Conclusions
A review of our primary findings leads to the following conclusions:
- Technology trends and limits: The networking,
hardware and software technology to support collaborative applications,
is mostly here today and is constantly evolving with time. However, the
absence of high-bandwidth symmetric network access to homes may
ultimately stunt the growth of the industry if not available in the next
decade, since we believe that telecommuting is one of the chief markets
that will help in burgeoning this technology in the near- to
medium-term.
- Economic Factors: Significant economic benefits are
being realized by companies (eg AT&T, Heineken, etc.) implementing
collaborative technologies, although there are challenges in accurately
calculating all the benefits. In the near term, however, most
applications of the technology will be intra-firm because of network
effects and the lack of standards.
- Industrial Organization and Business Strategy: The
challenges of organizational change are tremendous. Organizations
must make sure their culture, incentive systems, and structure
are adapted to the new dynamics of a more collaborative world. These
changes will require effective training and communication
throughout the entire organization, as well as changing management
styles and more flexible managerial attitudes.
The interplay of the above mentioned factors suggests that collaborative
technologies will develop in two phases.
Collaborative technologies will first develop in niche markets
for use within a single organization. These organizations will
utilize existing collaborative technologies across intranets to
recognize significant benefits in the form of cost savings, increased
productivity, and improved quality. They will struggle through
difficult organizational changes, but emerge well-positioned
to take advantage of the benefits of collaboration.
We investigated three such niche markets in our case
studies:
- Corporate training:
The future of corporate training using collaborative multimedia
technologies is very bright. Commercial enterprises have long been early
adopters of innovative technologies to support their training
activities. The economic rationale and the technology has been
demonstrated in numerous settings. Real-time corporate training
activities have significantly reduced overall training costs while
enhancing student retention rates. As the costs of infrastructure and
tools decline, the capabilities of the tools increase. While there still
remain some technical and human interaction issues, we expect that
innovative third party vendors and system integrators will address these
remaining issues over the coming years. We expect corporate distance
training through collaborative interactive multimedia to undergo
widespread adoption in the next five years.
- Distance education:
Distance learning has long been recognized as an important form of
education. The advances in real-time multimedia technologies have made
it even more attractive, by enhancing the interaction and learning
process. While it is still costly to deploy the infrastructure to
support distance learning, the economic benefits will outweigh the cost
in the long run.
- Telecommuting:
We found that there are strong economic incentives for the adoption of
collaborative technologies in the telecommuting sector. The benefits of
telecommuting include increased productivity, reduced real estate and
facility costs, labor pool expansion, and flexible working hours coupled
with improved employee quality of life. However, despite these
advantages and technology capabilities, telecommuting is not a done
deal. Managerial and executive support, and changes in management
styles are crucial to the success of telecommuting programs in any
organization.
Future outlook: Wider adoption will require the identification of
well-defined markets and will begin to involve increased collaboration
between multiple organizations. As the technology matures and network
capabilities increase, organizations will increasingly look outside
their walls for opportunities to realize the economic benefits of
collaboration. Where there is economic value, the technologies and new
processes will develop naturally and without the need for government
intervention.
- Collaborative planning: As the network develops and
companies adapt to a more collaborative environment, organizations will
build on what companies like Heineken have begun. They will develop
highly collaborative relationships with suppliers and industrial
customers that provide economic value to all participants.
- Shared virtual worlds: These will only develop if there is
economic or social value to be derived from it. If this value exists,
it will definitely require the development of a ubiquitous network
infrastructure that can support high-bandwidth applications. In
addition, to bring DVEs closer to reality, we must be able to combine
the efforts of the networking and distributed interactive simulation
communities, leveraging the networking expertise of one and the graphics
and user-interface expertise of the other. This is an issue of
industrial organization and partnership.
The described evolution makes intuitive sense. Organizations are going
to need the time to adapt to their new structure before they can
effectively collaborate with others. During this time the technology
can mature, standards can develop, and a more symmetric high bandwidth
network can be established to support the technology.
The result will be an environment better prepared for sophisticated,
real-time inter-organizational collaboration and the host of new
organizational issues presented by it. We feel confident this
trend will develop, but it will be driven by organizational needs
to gain economic advantage through increased collaboration. Successful
collaborative technologies will develop around well-defined markets
that provide economic value; the rest will unfortunately go the way of
the Macintosh.
Bibliography
Future Outlook
Contents