Empower Innovation with the Right Unified Collaboration Solution

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Chapter 1: The Importance of Collaboration

Chapter 2:Leveraging Collaboration Within the Organization

Chapter 3: Extending Collaboration Beyond the Organization

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Empower Innovation with the Right Unified Collaboration Solution

As humans, we are biologically wired to consume information, to connect with each other, to set goals and move toward them. This is the

essence of collaboration: consuming, connecting and creating; and the innovation and progress that collaboration fosters is critical to business success. While the fundamental things we do at work—creating and consuming content, working together in teams, establishing and following processes—are constant, other forces are radically changing the work environment.

Every aspect of the workplace can now be digitized. Mobile and cloud have enabled ubiquitous connectivity and accessibility of information, services, and people; Apple, Google and Facebook have changed our personal communication experiences and raised our expectations for our workplace tools. Huge numbers of millennials, who have come of age in the era of social media, are particularly reliant on collaboration in their everyday lives, and they expect similar functionality from enterprise tools to accomplish their professional goals. According to the 2015 Internet Trends report, 34 percent of millennials prefer to collaborate online at work (rather than in person or via phone), compared to 19 percent of older generations1.

However, when enterprise tools don’t deliver, workers of all generations will resort to unsanctioned public, consumer-oriented solutions. The result is an uncontrolled assortment of siloed apps from different providers, which can end up adding to the clutter and confusion—becoming part of the problem they were intended to resolve. This approach can also put enterprise data at risk, posing a very real security issue.

So what is the alternative? A robust unified collaboration solution empowers employees with the capabilities and user experience they need for effective collaboration, while meeting enterprise standards for security and

scalability. Key functionality is integrated into a single set of cloud-based tools that work seamlessly together, so users can easily access information and expertise to discover and share insights quickly without the headache of switching between disparate applications. Innovation is further amplified when collaboration solutions include analytics and cognitive capabilities. And enterprise-class security and compliance decrease the chances of audits as well as harmful security attacks, while protecting intellectual property and everyday work.

The business benefits of collaboration are profound and well-documented. With the right collaboration solution in place, an enterprise will see improved ROI, lower total cost of ownership (TCO), increased efficiency and ultimately greater customer satisfaction. When implemented effectively, collaboration improves productivity and brings increased flexibility, scalability and extensibility (through APIs) to an organization.

Chapter 1: The Importance of Collaboration

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Empower Innovation with the Right Unified Collaboration Solution

Components of a collaboration solution

While collaboration solutions may vary, there are five components that should be at the core of any unified collaboration solution under consideration. Because people need different channels for different tasks at different times, a robust collaboration solution should provide all of the basic tools for everyday work.

1. Email: With so many free web-based email options, this may seem like a commodity choice—but despite newer, flashier communications options, email remains the lifeblood of the enterprise. When it comes to collaboration, email plays a dual role—as both a platform of communication and a conduit for sharing documents and files. Enterprise email software must securely manage business communications across web, desktop and mobile clients; organize inbound and outbound information; and provide a wide array of messaging capabilities. Email solutions also contain time-management functionality with calendars and task prioritization tools. Social and search analytics are integrated into email and intelligent assistance through cognitive computing. Email solutions will learn from user behavior and adapt to help employees be more effective at work. Extensibility with other tools also tremendously increases the value and capability of email tools.

2. Chat: As ubiquitous as email is, it’s not always the best medium. When a quick response is needed, users often turn to chat, which offers the benefits of real-time text-based communication. Chat has grown in functionality, with the capability for easy file transfer, dynamic team chats, and integration of video chat, cognitive analytics and social media.

3. Meetings: There are times when typed communications won’t suffice, and conversations are taken to phone or video conference. Having an online meeting space available for sharing presentations, documents and desktops across web and mobile devices, both inside and outside your

company, breaks down many of the barriers that often accompany offsite meetings.

4. Content: Creating content is rarely a solo undertaking. Organizations need access, viewing, editing and version management capabilities when creating documents, presentations and other types of team-created content. Multiple-user editing and syncing of files to desktop and mobile devices helps ensure that users are working on the same, latest version of their content. A solution that delivers these capabilities expedites content creation and management, and results in higher-quality content.

5. Social networking: Social applications foster community and connection among employees within employer-established ecosystems. By providing a more casual way for employees to communicate with colleagues, customers and partners, social networks are effective platforms for exploring ideas and driving progress. Enterprise social networking tools typically include file sharing, instant messaging and communities, and can also extend to intranets and wikis.

Unified integration of all five components: By unifying functionality in to one set of tools with a single sign-on, benefits such as search, presence awareness and cognitive analytics can be extended across all applications. Collectively, a unified collaboration solution allows businesses to cross-leverage the strengths of each component, while also increasing productivity.

The IBM difference—IBM Connections S1

Historically, solutions like these have been expensive and complex to deploy and have fallen short on integration. IBM Connections S1 with IBM Verse email bundled-in breaks this dynamic. The comprehensive cloud-based solution combines business email with advanced collaboration tools into an integrated, easy-to-deploy, simplified package available at competitive bundle pricing. With IBM Verse email bundled-in, Connections S1 is a security-rich, built-for-business cloud infrastructure tuned for cognitive analytics.

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Empower Innovation with the Right Unified Collaboration Solution

With email at the core of organizational communications, Connections leverages the power of Verse to infuse this core platform with advanced collaboration tools. Verse delivers a personalized collaboration experience that extends to mobile and desktop devices, with integrated social analytics that help users quickly find and take action on relevant content and conversations. Its intuitive, user-centered design empowers users to find and focus on the right content, conversations and actions. Prominent people-centric navigation provides instant access to key colleagues, while the calendar bar allows for instant visualization of the workday for easy time management.

By leveraging cognitive analytics with personal assistance capabilities, IBM Verse, the email component of the IBM Connections S1 value bundle, will ensure the right resources are engaged for the task at hand. Long-term plans call for the integration of IBM Watson™, an advanced cognitive solution capable of learning from user behavior—resulting in improved efficiency and a more personalized user experience. With Watson, Verse will enable users to plan their day and more quickly find the most relevant people and content, facilitating productivity between both team members and contributors outside the organization.

IBM Connections and Verse contain rigorous security features, including built-in spam and virus protection, SSL encryption, digital signatures, and message encryption. Data is protected, as IBM never shares or sells data to third parties; it only uses your data to optimize collaboration. With such a comprehensive solution in place, employees are less inclined to resort to alternative, unsanctioned apps.

IBM Connections is also less costly than other collaboration solutions. Predictable monthly and annual subscriptions replace upfront infrastructure investment, significantly reducing capital expenditures and providing a sizable return on investment (ROI). The Total Economic Impact™ Of IBM Connections, a commissioned study conducted by Forrester Consulting on behalf of IBM, examined the ROI organizations have realized by deploying IBM Connections and found an ROI of 168 percent and a payback period of 10 to 11 months for a representative organization based on interviewed customers.2

Learn more about how IBM Connections can benefit your business.

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Empower Innovation with the Right Unified Collaboration Solution

Chapter 2: Leveraging Collaboration Within the Organization

Collaboration has come to play a critical role in how organizations operate and grow. At its most basic, collaboration

can be as simple as using email to communicate information or share documents and files.

But today’s enterprises generally have more complex needs. Many are relying on collaboration among globally dispersed employees to increase productivity. Others are looking for a solution that will securely accommodate the increase in bring-your-own-device (BYOD) and mobile users who need to access and share information. While nearly all companies have some sort of collaboration protocol in place, oftentimes the solutions and processes within the company differ among departments, resulting in reduced efficiency and duplication of efforts.

Effective collaboration leads to shared knowledge and improved decision-making. But not all collaboration solutions deliver the same benefits. To facilitate knowledge sharing, an integrated collaboration solution is essential—one that offers email, chat, meetings, content and social networking capabilities in an infrastructure that is flexible and scalable to a changing business landscape.

Unified collaboration benefits

Today’s organizations are challenged to communicate quickly, make better decisions and increase efficiency in sales and business development efforts. In order for a collaboration solution to enable successful business in today’s marketplace, it must be flexible, scalable and extensible.

Lower costs. More often than not, these solutions are cloud-based. Born-on-the-cloud collaboration solutions have a lower total cost of ownership (TCO), enabling the business to shift savings back to core operations.

In the Total Economic Impact™ Of IBM Connections, a commissioned study conducted by Forrester Consulting on behalf of IBM, the representative organization (a composite of several actual organizations) that deployed IBM Connections (without the more recent inclusion of Verse) as its collaboration solution lowered the IT operating costs of managing collaboration tools by about $500,000 over three years. These cost savings were a result of reducing software and license fees of managing multiple collaboration applications and processes across the company. By deploying IBM Connections, the Organization was able to decommission applications and systems, reduce IT storage requirements from file sharing, and streamline collaboration processes.3 While actual TCO will depend on the business and its needs, a unified cloud-based collaboration solution invariably reduces costs.

The study also uncovers a 20 percent reduction in IT operating costs, accompanied by an increase in end-

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Empower Innovation with the Right Unified Collaboration Solution

user productivity of 10 percent.3 Enterprise license costs, annual subscription fees, professional services and initial implementation costs carry a markedly lower TCO than expenditures in infrastructure procurement, deployment, maintenance, and staff allocation and training. Even more significantly, the study revealed an ROI of 168 percent,3 indicating considerable budget that could be invested elsewhere.

Speedy time-to-market. Not surprisingly, a cloud-based collaboration solution offers faster time-to-market, as IBM proved with its own migration of 500,000 users to Verse in just nine months, replacing more than 430 on-premises mail servers with a cloud-based collaboration platform.4 The long-term impact was a savings of millions of dollars per year, a shorter time-to-market for new services and an increased ability to nurture innovation.

Higher productivity. Having the right collaboration solution in place facilitates improved productivity and drives innovation, creating increased value for the company. A cloud-based unified collaboration solution enables organizations to communicate and make decisions faster, and to improve efficiency in sales and business development efforts.

Strong security. A unified collaboration solution also reduces business risks by increasing security. When security is at the core of code development, system configuration and architecture are enabled with functions like single-sign-on, access delegation, administrative controls, service integrity and support, and mobile security. Physical data centers that are owned and maintained by the service provider, rather than on-premises, will manage security for the client and eliminate infrastructure expenditures. Users won’t have to worry about vulnerability to risk as they will now operate within a security-rich environment with less time dedicated to on-site management.

Real-time analytics. Increasingly, enterprises are looking to analytics that allow for data-driven insights and meaningful decision-making. Analytics play a role in day-to-day operations but are most vital when it comes to

innovation. A unified collaboration tool can incorporate usage and real-time analytics into the solution to provide users with additional opportunities to leverage data in meaningful ways.

Best practices for getting started with collaboration tools

To obtain these benefits, however, the right collaboration strategy must be in place. Deciding which solution best meets your needs is critical to success and can be more challenging than the migration itself. Five crucial steps help ensure best practices should be followed when developing a social collaboration strategy:

1. Determine goals and priorities: Clear objectives makes identifying the right tools easier, cutting down on time and expense. A social collaboration strategy should provide the proper tools to orient to business objectives. This is particularly important for large organizations with multiple divisions or offices, which creates a greater need for consistency in tools. A clearly-defined company-sanctioned strategy not only ensures all departments use the same tools, but also simplifies the evaluation and purchase process.

2. Get senior management (CTO, CIO, CISO) buy-in: No matter how outstanding, a collaboration solution cannot be successful with a set-it and forget-it mentality. Users must engage to generate the anticipated results. While few users are likely to be unfamiliar with collaboration tools, some may balk at switching from ad hoc channels, such as commercial-based storage and email tools, to enterprise-based ones.

To overcome this, the collaboration strategy must have participation and support from the top down. Demonstrable buy-in from senior management will help foster employee engagement. Senior management should be actively involved in the discussion around collaboration from the beginning to ensure business objectives are met. Post-launch,

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Empower Innovation with the Right Unified Collaboration Solution

management should have a presence on social platforms and other collaboration channels. This will demonstrate the company’s commitment to the strategy as well as motivate users to participate. Senior management should lead by example!

3. Provide a business case with evidence of current collaboration inefficiencies: It is important to look at where current collaboration efforts fall short. In some cases, it may be because too many solutions are incorporated into the IT strategy, or are poorly integrated and maintained. In other situations, employees may not be comfortable using collaborative tools in the workplace that are unfamiliar, or work much differently than the ubiquitous tools designed for personal use. Selecting a collaborative tool with similar capabilities as well-known commercial tools, for example, will likely lead to faster adoption rates and reduce the need for training.

It is also important to determine what the current solution is lacking. Does it provide the level of security and compliance your organization requires? Is it driving employees to turn to unsanctioned apps (known as shadow IT) that could introduce potential risks? Is your current solution overloading your employees with simply too many tools? Consider the ways the business could benefit from a unified collaboration solution.

4. Research and trial of collaboration tools: Once needs and objectives have been assessed, it’s time to evaluate your options. A shortlist of solutions that meet the criteria should be compiled. To determine which solution is the right fit for your enterprise, consider trying a few contenders before committing. Pilot programs are a cost-effective way to assess the viability of collaboration tools on a small scale with minimal risk; most last 30 or 60 days. A trial with well-defined goals and boundaries provides a quick and inexpensive snapshot of how a larger rollout might look.

5. Migration and incorporation of collaboration into current processes: Once a piloted solution has been chosen, it’s time to migrate data and train users. During this time, the organization must sync collaboration tools with other enterprise solutions to achieve company objectives. Integration is not just about investment, adoption and engagement. Integration also relates to how collaboration tools function with each other, on an enterprise level. Platform extensibility to other corporate tools also helps alleviate integration issues. For collaboration to be woven into everyday business practices, interconnectivity must be a key objective.

How IBM can help

As complicated as this process may seem, IBM makes it easy. IBM Connections S1 incorporates a unified set of collaboration tools into an easy-to-deploy, simple bundle.

IBM’s Connections S1 combines advanced collaboration tools with Verse email, integrating security-rich communities for social networking, meetings, chat and integrated content tools.

Communities allows you to find people relevant to you, engage with them using forums, share knowledge with blogs and wikis, and manage your work with activities and to-dos. S1 also contains intuitive, people-centric Verse email powered by cognitive analytics with calendar for time management. Verse includes powerful tools for content management and file storage/sharing, including online document editing; meetings with support for audio, video, screen sharing and recording; and chat capabilities for web, desktop and mobile.

Visit http://ibmcloud.com/social to learn more about how IBM Connections can help you grow your business to its full potential and start your free trial today!

Contemplating a purchase? Visit https://www.ibm.com/marketplace/cloud/enterprise-social-collaboration/us/en-us to learn more about Connections S1 pricing and bundle values!

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Empower Innovation with the Right Unified Collaboration Solution

I t’s well documented that collaboration among employees benefits the organization, but what about engaging with those beyond the traditional

enterprise parameters? Today’s enterprises need to communicate perpetually with partners, contractors, vendors, customers and prospects, yet many organizations find themselves with an unbridgeable gap in how they approach collaboration with these entities. When planning a collaboration strategy, it is imperative to think beyond the company firewall.

To fully reap the value of collaboration, an organization must consider more than the communication process. The ability to uncover trends in content, social activity and expertise from all involved parties leads to better decision-making, helps drive innovation and paves the way for cognitive analytics.

Why a cloud-based enterprise collaboration tool for external communication?

Increasingly, enterprises are finding cloud-based collaboration platforms ideal for both internal and external users. For starters, a cloud platform carries a lower total cost of ownership (TCO). It requires minimal upfront infrastructure investment and has lower support costs over time.

A cloud-based solution makes knowledge sharing accessible to a user regardless of his or her location, platform, device or relation to the enterprise. Accessibility is increasingly important as more communications occur from anywhere at any time, whether due to employees working remotely using their own devices, or non-employees who need to simply communicate or obtain data. And overall, less server cost, time and management is required on-premises. With the right solution, advanced admin controls with ample customization capabilities and security are not compromised.

A cloud-based solution can easily balance between transparency and control of information from within a single, familiar environment across a wide variety of business applications, while providing security-rich communication. Encrypted messaging and the ability to determine access to specific information in your organization or extended network ensures a security-rich environment. This results in greater efficiency, productivity and faster time-to-market, with less vulnerability to costly breaches.

The next evolution for collaboration platforms is cognitive analytics, using IBM Watson technology. A system that can think, reason and learn can produce unprecedented user experience and drive productivity to the next level. Cognitive tools can empower people to find, connect and work with the right experts; speed access to relevant content and insights; and provide the time and space to work simply and together. Employees will be able to manage their work with greater automation, as the system will respond to their behaviors,

Chapter 3: Extending Collaboration Beyond the Organization

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Empower Innovation with the Right Unified Collaboration Solution

habits and preferences. This personalized assistance will boost productivity, deepen relationships and enable the business to develop new products and services to stay ahead of competitors. With cognitive technology, everyday work will be redefined.

Approaching collaboration beyond the organization

Keeping customers and partners as engaged and valued as employees is not optional in today’s business environment. They are vital to the business process, yet they must be brought into the conversation in a way that ensures security-rich collaboration.

In addition, while partners, contractors, vendors and cus-tomers all bring value to the business, each carries its own set of communication needs and risks. A cloud-based solu-tion makes it easy to have all involved parties collaborating on the same platform, with access configured accordingly.

For example, while all parties may need to communicate and share files via email or participate in meetings, not all external parties will need access to chat or the enterprise’s social network. Partners or contractors may need access that closely resembles that of employees, but some vendors may not need much more than the ability to share files or join meetings. Even among employees, access needs may vary by role.

Cognitive solutions will help businesses extend their networks to ecosystems outside of the traditional enterprise to new social audiences across the world. Cognitive analytics will enable collaboration tools to anticipate emerging trends or potential issues. Cognitive analytics will be capable of delivering real-time business insights based on user behavior, social media activity and vast amounts of unstructured data incomprehensible to traditional computing systems, leading to more informed decision-making and expansion of influence.

How IBM Connections S1 can work for you

In today’s environment, businesses that can collaborate with customers, partners and other external parties to

share knowledge, improve decision-making, increase productivity and accelerate time-to-market have a distinct advantage over the competition. They employ one security-rich solution with integrated apps that work well together, just like the employees who use them. With one integrated collaboration solution, they significantly reduce the woes of improperly managed Shadow IT, with its associated risks of collaboration overload and compromised security.

IBM Connections S1 with Verse bundled-in is a unified solution that can solve today’s most pressing collaboration challenges. Connections S1 combines communities, Verse email and calendar, chat, content tools including file sharing and real-time document editing, and meetings in an easy-to-deploy bundle for one low monthly price. This security-rich cloud-based collaboration solution helps clear workday clutter, boost efficiency, and facilitate business with customers, partners and colleagues. And with the integration of Watson technology, employees can move from being merely productive, to truly effective.

Additional key features make S1 flexible for both desktop and mobile, with mobile apps included. S1 comes with 1 TB of file storage per user, web meeting support for up to 200 participants, a document editor for collaboratively authoring content and more. There are also no limitations on guest access to Connections S1, making it highly scalable for working with partners, vendors and customers for businesses of all sizes. Teams of 1-500,000 can reap the productivity benefits from S1.

IBM can also migrate data and provide adoption support as needed. Additional capabilities (e.g., integration with partners such as Box) are offered through partnerships.

Learn more about IBM Connections Cloud S1 at ibm.com/marketplace/cloud/enterprise-social -collaboration/us/en-us#product-header-top.

To get started with a free 60-day trial, visit http://ibmcloud.com/social.

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Empower Innovation with the Right Unified Collaboration Solution

Sources:

1 2015 Internet Trends report, KPCB, May 2015.

2 The Total Economic Impact™ of IBM Connections, a commissioned study conducted by Forrester Consulting on behalf of IBM, July 2015.

3 The Total Economic Impact™ of IBM Connections, a commissioned study conducted by Forrester Consulting on behalf of IBM, July 2015.

4 How IBM Deployed IBM Verse to 500K in Record Time! IBM Social Business, April 2016.