Business Online Collaboration Dichotomy

The goal of creating a collaborative enterprise might seem like an essential requirement that all forward-looking business leaders would actively support. However, fear of the unknown sometimes makes intelligent people react in ways that, in hindsight, appear totally illogical.

A case in point, Cisco announced results of a global study that found that while 77 percent of IT decision makers surveyed plan to increase spending on internal collaboration tools, company employees believe that their ability to collaborate is constrained by their own employer policies.

That said, more than a quarter of those who work at organizations that prohibit the use of social media applications admitted to changing the settings on their corporate devices to gain online access -- claiming they "need the tools to get the job done."

This new insight was attained by investigating practices at medium to large enterprises -- those with more than 250 employees. The study, conducted by InsightExpress, surveyed 2,023 corporate end-users and 1,011 Information Technology Decision Makers (ITDMs) from 10 countries.

Progressive Use of Online Collaboration Tools
The research found that ITDMs around the world recognize the importance of collaboration tools to the future success of their business, with India and China being the most progressive in adopting the technology.

Consequently, many ITDM respondents said that they are planning to increase their spending on collaboration technologies over the next year, identifying video conferencing, Web conferencing and IP telephony as primary areas of investment.

• Globally, 96 percent ITDMs and end users recognize that collaboration tools have a role to play in the future success of their business.
• Of those surveyed, 77 percent of ITDMs expect investment in collaboration tools to increase between now and October, and 56 percent expect their spending on collaboration tools to increase by 10 percent or more.
• Productivity and efficiency were identified by both end users and ITDMs as the primary benefits of increased collaboration -- with 69 percent of end users regularly using advanced collaboration tools, such as video and Web conferencing, to help them complete tasks at work more efficiently.
  

Why Employees Defy the Policy Restrictions
Employees identified a variety of frustrations with devices and applications at work. These include restrictions set by IT managers on the types of collaboration technologies that can be used at the workplace, a lack of integration among the applications, non-compatible formats (video, data, voice), and the limited number of collaboration tools at their disposal.

• Slightly more than half (52 percent) of organizations prohibit the use of social media applications or similar collaboration tools at work.
• Half (50 percent) of the end users admit to ignoring company policy prohibiting use of social media tools at least once a week, and 27 percent admit to changing the settings on corporate devices to get access to prohibited applications.
  

The study also highlights how end users are clearly motivated by the benefits gained from increased collaboration, but also identifies a need for some enterprises to adapt their corporate processes and organizational culture.

• When asked to identify how collaboration benefits them, 45 percent of the end users pointed to improved productivity and efficiency, 40 percent noted they receive assistance in solving work-related problems, and 31 percent enjoyed accelerated decision making.
• Ease of use (58 percent), the ability to communicate anywhere and at any time (45 percent), and features and functionality (37 percent) are the three most desired attributes of a device or application.
• End users believe that elements of corporate culture can inhibit their ability to collaborate successfully: 46 percent feel that all decisions are made by people at the top of their organization, and 39 percent say colleagues are not willing to share information when it does not benefit their own business unit.
  

The research is the second of a two-part series that Cisco has commissioned to explore the impact of social networking and collaboration in the enterprise. Cisco previously shared findings that explored how organizations use consumer social networking tools to collaborate externally.

Better Way for SMBs to Collaborate Online

Do you know, is there a better way for businesses to meet online, present projects, and share calendars and ideas anytime, from anywhere? Are you ready to share your experience?

Small- and medium-sized business owners can compete for a chance to win up to $2,000 in a reward card and a free consultation with marketing expert Guy Kawasaki -- by entering The Better Way Challenge.

The challenge, a video contest presented by Verizon and Cisco, is designed to encourage businesses to use new collaborative tools to maintain their competitive edge in a fast-changing environment.

"Innovation and technology will power us out of this recession," said Kawasaki. "The Better Way Challenge enables entrepreneurs to share their victories and defeats, tips and tricks, joys and pains of running a business. Online collaboration and social media can generate business, and these videos will accelerate the learning process for entrepreneurs and business owners."

Entering the Contest is Easy
Just submit a video of less than three minutes that describes "the most challenging part of getting your whole team on the same page."

Contest participants must either be subscribers to the Verizon Collaboration Center, located at the Verizon Small Business Center, or they may sign up for a free 30-day trial. Entrants whose videos are accepted for judging in the contest will also receive additional free six-month subscriptions.

In addition, any business that signs up for the free 30-day trial subscription will automatically be entered into a monthly drawing for a chance to win a Flip Mino HD Camcorder. As many as 90 camcorders will be given away during the six-month promotion.

Profiling Advanced Collaboration in Action
A panel of judges will select three contest finalists, based on the originality and relevance of their videos. The grand-prize winner will receive their free consultation with Kawasaki via Cisco TelePresence.

The second-and third-prize winners will each receive a reward card for $1,000 and one-on-one consultations with industry experts from the Cisco Internet Business Solutions Group -- which designs innovative processes and strategic plans for businesses.

All three consultations will be tailored to the specific business needs of the winners and focus on ways in which collaboration and online resources can make their businesses more efficient and competitive.

Monte Beck, Verizon's vice president for small-business product strategy, said, "Small businesses need a lot more than e-mail and Internet access to stay competitive. They need to move fast and utilize tools like the Verizon Collaboration Center that can help them grow their businesses, run them more efficiently and, reduce the cost of doing business."

The Verizon Collaboration Center, powered by Cisco WebEx, offers voice and Web conferencing. It enables users to instantly and effectively collaborate with colleagues, clients and vendors in a virtual environment that is accessible from any web browser.

Revelations from Online Collaboration Adopters

Cisco conducted one of the first comprehensive studies of the factors associated with successful adoption of network-based collaboration solutions. You can use the study results to maximize your return on investment from today's online collaboration tools.

One way is to implement business practices shown to lead to more enthusiastic collaboration. Another is to identify and then actively support the employees who are most likely to benefit.

Twenty First Century Collaboration
Collaboration is a process that brings people and information together to accomplish a common goal. What's new today is that in a connected world, people no longer have to be in the same location, time zone, or culture to collaborate.

Tools such as videoconferencing (or TelePresence) and web sharing enable real-time collaboration across distance. Blogs, wikis, and shared workspaces enable online collaboration across time boundaries.

Cisco conducted the first formal segmentation study of collaboration tool users. Their objective was to understand how workers choose to collaborate, which tools they use, and how they believe those tools positively affect productivity, innovation, and cost savings.

Study participant collaboration habits and attitudes placed them into one of four segments: Collaboration Enthusiasts, Comfortable Collaborators, Reluctant Collaborators, and Collaboration Laggards.

Lessons Learned and Best Practices
The results from the Cisco collaboration segmentation study suggest that organizations experience the greatest productivity benefits from collaboration when they:

• Recognize that personal attitudes and organizational culture regarding collaboration are as important as collaboration tools.
• Begin by introducing collaboration tools to people and groups meeting the characteristics of Enthusiasts and Comfortable Collaborators. These people tend to be managers or supervisors, have held their job position for 3 to 10 years, and are already using Web 2.0 tools at home.
• Encourage executives to model the desired collaboration practices.
• Reward collaboration by including it in performance reviews, offering rewards for successful outcomes, or both.
• Implement formal collaboration processes. Provide the tools, IT support, and training needed to foster increased collaboration.
  

The survey studied 800 people in a wide variety of U.S. medium-sized and enterprise organizations who: spend at least 20 percent of time at work using a network-connected computer; use a mobile phone or handheld device; and participated in two collaborative activities within the past month.

Enabling the Early-Adopters to Thrive
The researchers conducted a segmentation analysis, separating individuals into distinct groups based on a large set of attitudinal and behavioral variables. Previous knowledge of collaboration habits did not include the personal or cultural factors that influence success.

Do you proactively nurture a culture of collaboration in your organization? What obstacles did you have to overcome before your employees could fully utilize the latest online productivity tools?

Collaboration as a Service Gains Momentum

Human talent fuels the business model creativity and process execution that drives today's leading enterprise innovations -- the ones that every executive truly wants to emulate. That's why savvy managers will always choose to hire the best talent -- regardless of where those key people may reside.

The common obstacle, of course, is finding both productive and cost effective ways to regularly bring together a geographically distributed talent pool. Online collaboration is one approach many business leaders will consider.

The growth of globally disbursed teams demands that online collaboration tools are flexible, scalable and easy to deploy. Moreover, project-centric teams often can't predict the "when and where" they’ll need to reunite their subject matter experts for an impromptu task.

IT managers are increasingly being told to move from a rigid just-in-case technology investment model to a much more agile just-in-time methodology. So, what's fueling that new momentum?

More Haste, Less Waste
The current economic realities require business leaders to be able to move to action quickly -- it's all about increased haste, but absolutely no waste. It's a challenging environment, for sure.

Managed or hosted collaboration solutions are proven to be a perfect fit for these types of scenarios. How do you plan to incorporate these new services? Consider adding Collaboration as a Service (CaaS) to your company's internal IT service portfolio.

CaaS is a subscription based service that can provide your organization with reliable and secure on-demand collaboration solutions -- all at a predictable and affordable price.

According to a recent Nemertes Research market study, more enterprises are turning to Managed Services Providers (MSPs) to reduce implementation and operational costs of their collaboration applications.

Demand for Rich-Media Collaboration
Adoption has grown from 27% to 63% of study participants from 2006 to 2008, with management of collaboration applications -- especially rich-media services -- as a key driver for growth. For example, 33% initially utilize VoIP solutions, as demand for real-time, rich-media collaboration applications continues to grow.

New platforms have emerged for managed service providers. Cisco unveiled a new software-as-a-service (SaaS) architecture and enhancements to its SaaS-based collaborative applications.

"Adoption of SaaS and cloud services represent a growing share of finite and expensive WAN bandwidth," said Abner Germanow, director at IDC. "Until recently, SaaS and cloud services were delivered on a best effort basis that will not be good enough to meet the business criticality, performance, and video service demands facing future waves of SaaS and cloud service maturity."

Four High-Tech Steps SMBs Should Consider Now

The fiscal fourth quarter has just started. But now is the time for small businesses owners and mid-size business managers to start looking ahead to 2009.

"Cost cutting" is a popular topic during today's uncertain economic times. You can hide in fear and close your wallet. Or you can take these four steps to gain more predictable operating costs -- while driving your business forward.

1. Move to a managed services contract: If you're using an IT consulting firm or solutions provider to maintain your network and PC infrastructure, ask them about so-called "managed services." Many consulting firms now offer flat monthly fees to maintain, protect and optimize business desktops, servers, network infrastructure and applications.

This flat-rate approach will eliminate those "surprise" emergency IT repairs that can throw off your company's monthly budget or hinder cash flow.

If you're not familiar with the managed services, here are some key questions you should ask as you seek information about the industry.

2. Rethink business travel: Notice I'm not suggesting that you eliminate business travel. Face-to-face engagements are still important when meeting new clientele or pitching new business.

But for established business relationships, consider transitioning your face-to-face meetings to the virtual world -- especially if you need to communicate on a global scale. Convene online meetings using WebEx, unified communications and other tools that drive rich discussions. Make sure your business's web site includes a simple instruction page to help all of your employees -- and your customers -- get started with these collaboration tools.

And lead by example: Your top executives should be hosting the collaborative gatherings from time to time.

3. Find Your TelePresence: Conventional wisdom says TelePresence -- a rich, comprehensive video conferencing technology -- is too expensive for small businesses. But that's a misnomer.

For about the price of a one-week business trip, it's now possible to deploy a personal TelePresence system in a central office or a branch office. (In fact, the concept of Personal TelePresence dates back to at least 1994.) Each time a TelePresence system eliminates a business trip, you're essentially pay your company a dividend or freeing up cash for marketing, sales, research and development -- or other revenue-lifting activities.

4. Head for Home: If you still offer company cars to some employees, it might be wiser to invest those corporate dollars in your employees' home offices. Your company will spend less dollars on rising energy costs; employees will eliminate commute times and related expenses; and at home TelePresence and collaboration tools will make staff members far more productive.

I'm not suggesting that you eliminate company cars for your road warriors, top revenue producers and field service experts. But take a look at the numbers -- and ask your employees -- to see if they'd prefer to reduce their travel expenses in return for at-home TelePresence.

Some pundits think that at-home TelePresence won't gain momentum until 2010 or so. I disagree. I think leading-edge users are already making the move. I'll be looking for an in-home TelePresence system myself in the first half of 2009.

You have nearly 10 months of operating expenses to review from 2008. Take a close look to determine how your company is spending its travel dollars. Then, shift a portion of those dollars to collaborative tools.

Your company will gain improved productivity -- while earning a financial dividend -- every month in 2009.