Verizon Business introduced Tuesday a new Collaboration Calculator, a tool that the company said will allow organizations to measure how well their members work together and gauge how to improve collaboration.

The Web-based tool, developed by Frost & Sullivan, is designed to help large businesses and government agencies measure the effectiveness of existing collaborative initiatives and determine potential next steps for improving teamwork to help support common business objectives and improve performance.

In todays highly competitive global marketplace, effective collaboration can be a strategic competitive differentiator, said Nancy Gofus, senior vice president and chief marketing officer for Verizon Business. Our Meetings Around the World study last year demonstrated the direct correlation between collaboration and business performance. This year, were making the mechanics behind that study directly available to our customers to help them assess how best to use collaborative technologies to help boost their own competitive edge.

The study, Meetings Around the World: The Impact of Collaboration on Business Performance, was conducted in 2006 by Frost & Sullivan and sponsored by Verizon Business and Microsoft Corp. It found that collaboration is a key driver of business performance. The study which defined collaboration as an interaction between culture and technology such as audio and net conferencing, e-mail and instant messaging also found that professionals around the world see their collaborative efforts as highly productive and believe that collaboration through communications technologies can provide a competitive advantage.

The Collaboration Calculator uses the methodology of the study so organizations can directly measure the impact of their own collaborative efforts against the studys Global Collaboration Index.

Like the study, the Collaboration Calculator addresses multiple aspects of a business or government organizations makeup, including market and number of employees, an organizations collaborative culture, organizational structure and its use of collaborative technologies such as instant messaging, audio conferencing, video conferencing, Web conferencing and meeting scheduler. Based on these aspects, the Collaboration Calculator generates an organizations Collaboration Index score, which is then compared with the overall index score in the study and, if applicable, to companies in the region, industry sector and of similar size.

Participants are assigned a ranking of above average, average or below average. The calculator also can identify gaps in the use of technology to help guide the way to make improvements.

Verizon Business www.verizonbusiness.com