 "Collaboration Technologies Riding High On IP-Based Networks")
Kaustubh Dhavse, deputy director, ICT Practice, Frost & Sullivan, shares interesting insights with Biztech2.0 on the current collaboration technology trends within enterprises.
What are the main factors that are driving the collaboration need within enterprises?
Companies today work in a global environment wherein due to drivers such as outsourcing and skills arbitrage, they often have a workforce, which is spread across the globe. In such an environment, collaboration becomes imperative. By collaboration, I essentially mean people coming together to achieve a common objective in order to get the task done.
Previously, organisations believed in a philosophy that if you want to work in an environment where teams are involved, they need to be physically present in the same location. However, that is not the case anymore in this truly global era. In this complex business environment, it is important for organisations to inculcate a culture of collaboration among employees.
If you are giving opportunities to employees to work with diverse sets of people and if you are not empowering them with the necessary tools, then basically you are not equipping them well enough to achieve objectives. The key goal today for organisations should be to empower their employees so that they can contribute effectively.
What are the infrastructural needs as far as adoption of collaboration technologies is concerned?
While talking about collaboration, one of the predominant factors is that the network architecture has to be integrated. Organisations with a global footprint, often boast of a mobile workforce equipped with mobile devices. A single network architecture is needed to integrate these different devices and systems. I am referring here to an IP-based environment, which then becomes the fundamental building block for such collaboration technologies. This kind of environment is not indispensable for organisations wishing to tread the collaboration path; however, it is becoming essential because the kind of collaboration technologies we are talking about these days, more often than not ride on the IP platform.
Which collaboration technologies are gaining traction?
If you talk about specific applications then conferencing is one of the most promising technologies. Web conferencing is one of the most highly penetrated collaborative tools among all the applications, which are available today. In our assessment of SaaS, we found that this particular application stood out amongst all the others when compared directly.
e-Mail, IM, Web conferencing, audio/video conferencing and Presence are some of the leading collaboration technologies available in the market today. All of these may not be required by an organisation so I would leave it to the good judgement of the IT managers to select the appropriate ones.
What kind of potential do you see for collaboration technologies among SMEs?
There is a great amount of potential in this specific segment, their needs are slightly different and at the same time their aspirations are high. When SMBs start realising a high growth rate, the biggest challenge they face is the ability to scale. In this scenario, any technology, which helps them to do that becomes an elixir for them.
In case of SMEs, collaboration is generally enabled as a service because they don’t want to be Capex heavy and require a model, which allows them to move from Capex to Opex. SaaS is generally the preferred medium on which many applications ride.
What are some of the major issues with adoption of collaboration technologies?
Collaboration brings about a lot of cultural changes in the organisation. I think the ethos of the organisation is the predominant factor for the success or failure of any IT implementation and collaboration is no different. If there is a corporate will and if employees have the freedom to learn and adopt a specific technology in a specific time frame rather than it being thrust upon them, then any technology can succeed. You need a comprehensive training programme to deal with such issues.
Vendor selection is also a crucial challenge. When one is considering a specific technology, several parameters have to be kept in mind while selecting vendors. The criteria mainly includes brand strength of the organisation, R&D capabilities of the vendor, support strength etc. According to their requirements, enterprises also need to check whether the vendor provides integrated or specialised solutions.
What kind of future trends do you see in this space?
The organisations of the future are going to be architecturally connected with each other. Within organisations, the technology pieces are going to be connected with each other to derive maximum benefits. Organisations of future are going to live and thrive on knowledge. Knowledge workers are going to be constantly interacting and communication would never be a hindrance. When I say communication would never be a hindrance, it means that companies would need to create those kind of platforms.
The organisation of the future is going to look like this –it will value knowledge, will allow employees to connect with each other and at the same time will create a platform so that employees don’t merely communicate but collaborate.