity of data
- More accountability for better collaboration
- Less time spent on training
- Improved employee experiences and satisfaction
- More efficiency to reduce delays and overall costs
- Better compliance and adherence to regulatory standards
- More data-driven decision-making
Investing in the right digital solutions to fit your administrative needs can help automate several repetitive processes, freeing you and your team to manage more critical tasks.
Get connected with Cayuse
Accurate data is the backbone of research, and the only way to manage it consistently is through digital tools that improve the process — not add to the burden. At Cayuse, we understand the importance of data integrity and have dedicated ourselves to developing technical solutions to meet the needs of research organizations.
