Getting People-Centric Collaboration Tools Right

The down economy and an increasingly decentralized business world have created a boom market for collaboration vendors as emphasis on reduced costs has made tools like videoconferencing and collaborative workspaces appealing. But translating this short-term success into long-term viability in a rapidly growing market will elude vendors that don't take into account the changing marketplace: A younger workforce has its own tools and ideas for overcoming snags in their job flows while new emerging vendors will provide the tools that this new type of worker expects. Going forward, vendors must focus their tools on the challenges of working in a decentralized world and expediting business processes, all while balancing IT's concerns about control and security. Doing so will allow vendors to create explicit value for the end user while allowing them to position themselves to the IT buyer as an organization that can make their people more productive. To achieve this, vendors must embed themselves with end users through focus groups, interviews, and ethnographic and usability studies.