Stakeholders' Management and Collaboration: How to Devise an Effective Communication Strategy

I D C E X E C U T I V E B R I E F
A P r o f e s s i o n a l S e r v i c e s I n d u s t r y B r i e f
S t a k e h o l d e r s ' M a n a g e m e n t a n d C o l l a b o r a t i o n : H o w t o D e v i s e a n E f f e c t i v e C o m m u n i c a t i o n S t r a t e g y January 2008 m Angela Vacca oc.cdi. Sponsored by: Easynet w ww 00 Executive Overview 17.78 As business communication needs in professional services firms 98. become more complex, the development and implementation of 02.4 collaborative solutions becomes critical to realising strategic 4+. business objectives. The basic tenets of this collaborative leT environment must be: .K.U . Real-time access to all relevant information across the ,E organisational structure A4 4W . The optimisation of project management capabilities ,nodn . The allocation of the best resources for the most suitable oL , engagement at the right time daoR . Communication and collaboration across the organisation, no hgi matter how widely spread geographically that organisation is H kciw . s Access to a complete range of content and application ihC functionalities from any location, not just an office location 983 , . The real-time management of all stakeholders in a particular AE endeavour ME CDI An adaptive and flexible global network infrastructure is the fundamental capability necessary for the establishment of such a collaborative environment.
Situation Overview The level of technology adoption across the professional services industry varies dramatically, from IT consultancies making full use of advanced systems and applications to small law practices running on paper-based systems.
Yet replacing postal services with email and computerising customer records does not guarantee better quality, or even faster, collaboration between companies, customers and employees.
Implementing a truly collaborative environment requires several areas to be addressed and issues to be overcome. IDC surveyed professional services companies across Europe, and found that their top priorities in terms of business initiatives and ICT strategies included several aspects of collaboration.
Around a third of professional services CIOs say that intrinsically collaborative items such as the improvement of their ICT organization's responsiveness, the increased efficiency of their supply chain, and the enablement of an ever-mobile workforce are their leading business initiatives (Figure 1).
These initiatives underline the urgent need professional services companies have to develop effective collaborative applications, along with suitable underlying systems and networks.
2 ©2008 IDC
F i g u r e 1
Business Initiatives Leading the Strategy Agenda of Professional Services Companies Q. Which of the following business initiatives are leading your company's business strategy agenda for the next 12 months?
Regulatory complianceProductinnovation/developmentICT responsiveness 32.3%
Supply chain efficiency 30.7%
Mobile workforce 29.5%
Business perf monitoring
Marketing effectiveness
Efficient sourcing
Customer servicesBranch officeperformanceHuman resource mgmtSalesproductivity/performance0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% Number of valid respondents: 55 Source: IDC European Vertical Markets Survey, August 2006

Achieving the benefits of collaboration in the professional services industry is affected by several factors, including the following.
. Real-time interaction - Interacting with customers, partners and a range of stakeholders in real-time is now a basic requirement to retain competitive positioning in the professional services industry. Yet the growing number of stakeholders in a typical professional services project, their increasing geographic diversity, and the speed with which partnerships are formed and dissolved, all pose challenges to a collaboration system. As a consequence of this increasing complexity, it is imperative that CIOs keep on top of advances in technology and related services.
©2008 IDC 3 . Knowledge-intensive business - Knowledge sharing and knowledge management ... [download for more]