Collaboration service news

Following the publication of the BNP Paribas case study a few weeks ago, I’m pleased to anounce that we have added two new vendors - Cisco and Jive Software - to our online collaboration tool. We have also published corresponding reports on the vendors - a Vendor Capability Assessment for Cisco, and an On The Radar report on Jive.

If there are particular vendors that you would like to see added to the comparison tool - or covered in a full vendor assessment or as an On The Radar, please let me know!

We are pleased to announce the publication of the first collaboration case study in our Collaboration Continuous Advisory Service! This Best Practice Insight report highlights French bank BNP Paribas’ collaboration strategy, and its implementation of informal, community-oriented social software from blueKiwi to complement its existing formal collaboration solutions.

This will be the first of many case studies that will be delivered as part of the service, which are designed to provide real world examples of collaborative working practices and associated technology implementations. Each study will provide you with the best practice implementation advice and insights from your peers to help with your own collaboration initiatives.

You can access the report here.

As part of our Collaboration Continuous Advisory Service, we are carrying out twice-yearly market studies to understand the level of adoption of collaborative working practices and different types of collaboration software within the European market. We’ve now finished analysing the results of the first study, and the corresponding report is published today.

Perhaps the most interesting insight from the study is that - while European organisations are enthusiastic about driving more collaborative working practices - adoption of today’s state-of-the-art collaborative technologies, such as team workspaces, web conferencing and social software, remains limited, with most organisations using their various existing technology environments to support collaborative initiatives.

The report is only available to service subscribers (although you can request a free service trial if you’d like to see more), but here are a few highlights:

• A collaborative culture among managers and professionals drives technology adoption and innovation. Our research shows a direct correlation between those organisations with a more collaborative culture, broad usage of collaborative software, and a high proportion of knowledge workers, suggesting that such a culture is a prerequisite for collaboration software adoption and collaborative working initiatives
• Workforce efficiency is the primary driver for collaboration investment. While innovation and business differentiation are often cited as important business drivers for collaboration, our research indicates that it is workforce efficiency that provides the initial justification for a collaboration initiative, with innovation benefits becoming relevant only as the initiative becomes more established and mature.
• Organisations are looking to coordinate collaboration strategies across the organisation. While it is difficult to take account of the varying requirements of different groups within an organisation, our research shows that organisations – even those with less collaborative cultures – are actively working to centralise their collaboration strategies, both in terms of working practices and technology investments.

The study was carried out in June 2008 and involved 201 telephone interviews. 71 respondents were based in the UK; 65 in France; and 65 in Germany. The respondents were also evenly split across seven industries – energy & utilities, financial services, government, manufacturing, retail, telecoms, and transport & travel. We did the research in conjunction with our partners at Freeform Dynamics.

After months of preparation, we are delighted to announce the launch of our new Collaboration Continuous Advisory Service (CAS)!

With the launch comes the publication of two new reports into the Collaboration service. Our first Strategic Insight report is entitled Blurred boundaries and co-dependence: collaboration meets knowledge management, and takes a look at the relationship between these two areas, and how organisations approaching a collaboration initiative can learn from the lessons of knowledge management. Our first Collaboration Market Insight report is called OpenSocial and friends - an opportunity for the enterprise?, and examines the wealth of consumer market-led social networking “standards” that have emerged over the last year, and what implications they may have for enterprise use of social networking technology.

Those of you tracking the MWD website will also have seen that we have also published two new collaboration Vendor Capability Assessments on IBM and Microsoft, along with a set of assessment guides - these are also now accessible in the Guest Pass section of our Collaboration service.

The new service also sees the launch of our interactive online comparison tool, which includes in-depth analysis of Microsoft, IBM, blueKiwi and Socialtext, and will incorporate many more collaboration software vendors over the next few months.

Coming soon, we will deliver the findings of our first European survey on collaboration software usage and perceptions, as well as a third Vendor Capability Assessment on Cisco’s collaboration portfolio, and a further Strategic Insights report on Enterprise 2.0.

So please, have a good look around the site, and feel free to tell your colleagues about the great research available -our licensing terms mean that anyone in your organisation can access the research without extra fees being incurred. Finally, we’d love to hear any feedback or comments from you about the service, plus suggestions of other vendors or topics you’d like to see covered in this Collaboration Continuous Advisory Service! Email me at angela@mwdadvisors.com.

The countdown has now begun to the launch of our new Collaboration Continuous Advisory Service, which follows hot on the heals of our BPM Continuous Advisory Service, which launched officially in May. For those of you familiar with the BPM service, the Collaboration service will follow a similar format, with a range of content including:

• Strategic Insight reports - these will provide in-depth analysis of business and technology issues which impact on collaboration software decisions and strategy
• Best Practice Insight reports - these will provide a real-world view into how organisations are implementing collaborative working practises and using collaboration software through case studies.
• Market Insight reports - these event-based reports will analyse key trends in the collaboration software market, as well as significant market activity such as M&A or other vendor news.
• Market research reports - in partnership with Freeform Dynamics, we will be conducting bi-annual user research studies into collaboration perceptions and the use of software, providing market tracking and analysis which will be delivered through these reports.
• Online interactive vendor comparison tool - this configurable tool will help you to compare the functional strengths of different collaboration software providers, allowing you to adjust the relative importance of particular capabilities depending on your organisation’s particular situation.
• Vendor Capability Assessments and On The Radar reports - the new service will also provide direct access to these vendor-specific reports,  with new reports published in line with the launch.

We’re really excited about this new service - it is another significant step in the growth of MWD which enables us to broaden and strengthen our offering. With the launch of the service, we will be introducing free, no obligation week-long trials to enable you to see what all the fuss is about. Whether you work for an enterprise user of IT and services, or an IT supplier or service provider, this service is designed to provide value to you. So please do take advantage!