Office Automation and Group Collaboration Software Essay

As the business becomes smaller and smaller due to globalization making the business environment more dynamic and competitive, organizations of today are fast realizing the importance of information as an critical asset to successes. This in turn increases the importance of automated soft wares and group collaborations systems, which make information management and use more efficient and effective. This articles explores how Office Automation and group collaboration Systems like Groove are increasingly applied to manual business functions in a network of computers in an organization, which help in business communications, writing reports, saving information and statistics, and group of people working on a project from different location and same or different time frames, all integrated in automated software which saves both time and money increasing the work productivity of the employees. An office automation system heavily relies on a network of workstations in order to create an uninterrupted and fast approach to sending and receiving information in a timely fashion. This can be a local Area Network or LAN for local destinations, for example a network of computers with in a building etc or it can also spread across countries through a Wide Area Network (WAN), which can also be use send instant messages across . this network also provides a secures work space for individual workstations to share and work on documents using groove as a group collaboration software. The functions of an Office Automation System include electronic publishing soft wares which allow users to create documents, edit them as and when requires, insert tables, charts or any other graphics, electronically store important documents and even print them in the form of memos, periodic or ad hoc reports and letters, all these functions are performed by word processing soft wares where as a desktop publishing software can also be used for professional documents for examples brochure, and by making use of available templates for magazines etc Then we have Electronic communication soft wares, as a part of the Office Automation System used for face to face communication with executives in other cities or countries through desktop video conferencing incase of two employees communicating with each other, or electronic collaboration systems which allow different work groups to communicate face to face with each other and work on projects via a network of computers regardless of the geographical location. Another important branch of Office Automation Systems is Telecommuting which now makes It possible for employees to work from home or distant locations avoiding long distance travelling, traffic by connecting to the organization’s local or wide area network. One of the greater advantages of telecommuting is that it allows organization to use the untapped pool of the handicapped people and single parents who for reasons of their own cannot come to the work place. Other advantages of Office Automation Systems is that it also incorporates image processing and presentation and multimedia soft wares like PowerPoint, SPC Harvard Graphics etc which allow the users to edit and integrate both image and texts, videos etc and share it using work collaboration systems. Another important advantage of group collaboration soft wares in this era of globalization is that it allows work groups to work on and share information and coordinate activities at same place same time or different place, different times ensuring a smooth work flow through out the wide spread organization. Although Office automation and group collaboration software make work life a lot easier for us, yet one has to be cautious about the limitations they offer along with the advantages. The soft wares can be used for personnel use unrelated to work. For example instant messaging can be used to discuss topics other than work which wastes both time and office resources. As far as group ware is concerned they can be expensive, may require extensive training, mat not support the rapid changes in technology and due to the availability of company related information with different people at different places it can also lead to a leak in critical information. Therefore, after realizing the importance of automates software and group collaborative system which without any doubt increase work productivity and make coordination of various work activities very easy for us, one must be aware that it does come with certain limitations for which caution should be exercised. After all, information is a critical asset which needs proper management.