Eighty-one percent of today’s employees worldwide need access to corporate documents and information on their mobile device, yet 43 percent of the workforce don't have the required access, according to research undertaken by M-Files Corporation.

M-Files surveyed 1,500 office workers across multiple geographic regions. It reports as many as fifty-four percent of global workers say they are unable to use their mobile device to easily share or collaborate on documents.

“The digital workplace demands anytime, anywhere access to documents from any device, yet new research confirms the document management needs of today's growing mobile workforce are unmet,” said Greg Milliken, senior vice president of marketing at M-Files.

“Without efficient, remote access to information, employees may resort to Shadow IT - accessing technology outside of and without the knowledge of a company's IT department - which increases security risks such as data breaches.”

Of respondents who need the ability to share, collaborate or edit documents via mobile device, only half say they are able to do so. Even fewer respondents are able to approve documents (37 percent) or sign documents (26 percent) remotely. And of those users not able to sign documents on the move, 39 percent report that this would be their top wish.

“While users are already demanding more advanced features such as editing, approving or signing documents with a mobile device, many organisations still struggle just to provide basic off-site access,” said Milliken.

“Rather than tacking on a file sharing service, like Dropbox or Box, organisations should consider reevaluating the way they manage and process information.”

Despite their reliance on mobile access, respondents name on average four different systems and repositories where they store business documents and information, including: email (69 percent), shared drives/network folders (55 percent), local disks (54 percent), paper (47 percent), cloud-hosted storage, such as Google Drive and Microsoft OneDrive (44 percent), external hard drives (40 percent), file-sharing services (34 percent), Microsoft SharePoint (31 percent), and DMS/ECM systems (24 percent). Many of these platforms don't provide mobile access, while others require additional specialised applications.