Collaborative technologies are changing
the way business is conducted, while maintaining the trusted
relationships that exist between participants in the business
process. Executives in highly competitive markets need to
understand the concepts behind collaborative solutions and
how they can be implemented to improve productivity and relationships
with customers, suppliers, and partners in order to remain
competitive.
Our Advisory Services group provides both strategic and tactical
services to help organizations achieve their goals and objectives
in implementing collaborative solutions.
Our objective is to help end-user organizations implement
successful collaborative solutions that lead to improved business
processes.
Our philosophy is to provide a holistic approach to helping
our clients as we focus on collaboration technologies, people/cultural/behavioral/political
issues as well as critical business processes. We believe
that without focusing on all three of these areas it is hard
to gain value from collaboration technologies.
When you choose to work with Collaborative Strategies, our
staff of senior level consultants will provide you with a
deep knowledge base on collaborative technologies and integrating
those technologies with business processes spanning numerous
industries.
Our end-user service offerings are based on our work with
collaboration technologies over the last 15 years, as well
as ongoing research we are doing on the adoption of collaborative
technologies.
Our current service offerings for end-user organizations
include:
Collaborative Consolidation (Technology Assessment):
There is an abundance of collaborative technologies on the
market today (approximately 1000 product and service offerings)
that support a host of critical business functions including
online meetings, training, project/task management, document
sharing, application sharing, etc. Selecting the right technology
for your specific needs can be challenging. In additon, often
larger enterprises have had groups pick a variety of different
collaboration technologies, and when these become overwhelming
(in terms of support and management costs) often IT wants
the enterprise to consolidate collaboration technologies.
This can be a difficult and challenging process. To see our
solution in more detail Click
here to see the full brochure on this service
Champion Development: The end user is struggling
with collaboration technologies because there is a clear business
need for collaboration, but there is no champion to drive
adoption through the organization. The CS 5 part solution
starts with assessment, identification and mapping of critical
business processes, identifying points of collaborative leverage
and potential champions, testing and training the champion(s),
and providing ongoing support and coaching to the champion
for continued success. Click
here to see the full brochure on this service.
Creating Collaborative Value: The end user
is having problems generating an urgent need for introducing
collaborative technology throughout the organization. The
CS solution to this problem involves 4 steps starting with
assessment and the development for an initial ROI for the
end user scenario. This scenario is then refined through mapping
of critical business processes, and the selection of 1-2 processes
with collaborative leverage to use in a final ROI scenario
that is reflective of the end-user organization’s use
of collaborative technology. Click
here to see the full brochure on this service.
Overcoming Cultural Resistance : The adoption
rate for the end-user organization has dropped and it is not
immediately clear what is causing the resistance. It is possible
for the end user to have a clear champion, clear business
reasons for the technology, a clear ROI, a single focused
solution, a clear technical plan, and still run into organizational
resistance. The hardest issues to overcome in adopting collaborative
technology are the people and organizational resistance because
there is usually not a single simple solution that can easily
be identified. The CS solution in this case has 5 parts starting
with interviews of process stakeholders to determine the causes
for resistance. The second step requires mapping of the critical
business processes with collaborative leverage and identifying
the stakeholders, current status and outcomes. The next step
often requires conflict resolution, facilitated work sessions,
additional action research to resolve the causes for resistance.
The next step requires the development of additional materials
to help overcome resistance and increase adoption. The final
step provides ongoing support and coaching to the stakeholders
or champion for continued success. Click
here to see the full brochure on this service.
If you’re an end-user organization, and you have some
of the issues discussed in these service offerings or white
papers, and would like help in creating a successful collaborative
strategy and implementation, so you can get the most value
out of this technology, please contact David Coleman at davidc@collaborate.com,
or by phone at (415) 282-9197.
End
User Services
