The ability to work together to solve a common problem has proven to be one of mankind’s greatest accomplishments. Great things can happen when we all work together. However, implementing a collaboration strategy is not always easy and there can be many challenges to overcome.

End users have high expectations that application performance will be maintained, regardless of time, location and end device. Users also want to be able to have collaboration capabilities regardless of service provider, meaning whether users are connecting with collaboration tools across a corporate maintained network, or connecting via their home or hotel Internet connection.

For organizations to be successful in their collaboration strategy, organizations must determine their collaboration needs and establish which tools effectively meet those needs. Additionally, organizations must be able to prioritize traffic and effectively monitor and manage the performance of those collaboration tools. Finally, organizations must consider security requirements for collaboration as well as establishing proper use policies to ensure corporate data remains secure.

There are a wide range of collaboration tools available on the market today, including, mobile applications, TelePresence, online web conferencing tools, just to name a few. The figure displays some of the most common collaboration tools.