IT Execs Want More-Effective Collaboration; Novell Teaming + Conferencing Provides Flexibility That Promotes Creativity and Team Productivity

Novell today released details of a study by IDG Research Services that found while collaboration tools are very important for companies, their effectiveness leaves much to be desired. The study, commissioned by Novell, surveyed 100 senior IT executives on their experiences with and plans for collaboration software. A full 80 percent said it is of critical or high importance that individuals in their companies have the ability to collaborate securely within and beyond organizational boundaries, but fewer than half said their current collaboration solutions are extremely or very effective in enabling collaboration among individual knowledge workers or among teams and virtual teams.

“Providing employees with collaboration tools that enable them to work together effectively, no matter where they may be located, is no longer a wish-list or nice-to-have item – it's a requirement,” said Kent Erickson, senior vice president and general manager of Workgroup Solutions for Novell. “But it's a requirement that is not being adequately addressed for most organizations. The IDG research clearly points to a market need for flexible, next-generation collaboration tools that can deliver all the benefits of increased productivity and knowledge sharing, along with IT interoperability and choice of application vendors. Novell Teaming + Conferencing, Novell's team workspace and real-time collaboration solution, fills that market need.”

Novell® Teaming + Conferencing supports interoperability, greater flexibility and a new model for collaboration through a more “open” technology development process that allows customers and partners to participate in product innovation. Open standards and open source-inspired online workspaces and social networking with real-time conferencing help individuals and teams be more productive and organizations be more successful. Novell Teaming + Conferencing helps boost end-user and team productivity and reduce overall customer costs by improving the everyday business processes people engage in to create, share, discuss and manage information, allowing people and technology to work as one.

When the 31 survey respondents who said they were using more flexible, next-generation collaboration platforms were asked which benefits they are already experiencing, the top responses were increased productivity (48 percent); improved communication and knowledge sharing among staff, partners and suppliers (39 percent); and the ability to capture and exploit knowledge (39 percent). More than a third cited reduced costs, including reduced travel expenses, along with better decision-making throughout the organization and better alignment among employees, teams and management.

According to the IDG survey, companies are particularly interested in ensuring their knowledge workers use collaboration tools to increase organizational innovation, productivity and efficiency, with 67 percent of respondents saying it is of critical or high importance. And 52 percent say it is of critical or high importance that their knowledge workers have access to next-generation collaboration tools and software like wikis, blogs and online team workspaces, which are all part of Novell Teaming + Conferencing.

Customers Benefit from Teaming + Conferencing

Novell Teaming + Conferencing is making a difference for customers around the world. The City of Dublin (Ohio), Metropolitan Bank Group, RTC Industries, Save Mart Supermarkets, Suffolk University, Victor Valley College and Weber School District are finding the benefits of flexible collaboration with Novell Teaming + Conferencing.

“As a self-supplied grocery retailer, we are extremely focused on business value, which ultimately translates into satisfying our customers and earning more of their business,” said James Sims, vice president of IT and CIO of Save Mart Supermarkets, Lucky and FoodMaxx. “To that end, we are constantly striving for operational efficiencies. The benefits of real-time collaboration and asynchronous collaboration through Novell Teaming + Conferencing absolutely fulfill our criteria for business value in terms of facilitating the coordination of efforts across teams in a fast-moving, distributed and lean organization such as ours.”

More information on Novell Teaming + Conferencing and complete results of the IDG Research Services collaboration survey of IT executives can be found at www.novell.com/teaming.