Michael Osterman of Osterman Research offers a glimpse at some of the findings from his latest study of enterprise instant messaging, presence and real-time communication in this Network World Unified Communication newsletter.

What comes as somewhat of a surprise is that many companies state an insufficient business case as the main reason for not deploying corporate IM, outweighing concerns over cost, security and content control. The article notes:

“IM and presence are today where e-mail was some time around 1995. Back then, you could still find people who were not convinced of the efficacy of e-mail in improving communications and who simply couldn’t come up with a business case for deploying it – today, you’d be hard-pressed to find anyone who does not believe in the value of e-mail for business communications.”

I agree with Michael’s assertion that corporate IM can provide a real competitive advantage if used in an integrated and innovative fashion.

“Second, organizational decision-makers will need to be proactive in understanding what IM and presence can do. As I’ve said before, e-mail’s ubiquity means that organizations can no longer gain any sort of competitive advantage from it. However, that is not the case with IM and presence – innovative use of IM and presence can speed organizational decision-making, provide better customer service, etc., in ways that can provide real competitive advantage simply because many of your competitors are probably not yet using these capabilities.“

As noted in previous posts, enterprise IM is here to stay. Companies must look beyond “chat” to realize the benefits of presence integration and instant collaboration.

Technorati Tags: Enterprise IM, Osterman Research, Unified Communication

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