Enterprise 2.0 and Collaboration Consulting

Information Architected’s consultants have worked with members of the prestigious 2.0 Adoption Council and have developed the collaboration strategies for many of the world’s largest organizations.

Our Enterprise 2.0 and Collaboration Consulting Services Include:

Needs Assessment
Readiness Assessment
Collaboration Model Specification
Gap Analysis and Change Management Strategy Development
Corporate Information Governance Development/Modification
Solution Definition and Technology Implementation Plan

Why Our Advisory Services are so Critical

Collaboration has quickly become a mandate to remaining competitive. Collaboration is not new to business, but the Web, and more recently Web 2.0 and Enterprise 2.0 tools and technologies have brought a new level of capabilities that have changed the collaborative abilities and scale of distributed collaboration for the enterprise.

Whether it’s because the “World is Flat” or you want to tap the “Wisdom of Crowds,” collaboration needs to be a part of your business strategy…

But, it doesn’t just HAPPEN spontaneously.

To drive effective approaches to collaboration, using Enterprise 2.0 tools and a host of “legacy” technologies within your enterprise, takes a strategy.

Enterprise 2.0 strategy begins with a definition of the types of approaches to collaboration, your definition of collaboration and community and the specific business goals or objectives desired as outcomes from collaboration.

Your Enterprise 2.0 business strategy needs to be supported through a technology framework that properly leverages everything from automated work scheduling and groupware to mashups, blogs, wikis and social networking to facilitate and improve collaboration and drive innovation across your enterprise.

Our Consultants Can Provide Targeted Advice on How You Can:

Ensure that your corporate culture, policies and procedures are aligned to the tenets of Enterprise 2.0 and open collaboration
Establish a corporate collaboration strategy or modify an existing one to incorporate Enterprise 2.0 tools and techniques
Devise measurable goals to monitor the progress and success of your Enterprise 2.0 programs
Align technology and business strategies for Enterprise 2.0
Maximize use of collaborative platforms
Minimize risk from inappropriate sharing and publication
Incorporate Enterprise 2.0 policy and content into corporate information governance
Develop a corporate information architecture
Ensure collaboration tools and processes are integrated into business processes
Increase the effectiveness of corporate intranets and online collaboration platforms

Our Enterprise 2.0 Consulting Services Are Time and Cost-Effective

We work with your team to develop a customized strategy and implementation plan for Enterprise 2.0. Our consulting is cost and time-effective, because we apply a set of time-proven methodologies that provide focus and velocity to each client engagement.

These include:

Enterprise 2.0 and Collaboration Readiness Assessment

The assessment begins with a customized survey that quickly provides a read on the pulse, opportunities and threats within your organization. Survey results also serve as the foundation to the development of targeted focus groups, that lead to custom strategy development and solution specification.

Collaboration Architecture Modeling

One of the more frequent and biggest mistakes made by organization when embarking on an Enterprise 2.0 initiative is to define “increased collaboration” as their goal or objective. Collaboration is an amorphous target. The Collaboration Architecture Modeling tool maps your goals and objectives into a 5 layer structure, intersected by 3 approaches to deployment, that more clearly defines how and why collaboration is used in your organizations. We provide a 5×3 model for mapping goals and objectives to practices and technology platforms.

E2.0 BizTech Grid

This methodology is used to track the degrees of need associated with Enterprise 2.0 and other collaborative component technologies across your organization. It illustrates the overlap in technology solutions and the cost/needs requirements across the organization. This level of analysis provides insight into leveraging investments and how best to ensure that functionality is integrated into existing business processes.

Time and Urgency Evaluation Matrix

Our approach to user requirements concerning collaboration includes a mapping of the timing and/or urgency of content access. This level of analysis provides invaluable insight on the underlying architecture, and user interfaces best suited to your needs.

Enterprise Content Governance Document Template

You must recognize that with Enterprise 2.0, your organization is adopting many new ways to create content. Any responsible organization should proactively decide how that content will map into existing (or become the genesis of the beginning of) the Corporate Information Governance Document. The Governance Document is the culmination of our analysis. It defines the scope of your solution, the processes and roles required for ongoing content stewardship and the technical and procedural basis for proactively managing content.

E2.0 RFP Template

The E2.0 RFP Template is a best practice developed by IAI, translating user needs into an effective Request For Proposal.

Though no two implementations will be exactly the same, there are critical best practices to implementation that should be followed. Information Architected provides the guidance and methodologies necessary to ensure the success of your E2.0 initiative.

Can We Help You?

Confused by the variety of emerging collaboration technologies (such as Jive, Yammer, SharePoint, Newsgator, SocialCast, SocialText, Google+, Igloo Software, wikis, blogs, communities, forums, prediction markets, social business software)? Which is best suited to your needs? Are there any associated risks?
Need a strategy to configure and customize and integrate Enterprise 2.0 technologies into your business processes?
Wondering how to position Enterprise 2.0 technologies within your organization to drive results-oriented collaboration?
Do you need to migrate and integrate legacy applications to Enterprise 2.0 platforms?
Need to reconcile collaboration with content security and risk management?
Do you need to better leverage the potential value of social computing and knowledge sharing?
Is your senior management unsure how to position collaboration within your organization to specifically drive innovation and impact your critical business drivers?

If You answer Yes to any of these questions – then Information Architected can provide the assistance you need.

If you are tired of the unapproachable, expensive, “ivory tower” consultants and analysts of the world, or the integrators who only promote the solution they resell, we are the antidote to provide realistic, affordable and relevant strategic solutions for your business needs.