The digital workplace is on the verge of integrating new technologies, like Yammer and Huddle, with established collaboration platforms such as SharePoint. An article on the Computer Weekly website does a good job of contextualizing where we are and what people are comfortable with when it comes to using collaboration technologies for business purposes.
It’s worth remembering that SharePoint, in many ways, is the grandfather of collaboration software. Today’s newer collaboration tools flow out of what SharePoint introduced, along with the emergence of social media in our personal and consumer lives. SharePoint 2013 and Office 365, along with steady improvements to the cloud, mobile and social, have brought increased interest in such tools for the workplace.
A recent study of 5,000 IT professionals and end users highlighted in the article shows that more people than ever understand and want to use social media tools. In fact, 83 percent of the respondents who use social enterprise tools say they’d like to use more in the future.
Andy Hutchins, director of collaboration at Avanade, reports an increase in interest over the past six months in SharePoint 2013, Yammer and Office 365.
“There is a maturing of technologies like cloud, mobile, social and BYOD that adds up to a tipping point. Now is the right time,” Hutchins tells Computer Weekly. “There is a demand for discussion around work processes, and a desire to bring in knowledge from the extended organization of partners, and so on. And to do it securely, on any device.”
Some senior managers surveyed, however, expressed skepticism about the value of social technology and how it would further business goals. The key is that enterprise social tools must relate to business needs and have a tangible impact on the organization.
Ultimately, in the end, ROI is still necessary with these tools. Measuring direct return can be challenging since collaboration and productivity often represent such a soft ROI. However, the good news is that more than 50 percent of the respondents surveyed did see the business value in collaboration tools, the article notes. This shows that more organizations are finding value in real-time collaboration.
Source: Computer Weekly, September 2013
