Collaboration Platforms For Businesses

Published Date: 02 Nov 2017

Introduction

Business environments today have become highly global and dynamic. It is not uncommon for people to work in teams or with stakeholders residing in different geographical or different organisational backgrounds (Riemer, Steinfield, & Vogel, 2009). The challenge to improve productivity and product quality while reducing production time (Serrano & Fischer, 2007) has prompted businesses to look to collaboration and communication technologies to facilitate essential information exchanges between individuals in their value chain (Polaschek, Zeppelzauer, Kryvinska, & Strauss, 2012).

Collaboration platforms refer to the group of technologies that enable the communication, coordination and collaboration among personnel within a distributed environments (Riemer, et al., 2009). Despite their recent popularity, they have been around for some time but under different names. For example, Computer Supported Collaborative Work Applications (CSCW) (Hamadache & Lancieri, 2010) and groupware (Xuan-hua, Yong-Feng, & Zhi-yang, 2008) have been used to describe this class of applications.

This paper seeks to explain the motivation for collaboration systems and introduce the technologies involved. This is followed by a discussion of the limitations and future of this group of technologies.

Motivation for Collaboration Platforms

Collaboration and communication with customers and stakeholders is important to businesses. However, recent market and organisational trends highlighted by Riemer, et al. (2009) present challenges to this. These challenges include the increasingly globalisation of markets, the drive to specialise and to need to adapt to dynamic customer demands. In response, organisations are forging external partnerships and outsource relationships. As such, it not uncommon for teams to work in virtual teams where fellow members are scattered across various geographical locations. Consequently, collaboration platforms are needed to support communications and the complexities of interactions in the work environment,

To support the new business context, collaboration platforms have been designed to fulfil four main goals (Microsoft, 2013). Firstly, they provide people with accurate information in a timely manner. Secondly, they direct people to the appropriate knowledge sources or experts whether they are external or within the organisation. Thirdly, they show the availability status of personnel for communication to reduce failed attempts in reaching them. Lastly, they provide flexible workflows for collaboration and communication that is adaptable to the various business contexts mentioned.

Technology of Collaborative Platforms

Collaboration platforms refer to a broad grouping of applications that support communication, coordination and collaboration between people (Riemer, et al., 2009).

Various communication mediums including text, audio and videos are supported through email, instant messaging (IM) and video conferencing. Apart from platforms that support specific mediums, unified communication (UC) systems integrate the various communication mediums into a consistent platform (Smith, Walls, Drakos, & Phifer, 2012).

Specifically, UC systems are collaboration platforms that integrate six communication technologies (Smith, et al., 2012). The first is voice and telephony which utilise traditional telecommunications and Internet Protocol (IP) to transmit live audio or video using IP PBX (Private Branch Exchange). Another area is the use of voice, video or web conferencing technologies. The third area is messaging tools like email and voice messaging. The fourth incorporates presence and IM services that publish presence and location information. The fifth refers to unified clients that enable communication over desktops, mobile devices or embedded in other applications. Lastly, there are communication-enabled applications which are existing applications with integrated communication components for collaborations within the context they are deployed.

Coordination and collaboration refer to work on joint tasks and joint resources respectively (Riemer, et al., 2009). Coordination technologies include the use of group calendars, workflow management systems, social networking for locating experts as well as document version control. Collaboration technologies can be synchronous or asynchronous. Asynchronous collaboration technologies include wikis, forums and blogs that allow for viewing and editing from anywhere and anytime. Synchronous collaboration technologies support real-time interactions such as brainstorming activities, through electronic whiteboards, shared office documents and the remote sharing of the same computer screen (Polaschek, et al., 2012).

Given the broad spectrum of collaboration platforms, we refer to a framework (Cisco, 2009) (Fig.1) on how businesses can conceptualise and manage the various groupings of technologies. Here, the collaboration engine provides the features of existing collaborative platforms. The middle tier consists of the various groupings of collaboration platforms while the common services tier consists of the data storage.

In particular, the collaboration engine determines the graphical interface and editing capabilities located in the middle tier. At the same time, it provides an integrated search function across the data stored in the various platforms within the Common Services tier. The collaboration engine may also integrate the different technologies by allowing connections across the platforms. Lastly, it may provide the means to assimilate the various capabilities into a new composite application. An example of such an implementation would be the UC mentioned earlier which integrates technologies from the Individual and Communication section in the middle tier.

Typically, the Service-Oriented-Architecture (SOA) is used to provide the integration technology to assimilate the different collaboration platforms into an adaptable Web 2.0 business environment (Polaschek, et al., 2012). Alternatively, a Peer-to-Peer (P2P) network could be used to set up direct connection to two or more clients in for smaller scale collaborations and communication (Microsoft, 2013).

Figure : Framework for collaboration platforms (CISCO, 2009)

Limitations and Challenges

Despite their usefulness, there are limitations that prevent collaboration platforms from achieving their goals of facilitating communication and collaboration in today’s business contexts. In particular, collaboration platforms may not successfully capture the complex dynamics of inter-personal relationships. Working relationships are forged through mutual trust, common understanding and compassion (Nof, 2003), which may be difficult to cultivate within virtual teams that have frequent computer-mediated interactions as these feelings are hard to convey during such interactions.

Apart from technical complications, the proliferation of asynchronous collaboration platforms is limited because it is not always desirable to have real-time communication and collaboration within the business context (Gruman, 2012). For instance, live video conferences are not always preferred because business collaborations necessitate time-lapses to accommodate research and deliberation. Moreover, the limited screen size cannot accommodate the subtleties of body language. It is also a challenge for the user to know where to direct his attention appropriately. Similarly, shared-editing systems may not be preferred for collaboration because they result in documents that lack direction with competing versions.

Challenges also exist in the adoption UC systems (Riemer & Taing, 2009). From an organisation and group perspective, UC adoption requires changes to business processes and the gaining of acceptance across coordinating teams. Individually, the acceptance of UC is limited by the human brain’s capacity to handle multiple information sources. Furthermore, users may not be comfortable publishing information that reveal their current locations. There is also the barrier of costly migration of legacy data to UC systems.

Lastly, adulteration of content from collaborative platforms like wikis can also pose challenges. Depending on the implementation, if content generation is massive, it is possible for content to be influence by specific collaborators (Luca De Alfaro, 2011).

Future of Collaborative Platforms

Collaborative platforms are being adopted across different domains. For example, the research community is using it to transcend multiple disciplines and to collaborate with researchers in global locations (Jirotka, Lee, & Olson, 2013). In another example, crime scene investigators transmit images and information to collaboration platforms to seek assistance from experts in remote locations (Kolfschoten, Herrmann, & Lukosch, 2013)

Collaborative platforms are also moving into the mobile sphere. Mobile Collaboration Clients (MCC) are a class of mobile applications to accommodate both asynchronous and synchronous features of collaborative platforms in a single screen (Johnson, 2012). MCC is expected to bring high returns to the early players like Apple, Google, Xobni, and Research In Motion. MCC utilise contextual information found in mobile devices and incorporate collaboration and communication services like social networks or email to determine presence. Since it combines personal and professional data, this creates potential privacy and security issues (Basso, 2012 ).

Another trend is the introduction of Social Collaboration or Collaboration 2.0 to collaboration platforms to encourage internal teamwork and knowledge sharing (Johnson, 2012). Examples such as wikis and blogs consolidate and disseminate team knowledge. In addition, integration with social networking services facilitate the identification of experts in large teams while social tagging can be leveraged upon to enhance content-related group awareness (Riemer, et al., 2009).

Finally, Cloud Collaboration Services (CCS) is another area which is gaining momentum and has given a new lease of life to collaborative platforms (Johnson, 2012). CCS offer many of the collaboration platform technologies mentioned in the previous section as well as social software through a shared, multitenant public cloud infrastructure. CCS is generally considered a mature technology. It offers inter-operability with other enterprises, thus reducing the complexity of traversing firewalls and managing external users (Mann, 2012 ). Moreover, it also requires less integration and customisation than many other collaboration and communication applications. However, competition among major players like Microsoft (Office 365), Google (Apps for Business), IBM (SmartCloud) is stiff.

Conclusion

Collaboration platforms have helped to raise efficiency and productivity in business by providing a means of collaboration and communication in new business environments that can transcend organisational and geographical boundaries. However, as the suite of technologies is diverse and dynamic, the selection of an appropriate solution is fraught with challenges, such as security concerns and privacy issues (Polaschek, et al., 2012). Future success of collaboration platforms in the marketplace hence might hinge on future advancement in technologies, especially mobile technologies, in solving key present-day challenges.