Enabling true collaboration

New forms of communication - mobile phones, emails, faxes and instant messaging - have created a patchwork of enterprise networking approaches that have only served to make business life more complex, and left employees struggling to manage their communication spaghetti.

The IT industry's response, says Masters, was the idea of unifying communication i.e. merging different forms of communication into one IP network that would help employees manage the onslaught and create a platform for collaboration and innovation. Savvy firms quickly realised the potential for real competitive advantage by sharing documents, video and presentations with colleagues and partners working across time zones, to create a longer working 'day'. Some organisations even decided to work with their competitors to deliver an innovation premium.

This premium, underpinned by lower costs and increased flexibility, is derived from access to rich new seams of expertise and knowledge, and based on technology that now allows companies to delegate substantial control to outsiders, in essence by outsourcing innovation to business partners that work together in networks. By distributing innovation through the value chain, companies may reduce their costs and usher new products to market faster by eliminating the bottlenecks that come with total control.

Masters suggests BT's recent demonstration with Cisco of 'telepresence' - what some might know better as 'videoconferencing' - systems offers a glimpse of the future. The use of high end equipment to deliver an immersive meeting experience is no longer restricted to a corporate network with assured bandwidth and security.

As organisations start to shift gears and move out of recession-survival mode to beating the competition again, the future is likely to be based on an 'open managed' approach that allows companies to share chosen collaborative applications. This will necessarily require an intelligent approach, because connecting more people doesn't necessarily increase power. And linking in to long-in-the-tooth legacy systems inevitably presents an ongoing integration challenge.

What this tells us about organisations working together, says Masters, is that modern IP convergence must add the benefits of collaboration to that of user convenience. If so, the subsequent innovation, the direct result of connecting more people and places together, is likely to be a key driver in helping nurture any green shoots of recovery. To learn more, please click on the Related Documents link to read Steve Masters full article, which details the benefits of true collaboration.