As organizations strive to forge ahead in today's volatile business environment, they constantly seek ways to gain competitive advantage. A host of strategies have been advocated, including corporate restructuring, downsizing, business process reengineering, workflow streamlining, and quality improvement, to name a few. These interventions require a collaborative approach to decision making. As corporations race to improve individual productivity through desktop computing, support for collaborative and group work is gaining attention. Surveys show that the bulk of strategic corporate decisions are made in group settings, and that a sizable portion of an executive's time is spent in meetings.
Corporations can ill-afford to ignore opportunities to improve productivity.
Support for group or collaborative work takes many forms, including electronic mail, bulletin boards, shared information systems, video-conferencing, and electronic meeting rooms. These systems allow individuals who may be dispersed in time and location to work on common tasks. This support has variously been labeled groupware, group decision support systems, and computer supported cooperative work. It goes beyond traditional personal computing support and includes networking, sharing of files and notes, and projection and recording facilities for dissemination of ideas. These tools afford corporations new opportunities for competitive edge by revolutionizing group processes and making effective use of scarce executive availability.