In my conversations with IT executives, I’ve heard a lot of concerns about how to justify spending on collaboration tools and/or services. The business case for deployment of new applications such as blogs, wikis, instant messaging and web conferencing isn’t as easy to create as it is for a replacement of an existing system (e.g. transitioning to VoIP). I’ve found that enterprises are struggling with how to build ROI models for collaboration that can be used to justify making an investment.

When I talk to IT executives about how they justify their investments in collaboration tools and services the typical response is as follows: “we believe that by deploying collaboration tools we make our employees more productive, thus improving the bottom line (e.g. either making more money or saving more money).”

But these arguments are hard to sell to the bean counters.