“Five guys on the court working together can achieve more than five talented individuals who come and go as individuals.” – Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, NBA All-Star

From basketball sensations to tech superstars, endorsements of collaboration are unanimous. However, when we recently surveyed 1,200+ professionals about the ways they work with documents every day, we found that collaboration is a common pain point across industries and job functions. In addition, and perhaps more interesting, we discovered that many of the workplace habits practiced by the professionals we surveyed are actually making document collaboration more difficult.

For example: 27% of our survey respondents said that they regularly print PDF files to review and edit them. As if that’s not inefficient enough, 63% of that same group then turn around and scan the paper documents back into their computer to return to their collaborators via email!

Combined with the fact that 81% of knowledge workers have found themselves working on the wrong version of a file, it’s clear these print-scan-email habits are costing time, causing confusion, and wasting company resources.

Working with your colleagues – people you often see as bright, insightful experts in their field – doesn’t have to backfire into costly miscommunication or a tedious exercise in using the scanner.

“We’re all working together; that’s the secret.” – Sam Walton, Founder of Wal-Mart