Poorly designed software is the new time-wasting culprit.

This is according to a new survey of more than 1,000 business IT users, carried out on behalf of IFS, a global enterprise applications company.

They claim that as many as 94% of business IT users are wasting precious time on aspects of poorly designed software. Only one in five cited business applications used in the workplace as easy to use – well behind the web and email applications (27%). Web applications received the highest country-rating from UK IT users, at 40%, with PC-based email systems such as Outlook only reaching 23%, followed by business applications on 17%.

Respondents were asked to identify the top three causes of wasted time when using enterprise software. Top of the list was learning to use different modules and applications (20%), searching for relevant information held in the application (19%) came second and difficulties moving through business processes that are not grouped together or ordered in a logical way (14%) was third. UK respondents found handling different modules far more frustrating than other countries, with 29% identifying it as a top time waster.

Respondents were also frustrated by the time wasted dealing with difficulties in transferring data between systems and navigating around and between different applications.

Alastair Sorbie, IFS CEO, said: “Bringing features and functions common in consumer websites into the business world was a way respondents identified as being able to save time. Business software buyers should be looking for applications that have incorporated such features into their application design now.”