Integrating new with old a challenge—Gartner

In a series of forecasts focusing on trends in enterprise knowledge management support and collaboration, Gartner predicts that the greatest challenges and opportunities for companies during the next four years will be integrating new technologies with those that are maturing.

Trade-offs include the need for IT managers to understand and invest in new technologies such as wikis, weblogs and instant messaging (IM), while consolidating existing technologies such as e-learning and content management.

Gartner predicts that user-deployed tools such as wikis, which allow individuals to create and edit content in a set of Web pages, will enter the mainstream in at least 50 percent of enterprises by 2009.

That’s why companies need to select their Enterprise Content Management (ECM) vendors judiciously and ensure that service level agreements and support mechanisms can be enforced even after a merger. There will be a clear shift in the nature of offerings from different vendors. Independent software vendors will differentiate themselves from platform vendors by supporting industry-specific business processes.

Another prediction says that many companies will integrate e-learning solutions with business applications and manage the training as part of a management dashboard. They will also include more simulation-based training as they re-evaluate and re-engineer their training programs.

According to Gartner’s findings, email retention will no longer be just a storage issue but will soon be required for compliance. Enterprise e-mail policies will change to comply with new regulations and IT departments will take the lead in translating business policies of compliance into technology policies.