On Demand Collaboration:
In the new global economy, a company’s competitive edge is intrinsically tied to the ability to quickly collaborate with co-workers, partners and customers.
This is certainly evidenced in a recent survey in which the majority of respondents confirm that on-demand collaborative tools can accelerate business processes and help knowledge workers work better, faster and cheaper.
“This is why collaboration tools have become an integral part of day-to-day interactions between employees, partners and even customers,” says David Knight, vice president at WebEx. “And it’s not just about auto-mating obvious applications like IT support.” Rather, savvy CIOs are opening communications lines in core business processes—like sales and product development—to deliver top- and bottom-line value.
IDG Research Services recently queried 144 CIO Magazine subscribers to gain insight into how and why collaboration technology is creating competitive advantage. This summary report explores different market trends with commentary from key respondents as well as WebEx’s Knight, an industry expert. The survey’s key findings include:
- The most innovative companies are leveraging collaboration technology to accelerate business processes inside and outside the firewall.
- Supporting knowledge workers and interacting with external audiences is highly important to the majority of respondents.
- Companies using on-demand software are indisputably experiencing its many benefits.
APPLICATIONS ABOUND
Business communication has reached new levels in complexity. Team dynamics have evolved from localized groups in one building into dispersed groups—both inside and outside the four walls of the business. But the need to interact on a moment’s notice remains a constant. As a result, collaboration software has emerged as a key component in today’s arsenal of communications tools.
Fluor Corporation, for example, uses a variety of collaboration technologies to support its global workforce and project execution requirements. John McQuary, vice president of Knowledge Management and Technology Strategies at Fluor, says the company engages the entire project team, including the home office, site personnel, clients, vendors, fabricators and suppliers to communicate and collaborate, regardless of team members’ locations.
Indeed, collaboration applications abound. One might simply consider traditional interactions to appreciate its role—business trips, conference calls, and service visits that can now be accomplished faster and more cost-effectively through virtual collaboration.
IDG survey respondents concur, indicating that collaborative tools are currently being used for a host of applications. Remote IT support is the number one use cited (at 75 percent). “The traditional phone-based approach to IT support centers around users describing a problem and the service rep providing a diagnosis based on that input,” says Knight. “But hands-on access represents an infinitely better way of getting that job done.” That’s probably why this application is at the top of respondents’ lists.
Other fairly common use scenarios include online training (66 percent), online meetings (65 percent), por-tals (61 percent), instant messaging (59 percent), and online webinars/events (57 percent).
Respondents indicate that usage over the next 12months will focus on the same applications, but with varying ranks of priority. In the near future, for exam-ple, portal applications will top the charts for 48 per-cent of respondents. “Portals are collaborative ‘team spaces’ that are being used in a variety of ways to fa-cilitate the interactions associated with business processes,” says Knight. One popular example is a sales portal, commonly used for negotiations and planning with customers.
COLLABORATION ACROSS BUSINESS PROCESSES
One of the most significant trends in the collaboration space demonstrates clear innovation: facilitating interactions that accelerate the development, sales and delivery of products and services. The most innovative companies—which is how four out of 10 respondents’ describe their companies—have made the leap from using collaboration technology for individual improve-ment to using it for business process acceleration.
“These innovative CIOs look at collaboration from a different perspective,” explains Knight. Instead of considering one-off meeting or training requirements, they’re asking one very important question: How are people working, and how can technology support that process?
For example, Knight says, to improve the sales process, it is important to facilitate the complex interactions between sales teams and their prospects. This may involve product demonstrations, negotiations and imple-mentation planning. “CIOs who have figured out how to enhance and expedite that interaction are achieving a compelling advantage,” he says.
