Putting a cost and value on enterprise-wide collaboration seems to be proving a real barrier to its implementation for big businesses - this according to a senior group of IT managers who met up this week through one of our workshops.

Whilst the IT directors taking part all seemed to understand the drivers of increased collaboration - for example they believe that collaborative technologies can help staff work more productively and leverage the knowledge of groups of people working across the world - they just don’t seem to be able to build a business case solid enough to convince senior management to invest.

Perhaps this is partly because of the high costs involved in implementing enterprise-wide collaboration properly - and if it’s worth doing, it’s worth doing well. Implementing collaborative working practices often means having to make significant investments in business infrastructure, resource development, design and organisational management - investments that senior business managers won’t make until the value is clear.

However, IT directors also suggested that ‘cultural issues’ play a big part in the small priority placed on collaboration.

Like it or not senior managers are older, less inclined - or not inclined - to participate in social networking (something for teenagers) and generally more willing to believe that web 2.0 technologies are a ‘passing fad’.