Over the past few years, modern work complexities have been eating away at your bottom line through an invisible yet powerful presence in your organization — what we call the Dark Matter of Work. Just as CERN identified Dark Matter as the “invisible” content that makes up 95% of the mass of the universe, the Dark Matter of Work represents activity and details that we can’t immediately see but that have a significant influence on everything around them.
From the tools we use to conduct our work to where and when we execute it, work complexities have truly exploded in recent years and will only become more complicated over time — making it increasingly difficult for employees and business leaders to get visibility and truly understand work in progress.
Wrike is focused on shining a light on the Dark Matter of Work. That’s why we recently commissioned research to investigate its impact on professional services leaders, employees, and organizations as a whole. We wanted to understand to what extent Dark Matter exists and discover the financial cost of Dark Matter affecting us all. The results are staggering and can point business leaders towards key ways they can increase efficiency to endure the unknown economic future.
Let’s dive into what we found.
Impact on professional services
While we cannot “see” the Dark Matter of Work, we can identify where it exists. It lives in asynchronous applications and unstructured work, such as instant message threads and video calls, as well as the gaps between systems and applications that aren’t integrated. Without a single work platform that is powerful and versatile enough to track, manage, action, and align all work to goals across an organization, there exists a dangerously low level of visibility amongst knowledge workers and leaders.
At present, most professional services leaders generally have little visibility into the work their teams are doing and can’t track the progress of much of that work in real time. And if we ask knowledge workers, they say employer visibility into their work is even lower — suggesting there may be more Dark Matter of Work than we think.
Wasted time
Time wasted on activities such as repeating work that’s already been done, attending unproductive meetings, or following up on actions and statuses costs the average enterprise millions.
The cost of the Dark Matter of Work
The total cost of Dark Matter for professional services teams is quite substantial and will continue to increase exponentially unless addressed.
Low visibility
For business and professional services leaders, visibility into work has only increased slightly since 2020 — from 51% to 57%. And other professional services workers are struggling to view their assignments and expectations.
More human costs
Amid the Great Resignation, mass layoffs, and continuing remote work environment, professional services teams must work to address the human costs of the Dark Matter of Work, as well.
Too many applications
As hybrid work continues, professional services teams rely more and more on applications to connect them. But many of these tech tools don’t integrate with each other, decreasing visibility, increasing wasted time, and resulting in duplicative work. Plus, app integration is also moving at a slow pace from 2020 (46%) to now (53%).
Illuminating the path ahead
If left unchecked, Dark Matter will increase by 49% in the next five years. According to the survey, the projected cost of Dark Matter in 2027 looks to be:
How can you minimize these costs? A single source of truth is essential. Professional services teams need an approach that is robust enough to manage and orchestrate complex workflows and simple enough for team members to use. The organization with full visibility into these workflows and applications and the data they create will be best equipped to overcome the impacts of the Dark Matter of Work and come out on top.
For more on the Dark Matter of Work, its costs, and the solutions, check out the full report here — and usher in a new age of digital collaboration. Or start a free two-week trial of Wrike today to see how our work management solution can centralize work and increase efficiency for your professional services team!
