Only a minority of IT professionals believes that collaboration software delivers any substantial benefit, according to a study by IT analyst company Forrester Research.

The survey of 2,500 IT professionals from around the world found that 64% believe that collaboration tools provide ‘limited to no benefits’.

Roughly the same proportion believe that the only ways in which collaboration software might benefit an organisation is reducing the need for employee travel and improving internal corporate communications. According to Forrester, this neglects their potential role in product development and launch.

Strangely, analyst TJ Keitt suggested that the way to get more value from collaboration tools was to adopt more of them. “The tipping point for gaining benefits related to flexible working styles is after a business deploys four or five collaboration technologies,” Keitt said.