I receive one of two responses from people when they find out that my business partner works in another state and that we have spent only hours together in person. The first comes from those who are not familiar with the ease of collaboration, and invariably runs along the lines of "How do you get things done?" followed by "Wow, new technology is so amazing." The other reaction comes from those who have modern business experience and can't imagine how work would ever get done without collaboration. These folks are nonchalant, taking it for granted that technology today allows us to work with people from all over the world.

Collaboration allows businesses to access the skills of a broader network of people because they don't have to look only locally for their talent. Collaboration also increases the efficiency of single-site small businesses, allowing for more constant communication even when employees are at meetings or are working from home. This flexibility keeps a business running more smoothly no matter what is going on in the personal and professional lives of those in the office.

Of course, with collaboration becoming such a trend among all businesses, vendors are tripping over themselves to provide related products and services. With so many new options on the market, it's hard to know what's worth buying for your business and what you should bypass. But if you break your buying search down into a few basic categories and look at specific issues within those categories, purchasing collaboration tools becomes significantly easier.

Why Are You Interested in Collaboration?

Before you get started on the buying process, you should take some time to think about what uses your business has for collaboration. By narrowing down your company's needs in advance, you eliminate the impulse to buy unnecessary products. Think about what you want to get out of collaboration and how each item will improve your business's efficiency, productivity, and employee satisfaction.

Here are some questions to ask yourself:

• Why does my company need collaboration?
• Who in the company will participate in this collaboration? Will files and programs need to be accessible to everyone or just to key people?
• Do we need tools primarily to stay in touch when we are out in the field, or would collaboration also be useful for working from home or during business trips?
• Does anyone in the company need to use collaboration to communicate with clients or partners?

Types of Tools for Collaboration

When you begin looking at the tools that allow for collaboration, you'll find that they include both software and hardware. You should also look specifically at mobile options to facilitate collaboration.

Software

Understanding the software that allows you to collaborate remotely with everyone in your business is the most important part of the purchasing process; the hardware that is necessary for use with some applications, and the mobile options that are available, are secondary. Buyers who are in a bind and need to purchase something quickly should focus their efforts here first, partly because the daily activities most important to running a business are Web browsing, e-mail and IM communication, and the uploading and downloading of documents, all of which are facilitated with collaboration software. Find one application, or a set of software, that meets the needs you identified for your business.

Here are some of the things that software programs can do to facilitate collaboration:

• Reduce costs of calls and conference calls.
• Allow customized data collection to help maintain business records.
• Make documents and data accessible online so that everyone in the business can access (and change) the data remotely from any computer. Shared files and applications may include contact lists, spreadsheets, calendars, Web links, and documents.
• Customize and secure e-mail and IM programs to facilitate communication between employees.
• Forward e-mail to mobile phones so that out-of-office employees receive messages immediately.
• Provide employee time-tracking for businesses that pay hourly or keep track of productivity.
• Allow attendance of live focus groups and virtual events, from any location. (Note that this function may require you to purchase a display that is larger than the standard PC monitor).
• Permit multisite collaboration between remote PCs and whiteboards in virtual meetings.
• Allow planning and project management online, in real time.

As you can see, different types of software are available to meet businesses' varying needs. In most cases, a company seeks to use collaboration to share files and documents and to facilitate communication between remote locations. As businesses increase in size or diversify in location, considering tools that will allow for online meetings and virtual events becomes more necessary. Determine what stage your business is in to narrow down your needs. Some of the more widely known commercial collaboration software tools include Citrix's GoToMeeting and GoToAssist, EMC's Documentum eRoom, Microsoft SharePoint, and WebEx.

The cost of these services varies widely depending on how many users will be accessing the system and which rate plan you select. For example, WebEx offers a limited meeting program for $49 per month that includes up to ten users. The company also has a more extensive package with additional features and applications, plus access for more users, at rates up to nearly $400 per month. This kind of price range is typical, but both WebEx and Citrix offer free trial periods.

Hardware and Mobile Phones

After you've narrowed down your software choices, you'll want to look at hardware and at mobile phones. Determine why you might need these additional items for collaboration. Perhaps the software you are considering requires such equipment; this is sometimes the case with tools for voice conferencing and videoconferencing. Or maybe you frequently have employees out in the field and want to be able to contact them via voice or text as well as to push e-mail straight to their phones.

Voice-conferencing and videoconferencing systems are the most frequently used types of collaboration hardware. For example, Polycom offers both hands-free business voice conferencing and personal video calling for all kinds of offices. Such products permit everyone in the company to gather at the same time despite working from remote locations, facilitating decision-making and brainstorming. Whether you use hardware or software for this type of collaboration depends greatly on your desired initial output cost. Voice-conferencing and videoconferencing hardware costs more money up front (between $1000 and $10,000 depending on the system, with the average cost for a small business being approximately $3500); in contrast, software for this type of collaboration runs in the hundreds of dollars. However, if you purchase hardware outright, you avoid the monthly fees associated with software programs. Additional hardware that you may consider includes electronic whiteboards, multimedia projectors, and interactive panels for remote presentations.

Wireless e-mail is currently the most dominant of all mobile applications, but other applications are growing increasingly popular, particularly as phones become more advanced. RIM's BlackBerry and Palm's Treo remain the big names in mobile phone collaboration for businesses due in part to the fact that they regularly evolve to meet new business needs. They are increasingly affordable, too, allowing businesses to purchase them for more than just key management employees. Also available, however, are products that make communication and online access with all mobile phones possible, so review your options carefully with an eye toward cost.

Things to Consider Before Purchasing

You will probably narrow down your buying choices considerably after identifying your needs and seeing what software and hardware products are available. Before making a final decision, you have a number of things to think about:

• What specific purpose will each product serve?
• What is the cost of the product? Look not only at the outright cost but also at the cost and time of training employees in its use. Think about the cost saved by the productivity increase resulting from use of the product.
• In what ways might the product take away from productivity?
• Does the company that sells the product provide training? What type?
• Is the product compatible with existing tools and programs (such as your ISP, your computers' operating systems, your other applications, and your existing mobile tools)? If not, what kind of syncing is possible?
• Can the product work offline as well as online?
• Can the product grow with your business, or will you need to upgrade if you add more employees?
• What privacy issues are associated with the product?
• What will be lost if you don't purchase the product?

As you answer these questions, you'll discover that some products are obviously unsuitable because they might facilitate collaboration but negatively affect other areas of the company. For example, you might find that your employees could communicate more effectively from remote locations with a new IM program but that it would encourage excess personal online conversation among in-office staff. Or you might discover that the training and time necessary to learn the new system would not outweigh the benefits it provides.

In some cases, you'll find that the product is right but that you must choose a particular brand name for purposes of compatibility with your existing systems. Or you might find that you need to take extra security measures when beginning to employ the new product. For example, many businesses are using Google Apps, which combines features such as documents and spreadsheets (file sharing), e-mail, online calendars, and chat services. This set of applications stores information on unencrypted Google servers, which can raise security concerns. If you plan to share only files and information containing no sensitive content, however, these tools may be sufficient.

Many businesses are now also using the new Google Gears for more-secure online (and offline) collaboration. This product allows for free collaboration, which permits a business to test out its need for services; it should be noted, though, that Google Gears is still in beta phase (and could be for a while, since Google products sometimes stay in beta for years).

Collaboration can greatly benefit your business. It allows you to make use of the skills of new employees located in areas where you don't have an office. And it permits you to increase the communication among your on-site employees during their busy days, in and out of the office. Unlike what some people seem to think about collaboration, it is not the wave of the future--it is the way business is done today.