FINDING 1
Collaboration Tools Remake Corporate Strategies

Collaboration tools—which allow employees to brainstorm, plan, analyze, share work and make decisions together—are among the most important technologies of 2008. Organizations will increase their spending on collaboration software by 14.8 percent in 2008, according to the Ziff Davis Enterprise February 2008 IT Spending Survey.

The reason for all this attention: Companies find that these products deliver on their promise to improve productivity and decision-making, although most firms don’t measure the value they receive from these technologies. And half the respondents have changed strategies because of insights or capabilities the products have provided. Collaboration tools, for example, have enabled Boeing to change the way its engineers and subcontractors design and build aircraft, and Reuters uses them to create new products for traders and portfolio managers.

These payoffs explain why CIOs are willing to devote a significant part of their IT budgets to buy and support collaboration tools and to increase spending on the infrastructure needed to support them.