Article

• Send to a colleague

Today's Virtual Power Tools

Written in cooperation with the Economist Intelligence Unit

Communication tools for global teams have advanced enormously in recent years. Getting these tools to deliver smoother, more effective collaboration is critical, says David Danto, Director of Emerging Technologies at the Interactive Multimedia and Collaborative Communications Alliance, an industry association for conferencing and collaboration.

Collaboration technologies are continuing to enable the globalization of business, bringing colleagues and dispersed partners closer to one another. Key operational executives can now reside anywhere, even thousands of miles away from their headquarters. According to David Danto, "the fact that the expert is not in the country is not important now." With greatly improved image quality, the exchange over video has become more personal. "The quality of communications and relationships improves," he says.

The ability of today's devices to provide clear, life-size images with nuances of facial expression, as well as spatial audio, brings with it more than just social niceties. IP-based video collaboration is improving productivity. On a Wall Street trading floor, desk traders, signaling and shouting commands, are now able to relay the same visual cues to colleagues in London in a split second. "The trading floor has extended across geographies," says Danto. Some traders have reported significantly increased revenues, especially when dealing with highly volatile markets. "There's been a measurable improvement."

Likewise, if a company in the western hemisphere is opening an office in Asia-Pacific, the individual in charge of construction need not travel there to attend two days of meetings. The tender process can be carried out remotely, backed by thorough on-site visual support and discussion of presentation materials.

Virtually present

With video collaboration, infrastructure has now caught up with the potential of the technology. "Everything is connecting via IP," Danto says. A technology known as "telepresence" uses large high-definition images to make teams, which may be several thousand miles apart, appear to be facing each other in the same room.

In addition to being more lifelike and easier to use, newer types of videoconferencing are more reliable than the older technology. When properly tuned, there is now no noticeable delay. Danto favors the ease of use: "The beauty of telepresence is that you can walk in the room and set up the meeting right away. No training or prior knowledge is needed."

Danto believes that use of the new wave of conferencing technology has been hampered in part by hyped expectations in the industry. Some firms have purchased expensive equipment that is incompatible with what they already have, perpetuating the myth that all legacy equipment is "bad." Also, telepresence works well if connecting two rooms of five or ten people, but as additional rooms are added, the "multipoint" options may use a switching system that is jarring, or one resulting in smaller pictures that cannot truly be called telepresence. These systems perform well only in very specific applications with specific parameters.

The payoff

Whether implementing conferencing tools or mobile devices for team members on the move, Danto has found over the years that "you cannot increase the use of collaboration tools by mandating them." Moreover, "it is wise to plan for everything in the firm to work with everything else - the first time and every time." Devices have to be compatible across the global enterprise. Web conferencing is even harder, he adds, as there is no common, ubiquitous collaboration tool.

Before approving the substantial, continuing investments required for advanced collaboration systems, senior management needs to feel that initial investments have been worth it. However, Danto believes that there is no easy way to show that a company is working better and smarter through the use of collaboration tools. He is convinced, though, that within the financial services industry, where he worked at a number of investment banks, the firms that are communicating and collaborating better are those that are succeeding.