Business Issues

Business challenges continue to include the requirement for better flexibility, greater mobility, and to continuously improve business processes. In addition, organisations are always on the lookout for ways to reduce costs to keep ahead of the competition. The new breed of communications and collaboration technologies presents an opportunity for companies to realise these objectives. Many organisations are moving from traditional hierarchies based on command and control, to looser structures utilising collaboration and team work.

There is a fundamental shift from one-to-one to many-to-many communication. The integration with the Internet, the increasing mobility of employees, and the move towards virtual organisations, alongside the requirement to always improve profitability and customer service, means that enterprises must embrace the adaptability that services-based communications can provide.

There are a number of challenges that remain whilst enabling the requirement for providing flexible working for a diverse user community, including the home worker and 'road warrior'. One of these challenges is to secure the extended environment that most IT managers now need to support. There are many instances of successful attacks and loss of data, which includes finance companies and government agencies. The issue of security must be adequately addressed when contemplating utilising an IP-based environment. Whilst the introduction of voice and video on to the network presents new security worries, it does not, however, add any new vulnerability that did not previously exist.

Another challenge is providing an opportunity for the interaction of disparate employees and organisations. However, this inter- and intra-company interaction brought about through collaboration is not without its risks - loss of corporate intellectual property and commercially sensitive information, for example. But generally speaking, fostering innovation and a product formed through the collaborative efforts of several minds is likely to be inherently more valuable than the thoughts of a lone individual. Like cogs in a machine, bringing together the right people, at the right time, in the right way is what good management is all about, and in the current working environment this is difficult to achieve without collaborative-working tools.