In these times when inc­reasing number of professi­onals want to use their iPh­one for work and when th­ey need work applications at ho­me, investment by IT firms to­wards collaborative tools such as video conferencing, Web conferencing, instant messaging, blogs and internet protocol telephony is set to increase. Basically these collaborative tec­hnologies are used when emplo­yees from different business un­its work tog­ether on a common task.

Analysts estimate the collaboration market to be a $ 34 billi­on opportunity worldwide.

According to Collaboration Nation study by Insight Ex­pre­ss, a digital marketing res­earch firm headquartered in St­am­ford, 77 per cent of the IT decision makers (ITDM) su­rveyed plan to increase their sp­end on collaboration tools this year.

This study was commissio­ned by Cisco to explore the impact of social networking and collaboration in the enterprise.

The research found that In­dia and China are most progressive in adopting collaborative te­chnologies. Globally, 96 per cent of ITDMs and end users feel th­at collaboration tools have a role to play in the future success of their business. Further, 69 per cent of end users regularly use advanced collaboration tools such as video and web confere­ncing to help them complete ta­sks at work more efficiently.

Tim Stone, head of Collabor­ation Solutions Market­ing, Cis­co (Europe) said: “Network-bas­ed collaboration technologies help organisations increase the scale and capacity of their pro­cesses and develop new ways of doing business. Good collaborative information sharing and decision-making lead to better business results by reducing manufacturing costs, stimulating innovation, speeding time-to-market, improving product and service quality, and opening new business opportunities.”

According to end users, these tools help in improved productivity and efficiency. It also provides assistance in solving work-related problems besides helping in accelerated decision making process. Most importantly collaborative technologies provi­de advantages of communicati­ng anywhere and at any time. Further these collaboration tec­hnologies enable employees to participate actively in the management decisions and have a better understanding of the co­mpany’s requirements. Conseq­uently turnaround is faster and productivity increases.

Bhavin Turakhia Founder, CEO & chairman, Directi Gr­oup said: “Most companies that work collaboratively have grea­ter agility, make better decisions, and are more competitive. Web 2.0 tools are widely used by the management now to bring abo­ut collaboration among the staff across the organisation. Encou­raging employees to take part in online forums, blogs, networki­ng sites and employee participation in decision making and id­ea generation facilitates comm­unication through the hierarchy and promotes a sense of responsibility.”

However, according to Tura­khia collaborative technologies such enterprise wiki software by companies such as Atlassian, Brainkeeper and Socialtext are yet to be extensively used by the companies. Headquartered in Mumbai Directi develops mass-market web products including communication and collaboration applications, social networking software, instant messaging, anitspam and antivirus solutions.

Sanjay Manchanda, director, Microsoft Business Division said: “With the rise in volume of available information across industries and the increasing number of virtual teams, information workers need a way to identify the right information and connect to the right people at the right time.” The company offers a portal and content management solution that offers centralised access to knowledge through a variety of content aggregation and content surfacing capabilities.

Manchanda said: “Workers can access critical information sources and get the data they need. Con­sider the improvem­ents in productivity of your kn­owledge wo­rkers if they were empowered with customisable, self-service tools, helping them find who and what they need on the spot.”

Collaborative technologies enable virtualisation of worksp­ace where employees can access any information across locati­o­ns. It also helps in creating a central content repository wher­ein employees, partners and cu­stomers can have easy access to data. Rajeev Soni, GM India and West Asia, Aspect said: “Co­llaboration tools help in leveraging video and web conferencing tools to create virtual meetings to create, update, or review content in real time. The interesting thing about collaboration is no matter where it’s being applied, it can have immediate results. It can be applied to in­dividual productivity, work gro­up productivity, and communications-enabled business proc­esses and will yield benefits in each area.”