Collaboration Management

Collaboration has become a buzzword in the past two years. But businesses have been using tools to help workers collaborate for decades. From pure voice tools to unified messaging and high-end telepresence, the range of choices keeps increasing.

According to IDC, Hong Kong's collaborative application market is estimated to reach HK$106.69 million in 2008 and achieve a CAGR (compound annual growth rate) of 7.9 percent from 2008 to 2013. The research house added that the Asia Pacific market excluding Japan is expected to hit US$368.13 million in 2008 and reach a CAGR of 9.7 percent in the same period.

Hot picks in Hong Kong

Messaging applications, said Sheila Lam, senior market analyst at IDC Asia/Pacific, remain the most widely adopted collaboration software in Hong Kong. She noted that IDC's definition of messaging apps includes e-mail, instant messaging and unified messaging applications.

"It may not sound very exciting or edgy," said Lam. "But collaborative applications, by definition, are tools to enable information workers to work together by sharing information and processes. Therefore the value of these tools relies on their pervasiveness, regardless of company size or industry."

Among these apps, unified messaging is the most popular among business today because it integrates all means of pervasive and mature communication technologies, including e-mail, fax, and voice, Lam said, adding that these technologies have also been integrated as part of business processes.

But as technologies advance and business processes evolve, the popularity of collaborative tools changes accordingly, according to Lam, adding that CIOs shouldn't ignore other upcoming collaborative tools.

Videoconferencing is one of the examples. The tech first stole the limelight in 2003 when SARS hit Hong Kong. But the high cost of adoption prohibited video conferencing from going mainstream, Lam said.

As the technology and network infrastructure matures, video conferencing is now available at a more affordable price with higher stability, she noted. The cutback of business travel during the current economic recession is expected to raise popularity of video conferencing among enterprises, she added.

Enterprise 2.0

Web 2.0 or Enterprise 2.0 applications are also increasingly important.According to Aurora Aritao, product marketing manager, Unified Communications, Microsoft Hong Kong, knowledge portals, search technology and wikis are seeing rising popularity among businesses.

Different from consumer search tools, enterprise search allows employees to search for people, resources, and even help reveal hidden information,said Aritao. "For instance, when a region doesn't meet the expected revenue forecast, enterprise search tools can help managers dig out what could have led to this," she said.

Enterprise 2.0 tools allow businesses to see immediate feedback on issues and new ways to capture knowledge expressed via informal channels, said Aritao."Companies have realized for long that there's much knowledge to be gained from casual conversation in the hallway or in the pantry," she said. "But there were hardly any ways to find the source (of such knowledge). And they weren't archivable."

"Unlike what they did during casual face-to-face conversations in the past,people are more likely to cite their sources when leaving a note or comment on enterprise forums or wikis," Aritao added. "This helps record and archive knowledge."

Firms riding the enterprise 2.0 wave

At Towngas, employees began to share knowledge when the utility firm built a knowledge management platform in 2007.

According to Susanna Shen, head of information technology, Towngas, the firm takes a phase-by-phase approach in creating this platform. "By providing the KM platform and skills for our users to build some successful sites on their own, they gradually experienced the benefits[of using the platform]," she said.

The first portal built was the corporate emergency management system based on Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007. The CEMS portal provides a single view of all emergency information including up-to-date incident reports, emergency contacts, and detailed procedures and action checklists, according to Microsoft Hong Kong.

The system is enhanced with server-based document workflows, integrated with Towngas' enterprise portal, and configured to send alerts to staff via SMS, the software vendor added.

Today Towngas' KM platform contains discussion forums, different portals for professional development and knowledge sharing for training,project-related documents for Hong Kong and mainland offices, and corporate news, said Shen, adding that more than 1,500 users from both Hong Kong and China have authorized access to different types of information on the platform.

"This allows employees to share knowledge, facilitate communications, and also enable project teams to manage a wide range of documents including progress, legal information, and drawings," Shen noted. "[The collaborative platform] is especially important as many Hong Kong employees travel frequently to China for work--now they can view information and work together no matter where they are."

In the future, Shen will refine the structure of the KM platform to facilitate easy search, which is crucial as the knowledge base is growing.

Cisco is a user of Enterprise 2.0 systems. Besides an internal wiki introduced in 2008, the IT vendor also soft launched a platform for partners sharing knowledge late last year, according to Argon Ho,manager, marketing and channel operations, Cisco Hong Kong & Macau.

In this space, partners can place their company profiles and information about their major wins while customers can search information about them. Ho added that the platform also provide opportunities for partners to work with each other.

Some of the things that partners are already doing on the platform include virtual seminars and talent recruitment, Ho said.

But to make a KM platform more effective and useful, Shen stressed that education and disciplined management of the sites are crucial."Employees need to understand the purpose of a KM platform and that it isn't an intranet substitute," she said.

As no tech is perfect, Shen pointed out that the KM product Towngas deployed allows only simple workflow management and requires much customization effort to enable more sophisticated workflows. "The KM platform contains plenty of documents involving workflows. To enable a more efficient workflow management on the [KM] platform, we need to look for a third-party tool."

Social networking tools valuable?

Tools like enterprise wikis and knowledge portals are within a company's control, but widely used personal social networking tools such as Facebook and free IM aren't. On one hand, employers see the benefits of these communication tools. But on the other, they have concerns.

"Employers can block these tools, but I am concerned about security and confidential information leakage through them," said Ivan Tang, senior vice president, sales, CPCNet.

That said,Tang sees benefits brought by these social networking applications."Interaction via free IM is informal. In such a situation, customers are more likely to share what they think with our sales staff," said Tang. "Besides, IM allows a salesperson to contact more than one customer at the same time."

But he noted that CPCNet has no plans to embrace these tools formally. "At the moment, we have no plans to use things like forums or YouTube for promoting our products."

Towngas neither bans nor encourages their use at work, according to Shen. "To some extent these tools brings values," said Shen. "Marketing teams can make use of these for wider marketing reach and employees can have more instant communications with internal and external parties. But it's hard to detect over-use for personal purpose [which has an impact on productivity]."

The firm has a plan to standardize their Web 2.0 tools. According to Shen, Towngas is piloting online conferencing tools such as WebEx.

Cultural changes needed

Despite their benefits, collaboration tools see a certain level of resistance in Hong Kong because of a strong preference for face-to-face meetings,according to Chong Win Lee, general manager, Unified Communications and Contact Centers, Asia Pacific, Nortel.

"When doing full-fledged seminars, we still conduct them onsite as customers want to meet face-to-face," said Lee. "But that will gradually change.Think about five to 10 years ago--e-learning met more resistance. People today are more willing to give it a try."

Resistance also comes from the lack of readiness to share knowledge. "People in Hong Kong aren't used to sharing knowledge," said Tony Lee, Lotus brand manager, IBM Hong Kong Software Group, IBM China/Hong Kong. "People need training to understand the benefits of knowledge-sharing."

At IBM, there were innovation jam exercises that encouraged staff to share their ideas and opinions. "In each of these exercises facilitated by senior executives, staffers threw out ideas on a given topic within a certain timeframe. There were rewards for the best ideas," said Lee.

Another cultural change that needs to take place is management's perception of productivity and cost, said IBM's Lee.

He observed that managers in Hong Kong don't associate cost with employee productivity. "They don't care how many hours you put into a certain task," said Lee. "As long as you complete it, it's fine. They just don't see that if some tools can shorten the time spent on a task, they increase productivity and save costs."

Overlooked cost of deployment

One of the objectives of collaboration tools deployment is to save cost.But costs vary much depending on the types of tools adopted. According to Michael Yu, director, network services, Asia Pacific & Japan,HP, training cost isn't the first thing that comes to mind.

Risk mitigation is another overlooked cost. "When collaboration tools are used, businesses need to deploy security tools to protect their networks and infrastructure," said Yu.

There is also cost associated with over-collaboration, according to Lee from Nortel. "Collaboration tools make meetings between multiple parties a lot easier," he said. "Sometimes, people might over-organize and becomecounter-productive--becoming less responsive and missing business opportunities."

Ho from Cisco advised businesses to plan well to reduce overlooked costs. "When a piecemeal approach is adopted," he said, "it costs firms a lot when they need to integrate the different tools at a later stage."

Management driver

Today's younger top management is less resistant to collaboration tools, but they must take the lead to drive adoption.

Top management has a role to play in breaking the silos formed by different business units, said IBM's Lee.

"For instance, factories in different locations belonging to the same manufacturer might not be aware of best practices deployed by one among them," said Lee. "Top management can endorse that best practice and employ in different locations. The same applies in deploying collaboration tools."

When management endorses the use of collaboration tools, a company has a higher chance of attracting top, young talent.

"Young graduates have used Web 2.0 tools for a long time, and they expect to use similar tools to facilitate innovation at work," said Aritao.

IT driving collaboration

The IT shop also has its place in driving adoption of collaboration tools.

According to Lam from IDC, IT pros are in a good position to do so. The IT team supports and builds applications to enable daily operations, Lam said.They can provide a bird's eye view over areas or business units that require improvement and recommend the technology to encourage collaboration, she added.

To become an effective driver of adoption, IT must have a solid understanding of business processes across a company, work closely with different business units, and having a proactive leader, Lam concluded.