A: Is the draft sales proposal ready?
B: Just finished. sending u a copy.
A: Hang on, Ajay from B’lore is online. Lemme chat with him a bit.
B: Ok, I’ll c u l8er...

Notice something familiar?
The above instant messaging transcript might well be that between your company’s sales head and junior sales manager, or between CEO and sales head.

Finally phone, fax and e-mail have some competition in the business world, with the age of IM being here. We’re living through a revolution that’s radically changing the way we communicate, and its impact is being increasingly felt across businesses big and small. Instant messaging promises to redefine business communication more dramatically than e-mail did in the 90s.

Cost-cutting? KPMG India says it saves up to 25% of its communication costs using instant messaging. Instant, fluid and fast communications? LG Electronics uses IM for efficient, round-the-clock communication with sister concerns spread across Asia and other parts of the world.

What’s more, companies like Indian Airlines, Dabur India and Pepsi India are among those that use IM to communicate with their suppliers and customers.

Do you use IM in your Enterprise? Allowed to Message Over half of the respondents say they use IM, but less than half actually allowed their employees to message

IM lets users exchange text messages just like e-mail, except that messages are short, and delivered instantly. IM applications use a technology called "presence awareness" to detect who is online, and therefore users can check whether the intended recipient is "available" before sending a message. New generation IM applications allow far more than mere text messages, as they come with features like file transfer, audio/video conferencing support, and application sharing for rich collaboration.

At its simplest, IM lets you have live real-time text-based conversations with 1 or more people which is not possible with email. And unlike telephone, it also lets you have several such conversations simultaneously, together as well independently. IM is unobtrusive—a new message just flashes, it doesn’t keep ringing like a phone, and it’s instant—you don’t wait and wonder when the message will be read, as in email.

Why do you use IM? CLEAR WINNER: The USP of IM is instant communication, and this reflects in the many reasons that enterprises cite for using the medium

Which IM Application do you Use? YAHOO & MSN ON TOP: Yahoo and MSN messengers rule on corporate desktops. Clearly, customized enterprise IMs are are yet to find a firm footing in corporate India

What do you use IM for? COST-CUTTING RULES: Saving long-distance phone costs while communicating with branch offices is high on the agenda, though many use IM to communicate with neighbors

The service is wildly popular across the world—with close to 250 million users worldwide, according to research firm IDC.

Over 65 million people already use IM at work, IDC says, and the number is expected to surpass 260 million by 2006.

Those figures make IM the fastest-growing communications medium in history.

And it should come as no surprise that IM is making inroads in Indian enterprises as well, as over 55% of companies from a recent Dataquest survey say they let their employees communicate through IM at work. Companies across industry segments— right from finance companies (IDBI Bank, Mahindra & Mahindra Finance), and auto companies (TVS Motors, Maruti Udyog) to even PSUs (SAIL, Indian Airlines) are gainfully employing the new communication tools for faster and cheaper communications.

The Dataquest survey reveals over 95% of companies use IM for communication between their remote offices and branches, while over 65% use it for intra-office communication, bypassing phone extensions. But the most interesting fact is that close to 38% companies are communicating with external parties, their suppliers, clients and customers etc using instant messaging—a clear sign of acceptance of the tool. More companies, including Alstom Power and Hero Honda Motors are working on extending IM collaboration to their suppliers and business partners.

The primary benefits are obvious—since IM is real-time, communication is far effective and convenient. It is like a live conversation, and you can continue communicating with many people independently at any given time. And you don’t need to dial a number or lift a handset, just click on a contact name in your "buddy list", and start talking.

SECURITY CONCERNS: Some say IM boosts productivity, but others fear of loss of productivity. And security concerns top the ‘why I don’t IM’ list

That probably explains why a whopping 96.6% of companies who use IM say the primary reason for using IM is faster and convenient communications, according to the DQ survey. "IM is easy to use, instant and users pick it up fast", says VC Kumanan of IDFC. IDFC uses NetMeeting to inter office communications.

A secondary benefit is savings in communication costs, especially long distance ones. Gopal Shukla, of Dabur India, who uses IM at 80-odd sites across the country, says IM "has contributed to significant savings in STD costs while providing interactive communications round the clock." "We extensively use IM for interacting with our overseas parent in Korea and LGE group companies in other countries, saving a substantial amount of money for us." says Arindam Bose of LG Electronics.

Interestingly, nearly three-fifth companies say they use advance features like audio/video conference, application sharing etc using IM. Hero-Honda Motors’ SR Balasubramanian says "meeting with a whiteboard, presentation screens and audio (conference) has been very well received".

How Much does IM Save You?

The survey also reveals that a majority of the companies are running public IM applications like Yahoo and MSN messenger in their organizations. Over 82% of companies using IM use Yahoo or MSN messenger, while a bare 34% and 24% of them report using commercial and proprietary IM solutions respectively. Many companies allow use of more than 1 type of services in their organization.

This behavior clearly points to both the nascence of the medium and the resultant lack of awareness among enterprises on security implications of using instant messengers. Gartner says "corporations should be very concerned about unsecure instant messaging options used by employees, and the types of information exchanged via those services."

Not surprisingly, lack of security as a reason for not using IM gets the highest rating of 8 on a scale of 10, by companies who don’t permit IM. Lack of a customized application, which can be controlled and monitored by the IT department, is also not far behind with a rating of 5.3. Clearly, if enterprises were convinced of security, manageability and control features available in IM, they would probably be far open to using IM rather than blocking it altogether.

Ironically, it seems like a case of poor communication to enterprises, as there are multiple commercial offerings in the market today (see box, "Who IM?"), which let you do secure instant messaging using end-to-end encryption and sophisticated authentication control. Ability to archive messages is an important feature often missed in free public IM services, but the commercial solutions take care of that too.

Another issue is lack of policy guidance on use of IM. As many as one-fifth of the companies using IM say they may be using it just because there is no clear policy related to it, according to the DQ survey. Sometimes corporate IT departments are just not aware of use of IM in their organizations, as anyone can download public IM applications and connect through a LAN connected to the Internet.

But as Robert Mahowald of IDC remarks in an article published in Newsweek, "IT departments know, but because their budgets are too small to deal with it, it is a conscious decision to look away." In some cases, "IT may believe there’s nothing wrong with letting employees use IM", says Mahowald.

SAVINGS?: Many respondents say their e-mail and telephone usage has decreased with IM, while a majority says fax use and traveling has not been affected much

A corporate policy will enable standardization on the services and users authorized to use it. Osterman Research says 29% of companies have adopted a standard platform for business IM communication, according to a research carried in the United States.

Yet another attendant risk with IM is resultant loss of productivity. IM is discreet, and employees may be spending hours on work chatting socially, without anyone knowing it. Thankfully, this problem only arises with public services like Yahoo and MSN, and a customized or commercial solution can block messaging outside permitted users’ list.

CLEAN SWEEP AHOY!: By 2006, nearly 100% of US enterprises will be using instant messengers at work, while the number of staffers allowed to use it will shoot up to more than 80% of total staff by 2007

Another finding from the survey is that companies often limit use of IM to a select group of employees. Out of over 15000 employees working in the companies who allow IM, nearly 6200 get access to IM, a bare 41% of the total. At Hero Honda Motors, "the facility is given only to those who need it, not as a matter of protocol or en masse", says Balasubramanian. Iqbal Gandham of Net4India says his company is also rolling out an in-house messenger that allows differential access.

With a bit of forward planning and judicious investment in a right tool, there is actually no reason why a company won’t benefit from using IM in some way or the other. The importance of communication is well understood by all, and IM is a great way to enhance and increase good communication. Paul Ritter of Yankee Group sums up the options before the enterprises.

"IM usage within enterprises will continue and intensify, which means companies have an important decision to make," writes Ritter in an article published on the company’s website. "There are two wrong choices that are made—simply blocking all forms of instant messaging within the company, and doing nothing to manage and control use on instant messengers."

TEAM DQ

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