A report by SIS International Research sponsored by Siemens Enterprise Communications found communications barriers and latencies:

• Cost small and medium businesses (SMBs) up to 40 percent of their productive time.
• On average, 70 percent of employee respondents with up to 400 employees said they spend 17.5 hours each week addressing the pain points caused by communications barriers and latencies.
• The hidden costs of the pain points could translate into $26,041 per knowledge worker per year, and up to $5,246 per employee per year, which means that in theory, a 100-employee SMB could have up to nearly $525,000 in annual hidden costs.
• 68% of respondents have trouble coordinating communications among team members, affecting their ability to respond quickly to time-sensitive customer requests.
• Respondents average 3.7 hours per week attempting to coordinate communications across team members, slowing the realization of goals and deadlines.
• 68% of respondents also said they experience work delays while waiting for information from others that they have attempted to reach live multiple times using multiple methods. The average delay is 3.5 hours per week per knowledge worker.
• 77% of respondents said they spend two or more hours per week dealing with unwanted communications.
• 61% find difficulty in establishing collaboration sessions with colleagues and average 3.3 hours per week attempting to address issues of inaccessibility or lack of full collaboration with colleagues. (eWEEK, February 24, 2009)