Collaboration may be the hottest trend to hit the enterprise this year. But what makes it so hot? Why now?

According to "Benchmarking Your Collaboration Strategy,"
a new report from Forrester Research, two key trends make collaboration important to the enterprise right now:

The amount of content that people produce is morphing, especially as the advent of social computing becomes more commonplace.


Second, inefficiencies are swamping the enterprise with need to create collaborative strategies that provide a a more structured approach in how information is managed.

Four Key Factors

Innovation: The poor economy is playing as an important factor in how companies view the ways they develop products. Management is looking for more efficient and creative ways to innovate. And they are looking to Web 2.0 technologies for answers. According to Forrester, discussion forums and idea management tools are the top two Web 2.0 technologies being considered and piloted by IT decision-makers this year.

Efficiency: Information workers are high paid, valuable members of the enterprise. But they have a hard time finding information to get their job done with 83% saying they waste time searching for information vital to their work projects. There is growing importance for tools that provide the ability to better find information and connect more easily with co-workers who can provide expertise to solve problems and drive efficiencies.

Email Woes: A huge need is emerging for better ways to reuse information that normally would be lost in email communication. Email is used to share information but it only goes so far as the people in the email chain. Once in the chain, it's locked away. Changing email behavior is no easy task but collaboration technologies hold promise for more information to be shared throughout the enterprise.

Governance: Managing business information is becoming a legal necessity. Communications is becoming so widespread that it is becoming difficult to track. According to Forrester, only 20% report that they're very confident that if challenged, they could demonstrate that their digital information is accurate, trustworthy, and accessible.

Benchmarking For Success

Forrester's report is designed to provide a framework for building a collaborative practice in the enterprise. Senor level executives came to understand in 2009 the need for better collaboration. In 2010, we expect structured formats like what Forrester proposes will be increasingly important for successful implementation of collabortion technologies in the enterprise.

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