Collaboration in business is essential for survival,
writes Michael Pincher, information systems and facilities manager
at Cross London Rail Links.
My co-blogger Ian White wanted to call our new Computer Weekly
blog "collaborate or die", but after some deliberation we decided
to go for something slightly less alarmist.
Getting employees to work together in a joint intellectual
effort is achieved nowadays by using tools that allow teams to
share information dynamically between one another to boost
performance and productivity.
Collaboration in practice
Two good examples of successful collaboration come from a
multinational. Firstly its cosmetics range was lacking a lip
moisturiser. By enabling collaboration between different business
units its food division, experts at mixing oil and water, hardened
up one of its spreadable products to make the much needed lip
salve.
At the same time, the company's finance director linked up with
his divisional colleagues around the world and rolled up all the
petty cash they held locally to trade it on the overnight money
market, making a sweet profit out of the otherwise idle resource.
That is milking the cash cow, showing that collaboration is for
profit, not just for cost.
However, inter-enterprise business process integration can have
its downsides. Another definition of collaboration is co-operation
with an enemy - a case in point for the need for good security in a
collaborative business environment.
The sales pitch
The providers of collaboration tools bandy about buzzwords such
as empowering people, easing communications and boosting
productivity.
Increasingly, "green" business drivers, such as reducing travel
costs, are introduced to add weight to the return on investment
argument for buying products that are by no means trivial to
implement.
If collaboration is the process of people interacting to learn
from one another to get better at what they are doing, then Pincher
and White's Collaboration Technology 2.0 blog has been set up to
examine the secrets of succeeding in a collaborative world and look
past the press releases and supplier hype.
A desire to share
With people's growing desire to share stuff and be heard and
with boundaries of work and play blurring by the day, we will
highlight opportunities, link to benefits and tag dead-ends to help
you make sense of this whirlwind of change.
With 40 man-years of working with collaboration software
technology between us, we will be provoking the key players in this
arena to share their experience, insight and knowledge for the
benefit of all.
As collaboration is the ability of groups to seek systems that
reach beyond what any one of them could accomplish on their own,
the two of us hope that you will join us by contributing to the
debate.
Michael Pincher &
Ian White's Collaboration Technology blog >>
Computer Weekly
blogs >>