June 22, 2009

With the current economic climate strongly influencing commercial behavior firms are cutting back on employee travel to save costs. Without travel, however, companies are finding it increasingly hard to collaborate ideas across office spaces. Over the last six to twelve months, we have seen a rapid increase in the sales of collaboration tools, including video conferencing.

According to Forrester Research 2009, 70 percent of firms surveyed say they plan to adopt collaboration software in the next 12 months, with another 21 percent expressing interest in adopting the technology. Overall, 91 percent of firms say they are interested in or adopting collaboration technology of some sort!

Biagio La Rosa, Chief Technology Officer of Generation-e Australia’s leading network infrastructure company believes, “it makes sense that organisations want to take advantage of collaboration tools and solutions from Microsoft OCS and Tandberg. These tools remove the need for travel whilst simultaneously improving staff productivity and work place efficiency”. La Rosa explains the Generation-e builds infrastructure that supports business applications enabling staff to work efficiently and effectively.

So why the rapid increase? Your IT and communications network are vital to the success of your business. Collaboration technology combines the communication vessels you use today - phones, data, email, Internet, video - into one safe infrastructure that transcends your physical office space. Basically, collaboration technology decreases travel costs and achieves collaboration and cohesion between offices.

Skeptics question if the same revenue can be achieved through collaboration tools as compared to travel and meeting colleagues face-to-face. However, new safe and secure video conferencing tools have ensured the opposite in fact increasing yield. Some, with a slightly more antagonistic point of view, argue that the cost of deploying high-end solutions right now is economically insensitive. However, with interest rates at what they are today, the initial outlay would be well worth it.

Those in the area of communications expect that by year’s end the rate of collaboration technology sales will have increased exponentially on where they are today, as more and more companies embrace the mentality ‘time at your desk, is time shared with others’.

To learn more about how collaboration tools can benefit your company, please contact the team at Generation-e on 1300 553 088 or email info@generation-e.com.au. We look forward to working with you.