Open Password – Wednesday, June 30, 2022
Double issue: #1097 and #1098
WTI-Frankfurt digital – WTI AG – GBI-Genios – Marketing rights – Consortium and other customers – Peter Halstenbach – Jan Halstenbach – Willi Bredemeier – Werner Müller – WTI databases – Federal Ministry of Economics – Technical and management information – Employee cooperative – Theos Software AG – Insolvency – Data crash – TIB Hannover – FIZ Karlsruhe – Mass inadequacy – Miguel Grosser – Property rights – Consortium agreement – Updating the WTI databases
ZPID – Collaborative meta-analyses – PsychOpen CAMA – MARS – Ongoing cumulative evidence analysis – Open repository – R-Shiny architectures – FAIR principles – Data exploration – Publication bias – Power estimation of a prospective study – Willingness to cooperate – Automation and optimization of workflows – PsychArchives
Open Password – Joachim C. Bartels – Archive Open Password Plus – infobroker.de – FinTechs – Yapily – finAPI – SCHUFA – Open Banking Payments Platform – Fax – Scott Wilson – eFax – Cloud-based fax solutions – User survey – Areas of application
Title 1:
WTI-Frankfurt digital and WTI AG (Switzerland)
GBI-Genios acquires marketing rights to WTI databases – Consortium and other customers reject business with the Halstenbachs – The story of WTI with a “happy ending, sort of”? – By Willi Bredemeier
Title 2:
ZPIDCollaborative meta-analyses with PsychOpen CAMA – By Tanja Burgard
Trade journals
German Publisher “Open Password” will be closing its doors on June 30, 2022 – By Joachim C. Bartels
4.
FinTechs
Yapily Acquires finAPI from Schufa
5.
Old Technologies
The Secret Lesbian of Faxes – By Scott Wilson
trade magazines
German Publisher “Open Password”
will be closing its doors on June 30, 2022
By Joachim C. Bartels
Joachim C. Bartels
German Publisher “Open Password” closes its doors after 36 years of continuous reporting of news from the information services / publishing sector in the German speaking part of Europe. The owner and publisher Willi Bredemeier stated that he had exceeded the pension age 17 years ago and he felt it was time to retire. The archive “Open Password” will be transferred to the German publisher “infobroker.de” and will be and available as “Open Password Archive Plus” as an open service.
BIIA and “Open Password” have been partners since the foundation of BIIA and we regret the loss of an important source.
We wish our friend and partner Dr. Bredemeier a well-deserved happy retirement.
WTI-Frankfurt digital and WTI AG (Switzerland)
GBI-Genios acquires marketing rights
to WTI databases
Consortium and other customers refuse to do business with the Halstenbachs
The story of the WTI with a “happy ending, sort of”?
See also: Process that led to bankruptcy was prepared over a long period of time? – If there was a data crash, why wasn’t the data recovered from the licensees’ servers? – The Swiss WTI AG has all the databases that belonged to the WTI-Frankfurt digitally – Why mass inadequacy when the insolvency administrator has purchase offers from the licensees?, in: March 4, 2022, #1037
The data from the Frankfurt WTI transferred to the Swiss WTI AG? – The business purpose of WTI AG was already aligned with the business model of Frankfurt-based WTI AG in June, in: Open Password, October 22, 2021, #991
Who owns the WTI databases if WTI has gone out of business? – Were the databases transferred from WTI Frankfurt to WTI Switzerland?, in: Open Password, October 20, 2021, #988
Filed for bankruptcy – got on its own feet as an employee-owned company, then sold to the wrong people, in: Open Password, October 15, 2021, #986
By Willi Bredemeier
GBI-Genios acquired the marketing rights to the WTI databases from WTI’s insolvency administrator, Miguel Grosser. The managing director of GBI-Genios, Werner Müller, is inviting people to a workshop this week to clarify whether and how the WTI databases should be updated regularly. The WTI databases are currently also offered by the Swiss WTI AG, not to be confused with the insolvency-managed WTI-Frankfurt digital. However, several consortia and other major customers refuse to work with the Swiss WTI AG because they are not convinced of the seriousness of this company.
The managing director of GBI-Genios, Werner Müller,
with marketing rights for the WTI databases
The forerunner of WTI Frankfurt, FIZ Technik, was founded in 1979 by the Federal Ministry of Economics to provide medium-sized industrial companies with technical and management information online. When the BMWi stopped its funding,
“However, FIZ Technik was continued in 2011 in the form of an employee cooperative and became financially independent. With its economic successes, WTI gained twice the popularity in the information industry, after the company’s expertise had already been undisputed” (Open Password, October 15).
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Irritating questions that cast doubt on the seriousness and legality of the Halstenbachs’ actions
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In 2019, WTI-Frankfurt was digitally converted into a GmbH in order to more easily obtain the financial resources required for investments. After a lot of turbulence, the WTI-Frankfurt fell into the hands of the Swiss management consultants Jan Halstenbach and his father Peter. In July 2021, Theos Software AG was renamed WTI AG in the commercial register office of the Canton of Zurich. This happened, as Peter Halstenbach stated in a later customer letter,
“ in order to be able to use the name that is well established on the market (WTI).”
In addition, the business purpose of the Swiss WTI AG was changed so that it was confusingly similar to the profile of the Frankfurt-based WTI GmbH. According to Peter Halstenbach in his customer letter, a central point of the agreement concluded between the Swiss WTI AG and WTI Frankfurt was:
“ that in the event that one of the two companies is no longer a going concern, the other company has the right to continue the business alone”.
At the end of 2021, the managing director of WTI-Frankfurt digital, Jan Halstenbach, filed for bankruptcy at the Frankfurt district court and fired all employees due to cessation of business because all data had been destroyed in a crash. There were doubts here because the WTI databases were in different versions, but overall complete, on the servers of the licensees GBI-Genios, TIB Hannover and FIZ Karlsruhe. Shortly afterwards, Peter Halstenbach also offered the Frankfurt data sets via the Swiss WTI AG. One of his letters to customers says:
“ The subject of the contract between your company and WTI AG is the possibility of access to all WTI databases via new, modern software: WTI AG guarantees your company a flawless data delivery.”
This gave rise to a number of irritating questions that cast doubt on the seriousness and legality of the Halstenbachs’ actions. These have been discussed by me repeatedly in Open Password. I also found it irritating that the insolvency administrator reported “mass inadequacy” for the Frankfurt WTI on December 17th. On January 4, 2022 I asked:
“ Why mass inadequacy when the insolvency administrator has purchase offers (for the WTI database offers) from the licensees?”
The insolvency administrator Miguel Grosser has now changed his mind by selling the marketing rights for the WTI databases to GBI-Genios.
Jan Halstenbach, continue with the WTI databases on the market?
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The refusal of database customers to do business with the Halstenbachs.
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So should we expect parallel offers from GBI-Genios and the Halstenbachs in the long term? In fact, the current legal situation may not be entirely unproblematic. The facts indicate that the insolvency administrator Grosser did not sell the WTI databases, but “only” the marketing rights to the WTI databases to GBI-Genios.
So let’s ask: If the Swiss WTI AG has ownership rights to the WTI databases, can the Halstenbachs successfully raise a legal objection against the marketing of the WTI databases by GBI-Genios? On the other hand: Do the WTI databases actually belong to WTI AG if the databases were illegally digitally transferred from WTI-Frankfurt to Switzerland and the data crash was only alleged?
Based on their previous experience with them, the Halstenbachs definitely have an affinity for legal disputes. Open Pasword also received a legal letter from them. However, there are indications that the Halstenbachs will not seek legal action on this front. These indications refer to the fact that the offers of the Swiss WTI AG are perceived as less serious by consortium and other WTI-Frankfurt digital customers. The reporting on the scandalous treatment of WTI-Frankfurt digital and its employees in Open Password and thus the collaboration between Open Password and members of the information industry in the creation of several articles may also have contributed to this skepticism.
Open Password has documents in which customers’ skepticism towards the Halstenbachs becomes clear. I quote by way of example and excerpts from email correspondence:
“We will not be doing any business with WTI in the foreseeable future. In addition to the aforementioned doubts about the database, this is also due to the lack of trust in the provider, which would be necessary for a business relationship. In addition, it is difficult to consider a provider reputable if it distributes such unprofessional information material.
We would certainly still have a need…”
“We will not be doing any business with WTI AG for the foreseeable future. While our institutions have a need, there will be no consortium as we are unable to verify the quality and scope of the current database. In addition, our directors are “addressed” directly by WTI and the information policy at this point also seems quite questionable.”
Now, as their experiences with them show, the Halstenbachs are willing to do a lot to get money. But why should they seek conflict when there is little to gain for them at this point?
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The story of the WTI with a “happy ending, sort of”?
_____________________________________________________
The costs incurred by the Halstenbachs’ invasion of the database industry are certainly not to be underestimated: a profitable company, WTI-Frankfurt digital, was plunged into insolvency. The employees of WTI-Frankfurt digital were laid off. In the meantime, customers of WTI-Frankfurt digital had to forgo using the WTI databases, although there was a need for this use. The danger of Halstenbach practices spreading throughout the wider information industry and the loss of trust elsewhere may never have existed, but this possibility should be mentioned.
Nevertheless: Despite all these costs, as of today there are signs of a “happy ending, sort of”. GBI-Genios has restored its portfolio of databases that it sells and rounds off its offerings as the market leader in German online business information, including issues at the interface of management and technical information. The former customers of WTI-Frankfurt digital will be able to access the WTI databases again and enter into partnerships that are once again based on trust and credibility and meet the standards of the information industry.
If GBI-Genios invites you to a workshop this week involving university institutions to clarify the question of continuously updating the WTI databases, the chances of this workshop being successful are high – given GBI-Genios’s decades of experience in database construction and Managing partnerships within the information industry (including information sciences).
ZPID
Collaborative meta-analyses
with PsychOpen CAMA
By Tanja Burgard
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Challenge: Continuous synthesis of ever-growing research results
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The number of scientific publications worldwide has been increasing rapidly since the middle of the 20th century. Maintaining an overview of the existing evidence (Bastian et al., 2010) and specifically designing new studies in order to strategically close research gaps (Glöckner et al., 2018) is becoming increasingly difficult. In order to get the best possible benefit from existing data, it is therefore necessary to collect and summarize evidence systematically and continuously.
A systematic summary and joint quantitative evaluation of several study results is called a meta-analysis. However, Shojania et al. Already in 2007 it was stated that the average survival time from meta-analyses was only 5.5 years. By the time a meta-analysis is published, a median of nine months have already passed since the last literature search and some meta-analyses are no longer current because new, relevant findings are already available (Créquit et al., 2016). However, many meta-analyses do not meet common reporting standards such as MARS (APA, 2020; Cooper, 2020) or PRISMA (Page et al., 2021), so that the data is sometimes not fully available for further use, for example for Update of a meta-analysis (Lakens et al., 2016). The accumulation and management of existing knowledge is often inadequate.
A systematic review of cumulative meta-analyses was able to retrospectively show that a timely and complete synthesis of existing evidence on medical interventions could have enabled informed treatment decisions much earlier and at the same time could have saved research resources (Clarke et al., 2014). A more efficient system for ongoing cumulative evidence synthesis would therefore be of great benefit both for scientific progress and for informed decisions in practical contexts.
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Living meta-analyses and PsychOpen CAMA
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A technical infrastructure that is based on reporting standards for meta-analyses and allows the updating of meta-analyses would increase the efficiency of cumulative evidence synthesis in the long term. A concept for such a publication format for meta-analyses already exists. In this context, people sometimes talk about living (Elliott et al., 2017), open (Haddaway, 2018) or cloud-based syntheses (Bosco et al., 2015). We use the term Community-Augmented Meta-Analysis (CAMA, Tsuji et al., 2014) and understand it to be a combination of an open repository for meta-analytic data and a web application with meta-analytic functions. The ZPID as a public open science institute for psychology offers such a research infrastructure in the form of the freely accessible platform for collaborative meta-analyses, PsychOpen CAMA ( https://cama.psychopen.eu/ ).
Comparable previous systems (Bosco et al., 2019; Tsuji et al., 2017) are based on R-Shiny architectures ( https://shiny.rstudio.com/ ). However, with a larger number of users or a large amount of stored data, these systems quickly reach their limits in terms of “stability” and “scalability”. Therefore, for a research infrastructure intended to cover a wide range of potential subject areas to serve the entire psychological research community, the PsychOpen CAMA architecture shown in Figure 1 is preferable. PsychOpen CAMA is a PHP application connected to an OpenCPU server ( https://www.opencpu.org/ ). The use of PHP also offers more flexibility in design and is crucial for the technical connection to other ZPID services.
Figure 1: Architecture of PsychOpen CAMA
As Figure 1 shows, PsychOpen CAMA is available to the research community in two ways. On the one hand, the repository serves as a dynamic resource for collaborative data collection in order to continuously accumulate knowledge and keep meta-analyses up to date. A template is used to standardize the data sets so that they can all be used with the same analysis functions. This is in line with the FAIR principles (Wilkinson et al., 2016), which aim to optimize access and reusability of data. The standardized data is part of the self-managed R package, which also contains all the functions required for the analysis options offered in the web application.
On the other hand, the web application enables easy access to the meta-analytic data on a point-and-click user interface. Replications and modifications of meta-analyses can be requested by the user with a mouse click. The requests are forwarded from the web application to the server. The analyzes are carried out there using data and functions from the R package. The resulting results are embedded in the web application and displayed to the user. In this way, evidence can be presented in a lively and timely manner and made available at a low threshold.
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An example from health psychology
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In the currently released version, PsychOpen CAMA offers a graphical user interface that provides easy access to the results of 15 meta-analytic datasets (October 2021) from five different data providers. Using the example of a meta-analysis on weight stigma (Emmer et al., 2021), which examines the connection between stigma and mental health, the functionalities of the application are illustrated below.
Under the menu item “Data” the platform user will find detailed documentation with bibliographic and methodological information, links to the primary studies included in the meta-analyses and a complete data table. In the case of the meta-analysis on the connection between stigmatization and mental health, for example, the user learns that a multilevel meta-analysis was carried out because the effect sizes are nested within studies. In total, the meta-analysis contains 497 effect sizes.
Under “Data exploration” the user can quickly and easily get an overview of the distribution of the correlation between stigma and mental health as well as its connection to potentially relevant moderator variables. For example, the user can select the type of stigma examined as a moderator. The resulting violin plots show the distribution of correlations depending on the type of stigma. An example of such a representation can be seen in Figure 2.
Figure 2: Data exploration with grouped violin plots
Basic meta-analytic results can be found under “Analyses”. The output in Figure 3 shows that the 497 effect sizes come from 104 studies. The mean correlation is -0.39, which indicates a negative mean correlation. The higher the level of stigmatization, the worse the mental health. A forest plot and a cumulative forest plot are offered to graphically display the meta-analytic results. The interactive user interface also allows meta-regressions to be carried out with up to two moderator variables each.
For example, mean BMI or age of the sample could be examined as moderators of the correlation between stigma and mental health. However, the user should always keep in mind that the results of meta-regression do not necessarily indicate a causal relationship. Furthermore, the output does not provide sufficient information about the role of possible additional influencing factors or about the statistical significance of the meta-regression. Especially for moderator analyses, the statistical power is often not satisfactory, even in meta-analyses (Hedges & Pigott, 2004).
Figure 3: Results of the meta-analysis
Figure 4 shows one of the outputs for assessing possible publication bias. This means that the probability that study results will be published may be related to the size and significance of the effects. This figure is a so-called contour-enhanced funnel plot. A classic funnel plot, the results of an Egger test (Egger et al., 1997), and a p-curve (Simonsohn et al., 2014) are also available in this context to give the user the opportunity to evaluate the evidence and assess the potential bias of a meta-analysis using different tools. In the meta-analysis on stigmatization, the Egger test detects an asymmetry in the forest plot. The few results from small studies do not show any significant effects, as would be expected in the case of publication bias. Among large studies, the vast majority show a significant negative association between stigma and mental health.
Figure 4: Contour-enhanced funnel plot for assessing publication bias
Finally, a study planning tool allows conducting a prospective power analysis for a potential new study on the research questions of the selected meta-analysis. The meta-analytic estimate is assumed to be the true underlying effect size. The sample size and desired significance level are selected by the user. The tool calculates the expected power of the prospective study as well as a necessary sample size to achieve sufficient statistical power and can therefore serve as a guide when planning new studies. For our example, this is shown in Figure 5.
It can be seen that a study with 50 participants would find a significant effect with a probability of 37.6% at a regular significance level of 5%. To achieve 80% power, a sample size of n=143 would be required. Therefore, despite the relatively strong correlation and robustness of the results, a small study would probably not even find an overall effect. This further highlights the need to accumulate evidence.
Figure 5: Study planning tool for power estimation of a prospective study
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Limitations and perspectives
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PsychOpen CAMA provides the psychological research community with a platform to collaboratively expand and freely use meta-analytic data. However, the data held can only be kept up to date if the research community actually uses and actively shapes the platform, either by adding new evidence to existing meta-analyses or by sharing completely new meta-analytic data sets. The main question here is how willingness to cooperate can be encouraged or rewarded.
The constant expansion of the database leads to another challenge, namely the automation and optimization of work processes. Up to now, the expansion, implementation and long-term maintenance of data has been carried out manually and involves a lot of work. It is therefore important to further automate the extensions and maintenance of the system. One approach is possible synergies with other ZPID resources that can be linked to CAMA. For example, self-submission of data in the PsychArchives repository ( https://www.psycharchives.org/ ) could be optimized by having specific metadata fields recorded in a standardized manner by the data provider.
In summary, PsychOpen CAMA has the potential to bundle up-to-date research results in times of constantly growing information. The proposed system can also be used as a blueprint for other empirical sciences and can be flexibly adapted thanks to the technical architecture.
literature
American Psychological Association (2020). Publication manual of the American psychological association. Washington DC: American Psychological Association.
Bastian, H., Glasziou, P., & Chalmers, I. (2010). Seventy-five trials and eleven systematic reviews a day: How will we ever keep up? PLoS Medicine, 7(9). https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.1000326
Bosco, F., Steel, P., Oswald, F., Uggerslev, K., & Field, J. (2015). Cloud-based Meta-analysis to Bridge Science and Practice: Welcome to metaBUS. Personnel Assessment and Decisions, 1(1). https://doi.org/10.25035/pad.2015.002
Bosco, FA, Field, JG, Larsen, KR, Chang, Y., & Uggerslev, KL (2019). Advancing Meta-Analysis With Knowledge-Management Platforms: Using metaBUS in Psychology. Advances in Methods and Practices in Psychological Science, 251524591988269. https://doi.org/10.1177/2515245919882693
Créquit, P., Trinquart, L., Yavchitz, A., & Ravaud, P. (2016). Wasted research when systematic reviews fail to provide a complete and up-to-date evidence synthesis: The example of lung cancer. BMC Medicine, 14(1). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12916-016-0555-0
Clarke, M., Brice, A., & Chalmers, I. (2014). Accumulating research: A systematic account of how cumulative meta-analyses would have provided knowledge, improved health, reduced harm and saved resources. PLoS ONE, 9(7), 1-6. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0102670
Cooper, H. (2020). Reporting research syntheses and meta-analyses. In Reporting Quantitative Research in Psychology: How to Meet APA Style Journal Article Reporting Standards, Second Edition, Revised, 2020 Copyright (REV-Revised, pp. 161-182). American Psychological Association. http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv1chrswc.11
Egger, M., Smith, GD, Schneider, M., Minder, C. (1997). Bias in meta-analysis detected by a simple, graphical test BMJ; 315:629 doi:10.1136/bmj.315.7109.629
Elliott, JH, Synnot, A., Turner, T., Simmonds, M., Akl, EA, McDonald, S., Salanti, G., Meerpohl, J., MacLehose, H., Hilton, J., Tovey, D., Shemilt, I., Thomas, J., Agoritsas, T., Perron, C., Akl, E., Hodder, R., Pestridge, C., Albrecht, L., … Pearson, L. (2017 ). Living systematic review: 1. Introduction—the why, what, when, and how. Journal of Clinical Epidemiology, 91, 23–30. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclinepi.2017.08.010
Emmer, C., Bosnjak, M., & Mata, J. (2020). The association between weight stigma and mental health: A meta-analysis. Obesity reviews: an official journal of the International Association for the Study of Obesity, 21(1), e12935. https://doi.org/10.1111/obr.12935
Glöckner, A., Fiedler, S., & Renkewitz, F. (2018). Resilient and efficient science. Psychological Review, 69(1), 22-36. https://doi.org/10.1026/0033-3042/a000384
Haddaway, N.R. (2018). Open Synthesis: On the need for evidence synthesis to embrace Open Science. Environmental Evidence, 7(1), 4–8. https://doi.org/10.1186/s13750-018-0140-4
Hedges, L.V., & Pigott, T.D. (2004). The power of statistical tests for moderators in meta-analysis. Psychological methods, 9(4), 426–445. https://doi.org/10.1037/1082-989X.9.4.426
Lakens, D., Hilgard, J., & Staaks, J. (2016). On the reproducibility of meta-analyses: Six practical recommendations. BMC Psychology, 4(1), 1–10. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40359-016-0126-3
Page MJ, McKenzie JE, Bossuyt PM, Boutron I, Hoffmann TC, Mulrow CD, et al. (2021) The PRISMA 2020 statement: an updated guideline for reporting systematic reviews. BMJ, 372:n71. doi: 10.1136/bmj.n71
Shojania, KG, Sampson, M., Ansari, MT, Ji, J., Doucette, S., & Moher, D. (2007). How quickly do systematic reviews go out of date? A survival analysis. Annals of Internal Medicine, 147(4), 224-233. https://doi.org/10.7326/0003-4819-147-4-200708210-00179
Simonsohn, U., Nelson, L.D., & Simmons, J.P. (2014). p-Curve and Effect Size: Correcting for Publication Bias Using Only Significant Results. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 9(6), 666–681. https://doi.org/10.1177/1745691614553988
Tsuji, S., Bergmann, C., & Cristia, A. (2014). Community-Augmented Meta-Analyses: Toward Cumulative Data Assessment. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 9(6), 661–665. https://doi.org/10.1177/1745691614552498
Tsuji, S., Bergmann, C., Lewis, M., Braginsky, M., Piccinini, P., Frank, MC, & Cristia, A. (2017). Meta Lab: A repository for meta-analyses on language development, and more. Proceedings of the Annual Conference of the International Speech Communication Association, INTERSPEECH, 2017-August, 2038-2039. https://doi.org/10.21437/Interspeech.2017-2053
Wilkinson, MD, Dumontier, M., Aalbersberg, Ij. J., Appleton, G., Axton, M., Baak, A., Blomberg, N., Boiten, JW, da Silva Santos, LB, Bourne, PE, Bouwman, J., Brookes, AJ, Clark, T. , Crosas, M., Dillo, I., Dumon, O., Edmunds, S., Evelo, CT, Finkers, R., … Mons, B. (2016). Comment: The FAIR Guiding Principles for scientific data management and stewardship. Scientific Data, 3(March). https://doi.org/10.1038/sdata.2016.18
FinTechs
Yapily Acquires finAPI from Schufa
(BIIA) Yapily announces it has signed an agreement with SCHUFA to acquire finAPI, the leading provider of open banking solutions in Germany.The deal is set to make Yapily the largest open banking payments platform in Europe; over the last 12 months, the fintechs have enabled customers to process a combined total of $39.5 billion in payment volumes and connect to more than 1 million monthly active data users. The acquisition will double Yapily’s customer base, adding well-established finAPI customers to its roster, including over 50 large enterprise firms in the financial, insurance, and IT industries.
As a result of the acquisition, Yapily will have a clear leadership position in two of Europe’s largest markets: the UK and Germany. In addition to its existing coverage of 16 European countries, Yapily will enter new territories including Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Hungary, broadening its geographic footprint and accelerating the roll-out of open
banking to millions of people and businesses across Europe.
finAPI customers will benefit from new opportunities for business growth, gaining access to pan-European markets through greater coverage and resources. The combined offering will also bring a number of finAPI solutions to the table for new and existing Yapily customers, including Identity and Age Verification and legally compliant KYC checks, and Digital Account Checks that can be used for automated credit scoring.
SCHUFA, Germany’s leading credit bureau, will continue to cooperate with finAPI, both in the use of products and services as well as further product development. SCHUFA, Germany’s leading credit bureau, will continue to cooperate with finAPI, both in the use of products and services as well as further product development.
Old Technologies
The Secret Life of Faxes
By Scott Wilson, Vice President, Sales & Services, eFax
Scott Wilson
Today, faxing is still a ubiquitous technology that powers many of the things we all rely on—from finance and insurance to buying a home to healthcare and forgetting the food on our table. This is according to the latest study from eFax, the cloud-based fax solution for businesses.
It’s likely that you currently work in an office with people who have no idea what a fax machine is or why faxing has been the most efficient and effective way to communicate for so long. It will come as a surprise to many that faxing is still very common, just not in the way traditionally imagined.
At the end of 2021, eFax surveyed 1,001 senior IT employees and decision makers in large companies, small and medium-sized businesses (SMEs) and the public sector. Key findings included:
- Just over a third of us send and receive secure documents every day, and another 34 percent do so three to four times a week
- 22 percent of respondents said they send and receive secure documents at least weekly
- 54 percent of respondents had between 6 and 50 users; a fifth said there were 51 or more users in their organization.
- Over 37 percent of respondents expect fax usage to increase, with 28 percent saying there would be no change, while only 35 percent believe they are facing a decline.
- 64 percent said the number of secure documents received had not changed or had even increased.
- 45 percent send and receive confidential documents via password-protected email, and 43 percent said they use email encrypted software
- 35 percent of respondents use cloud-based fax systems, while 31 percent use a mix of cloud and traditional faxing, and 15 percent of our respondents remained loyal to the traditional fax machine.
- 68 percent believe that faxes will not be obsolete in five years.
What documents do users think are suitable for faxing?
Contracts 56%
Rental contracts 44%
Corporate accounts 31%
Commercially confidential documents 28%
Documents with bank details 26%
Patient records 24%
Documents containing personal data 19%
41 percent see security as the biggest driver for the continued use of faxes, followed by cost efficiency at 36 percent, GDPR compliance at 34 percent and the increasing importance of cloud storage at 23 percent
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