Businesses have been busy buying collaboration tools, but they're still waiting to discover the full payback, analysts at Forrester Research found in a recent survey. The tools are reducing travel expenses and improving communications, but users are missing out on the majority of benefits inherent in collaboration technology.

The most popular collaboration tools include team workspaces, blogs, wikis and desktop video conferencing, reports Jeffrey Burt at eWeek. It is not difficult to measure the reduction in travel costs and the enhanced communications that these tools enable. However, the technology also promises benefits in the areas of time to market, partnering and innovation, Forrester analyst T.J. Keitt maintains.

"A review of travel expenditures pre- and post-deployment of a collaboration tool can point to savings. Likewise, executives and the HR department using blogs and wikis to disseminate information instead of shipping paper is simple for the business to track," Keitt said in the report. "So it's easy to see why the majority of businesses view these as the foremost benefits of using collaboration technology."

To reap greater benefits from collaboration technologies, businesses need to deploy a greater variety of tools, Forrester suggests. What's more, the tools have to be available when employees need them. If workers are given a range of tools that provide different options for collaboration in their specific area of work, they will make better use of the technology.

For more:
- see Jeffrey Burt's article at eWeek

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