Working together to support business

Management - Features

Wednesday, 20 December 2006

Business networking can result in improved individual and organisational productivity as well as significant savings of cost and time. The key to this success is the adoption of effective communication techniques. The new term for this is 'collaboration' and it works best using the latest technology. Roger Woods explains.

Collaboration should not be thought of as software or a piece of technology alone, it is an activity or process that inherently involves people. Technology can only facilitate collaboration by supporting collaborative exchanges in their many forms and capturing and repurposing the valuable information generated by people's interaction.

The goal for any kind of collaboration is to successfully integrate people, content and process. Even ad hoc exchanges can follow a particular process, ensuring that protocol is followed and information captured, with the aim of improving personal productivity and information flow throughout a business or organisation.

In order to achieve this, there are business tools available that facilitate the delivery of data and content with users, as demanded by a particular event, process or requirement. It is essential to capture the outcome of collaborative activities so that they can be reused.

This is called 'transaction management' as it manages every type of business transaction from sales to business support.

Collaboration solutions are able to add this element of persistence, raising the value of the interaction that might otherwise be lost. A comprehensive audit trail improves understanding as well as addressing legislative and regulatory compliance.

In today's business world, greater emphasis is being placed on the value of organisational learning and knowledge retention for reuse. Fostering increased collaboration furthers the value of any business relationship through shared learning and shared understanding.

A good collaborative business network delivers:

Development of a company's business data centre providing a secure and searchable document repository with automatic version control for effective collaboration;
Permission-based access to secure online communication and collaboration techniques using data collection and diagnostic technology to store and share data and results within an organisation's business family;
A comprehensive contact database that can form the basis for a case/transaction management system tracking client interaction and links documents, survey data, video and conference calls with the client's account;
A data centre which stores all types of files in an organised repository for sharing by permission-based access;
Collaboration tools with the ability to proactively communicate and manage the business issues of the day;
Advanced web-based multi-site publishing, ensuring that information is relevant for each audience;
Extended workflow capabilities linked to the organisation's business processes;
The ability for advisers and suppliers to confidentially and securely mentor, sell and support their organisation, ensuring efficient delivery of services to clients;
Ability for the organisation to monitor and administrate all transactions carried out by employees, partners, suppliers, clients and advisers to maintain quality control, create reports and supply audit trails.

The target market

Around the world there are many business clubs which act as networks for the benefit of their members. Clubs such as these and, in fact, any closed business communities, are ideal users of collaborative networks offering a self-managed, low-cost business support system.

In any club where the members are normal business organisations and other members exist to sell products and services to those members, if the engagement between them is not effective then the real opportunity of networking has been lost.

The fact is that most business clubs do not have the personnel resources or technology platforms to manage the growing demands of their members. The result is often a large number of networking meetings with guest speakers offering a wide range of different business opportunities, advice, products and services not focused on members' specific needs. Research shows this only confuses the members.

In the UK, organisations such as Chambers of Commerce often let members select what applies to their business from an array of offerings. This technique spreads the net wide and does not focus on individual needs. Without advanced technology, they are limited to a people-based support system that is uneconomical and inefficient.

The latest networking technology enables every member to define precisely what they need so the organisation can tailor help by connecting them with the correct member adviser. The process benefits the business club, its members and its advisers. Perhaps even more important is the fact that growth is based upon technology managing member needs, meaning it is not dependent upon people or stunted by resources and costs.

The technology means the business club can structure its membership into ordinary members, accredited professional advisers (APAs) and approved service providers (ASPs). The APAs and ASPs pay an annual subscription to the business club for the right to support the needs of the ordinary members through the portal. The system is customised to the business club's house style.

Specialist organisations manage such portals for the business club on a shared income basis. Chambers of Commerce currently enjoy a membership that equates to around ten per cent of the business community. Working together with other networks significantly assists recruitment, retention and support of membership. This gives a chamber the potential to gain revenue from the service and also enhance its membership options, which generates more revenue from membership fees and other added-value services, as well as allowing further penetration into the business market for specific services.

The APAs and the ASPs can also benefit from using the technology within their own businesses for non-business club clients. These clients benefit directly from the network and the APAs receive commissions for recruitment of members. This builds membership for both the Chamber of Commerce and the partner organisation.

While networking organisations must provide some leadership for their own brand, it is more effective to support existing business communities, which will directly generate the opportunity for alternative networking from those organisations that do not wish to be members of the chamber.

This same type of model works well for any corporate organisation with a large client base either in the UK or internationally and, once established, can become a new and effective way of managing business.

Network functionality

With the latest online networking technology, specific advice, support and training can be accessed from anywhere in the world. Advice is based on a two-way communication strategy where the user organisation completes survey and self-diagnostic programmes to produce a blueprint of their organisation so advisers can understand their business and provide effective advice.

Data collection provides:

The ability to communicate with other businesses in a secure and consistent manner, collecting and storing the information;
Benchmarking the organisation by surveys and self-diagnostic routines stored in the organisations own data centre;
The development of secure collaborative workspace for each organisation;
Encrypted transmission of sensitive material to advisers and company contacts;
Access to audio and video conference calls supported by business information available online to reduce the need for face-to-face meetings;
Access to a broadband TV services delivering business information and training programmes.

Collaboration tools include personal data space to record and share with colleagues:

Adviser question-and-answer responses;
Self-diagnostic surveys results;
General communication via notes;
Business transaction/case management storage for the history of every type of business transaction;
All communication, date and time stamped, creating a detailed audit trail;
Adviser management all of clients using the network portal;
Administrator co-ordination of relationships between advisers and organisations to ensure quality and consistency of service.

Chamber and adviser publishing tools can offer the following benefits:

Manage multiple websites per customer;
Share content between websites;
Share look and feel between websites;
A search engine for websites;
Options to add dynamic business behaviour management to the site;
News feeds, news tickers and other data list elements for websites;
The ability to control website structure and navigation;
Automatic site navigation publishing;
The ability to link pages within the site and externally;
The ability to customise the website's look and feel;
Preview a website;
Publish a website;
Website hosting;
Domain name management.

Security

A secure repository where company data is stored is a vital component of a network and should be customisable by the administrator. If relevant, the organisation can use a simple case-management system with which to store all interaction with its members. This data can be accessed by advisers through secure permission-based access rights.

With the best systems, at no time is email used to communicate sensitive business information. All access to data stored within the repository is accessed by secure permission-based access rights.