Sunday | 7 September, 2008
CIO
Reaching Out
Collaboration between enterprises unlocks new value. The CIO plays a critical role in newer forms of collaboration and, in many cases, has the opportunity to lead
Andrew Rowsell-Jones 06 August, 2007 12:23:34

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Almost every enterprise has tools in all three categories. The key is using them well to set up the conditions for success.

Conventional collaboration tools are being extended to provide more effective virtual collaboration:

Richer. For example, wiki-based tools that allow shared editing of documents.

Integrated. Collaboration tools are becoming more integrated into what Gartner calls "Smart Enterprise Suites". For example, merging real-time communication tools (IM) with asynchronous communication tools (e-mail) combines the low latency benefits of instant messaging with the persistence and accessibility of e-mail.

Embedded and contextualized. Knowledge collaboration tools are becoming embeddable in operational processes. A specific aspect of this is the concept of "presence" (whether a person is online, busy or available, what level of expertise they have, and so on) becoming an infrastructural service.

Dynamic collaboration creates more value and is a greater challenge. Leading enterprises are involving a wider group of participants and exploring new business models, specifically more dynamic models, where participants enter and leave in a more fluid fashion and the collaboration evolves according to participant contributions rather than preset goals. Dynamic collaboration typically generates higher levels of innovation, due to the broader involvement. Other common new sources of value are higher quality, lower cost and faster times to market.

Dynamic collaborations are more challenging to administer and require five extra conditions to be successful:

1. Multi-tiered governance. Governance of all aspects must be clear and be devolved as much as possible.

2. Scalability. The business model must be able to scale up and down and still be workable and economical.

3. Standardization. The business and technical components must use standards to allow partners to join with minimum latency.

4. Componentization. "Chunks of components" must be independently completed by different groups of participants.

5. New tools. Use customized tools to aggregate a large number of ideas and opinions. Or use online gaming and simulation environments to promote different forms of collaboration.

New Day Dawning

Partly fuelled by Web 2.0-type technologies and partly by the desire to collaborate more broadly, leading-edge enterprises are using new forms of collaboration. These are new in two ways: they generate new participants, and they have new financial and risk considerations. While this is fundamentally about business models, not technology, the CIO is well placed to influence the enterprise to explore these options.

Technology is more critical to success in these dynamic models than in static collaborations with limited and mostly fixed membership. Although collaboration — static or dynamic — isn't fundamentally about IT, IT is always a critical piece of the puzzle, and often Internet-enabled collaborative business models happen in the IT space first. Hence, there is often the opportunity for the CIO to take a lead role in external collaboration. Common factors include:

  • Where the collaboration is extremely IT-intensive

  • Where the scope of activity is largely in the IT function

  • Where the success of the collaboration requires some other asset or leadership capability that the CIO can bring to bear
CIOs who have established a sound IT service delivery platform, and the associated credibility with their business counterparts, should look for opportunities to lead external collaboration. But they should look carefully at the conditions necessary for success. An over-focus on the technical aspects of collaboration and an under-focus on the need to build and maintain trust, for example, are a recipe for disaster.

Andrew Rowsell-Jones is vice president and research director for Gartner's CIO Executive Programs

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