Mar 27 (Ch 15): Creating Collaborative Partnerships

Collaboration allows people, teams, and organizations to leverage and build upon the ideas and talents of staff, suppliers, customers, and business partners. It involves a unique set of business challenges that:
• Include complex interactions between people who may be in different locations and desire to work across function and discipline areas
• Require flexibility in work process and the ability to involve others quickly and easily
• Create and share information rapidly and effortlessly within a team

Increasingly, organizations are extending their focus from internal operations like planning and scheduling, enterprise resource planning and sales force automation, toward operations beyond their own four walls with external customers and suppliers. This chapter focuses on the need for collaboration, the technology that supports collaboration, and collaboration trends.

LEARNING OUTCOMES

15.1 Identify the different ways in which companies collaborate using technology.
Companies must be able to collaborate. Without collaboration companies simply would have a very difficult time operating. Companies collaborate in a number of ways including document ex¬change, shared whiteboards, discussion forums, and email.

15.2 Compare the different categories of collaboration technologies.
Collaboration technologies fall into one of two categories:
1. Unstructured collaboration (sometimes referred to as information collaboration) includes document ex¬change, shared whiteboards, discussion forums, and email.
2. Structured collaboration (or process collaboration) involves shared participation in business processes such as workflow in which knowledge is hardcoded as rules.

15.3 Define the fundamental concepts of a knowledge management system.
Knowledge management involves capturing, classifying, evaluating, retrieving, and sharing information assets in a way that provides context for effective decisions and actions.

15.4 Provide an example of a content management system along with its business purpose.
A content management system (CMS) provides tools to manage the creation, storage, editing, and publication of information in a collaborative environment. The CMS marketplace is complex, incorporating document management, collaboration and versioning tools, digital asset management, and web content management. One example is www.vignette.com.

15.5 Evaluate the advantages of using a workflow management system.
Many workflow management systems allow the opportunity to measure and analyze the execution of a process. Workflow systems integrate with other organizational systems, such as document management systems and database management systems.

15.6 Explain how Groupware can benefit a business.
Groupware is software that supports team interaction and dynamics including calendaring, scheduling, and videoconferencing. Organizations can use this technology to communicate, cooperate, coordinate, solve problems, compete, or negotiate.

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