Business Instant Messaging

As a communications tool, corporate instant messaging saves time and money, but presents some security risks. Since its inception in the late 1990s, instant messaging (IM) has grown in popularity amongst Internet users, nearly 50% regularly communicate online via chatrooms and blogs. During the last decade, domestic and foreign companies have opted to use business Internet messaging as a convenient, cost-saving alternative to landline phone calls or e-mail. Today, over 280 million users regularly send instant messages through one or more of five major IM providers. As a business communications tool, IM is expected to outdistance e-mail in the very near future, primarily due to its ease, immediacy, and seamless efficiency.

While some would argue that constant corporate instant messaging can be distracting and threaten employee productivity, others argue that the opposite is true. IM has been proven to be a boon to businesses that rely heavily on communication between workgroups and teams to collaborate on projects. Workgroups can easily conduct online think tank sessions comparing documents, images, files, and streaming content in real-time and at relatively little cost to the company. Compare IM with the high cost of domestic and international conference calling and the reason businesses switch to electronic communication is a no-brainer. Instead of mailing blueprints, drafts, or contracts to customers or business partners across the state or overseas, IM allows images and files to be shared and viewed at individual workstations.

The beauty of IM technology is that traveling sales representatives and employees at remote locations don't have to be left out of the loop when it comes to communicating. Business instant messaging is accessible anywhere in the world and to and from most cell phones. Partners can share files and download real-time streaming content to view stock quotes or share statistics accessed through links to other websites. Corporate instant messaging actually encourages greater workplace communication, collaboration, cohesiveness, and consistency in achieving goals and completing tasks. And that cohesiveness is a Biblical principle that reaps rewards in the world of commerce. "Two are better than one; because they have a good reward for their labour." (Ecclesiastes 4:9)

However, the downside to business instant messaging is the security risk. In the information age, sensitive corporate data can translate into stolen dollars. When enterprises engage in electronic communications, server providers have access to confidential data that can cost billions if leaked to the public. Providers have a moral and ethical obligation to users to safeguard private information, such as email addresses, social security numbers, bank accounts, and confidential e-conversations and text messages. Corporations should only deal with reputable providers who can assure that text messages will remain secure and accessible only to workgroup members.

Other workplace abuses can exist when employees use business instant messaging to communicate with family and friends, or engage in personal texting at the expense of productivity. Many corporations have implemented policies limiting or prohibiting personal emails, text messaging and telephoning in the workplace to discourage abuse. A legitimate concern is that confidential corporate information may inadvertently be sent to personal contacts and vice versa. Especially susceptible to security breaches are military and government agencies, hospitals, retailers, banks and other financial institutions. A significant amount of damage can be done when personal identification, financial records, sensitive data, and even insider stock market trading information fall into the wrong hands.

On the upside, business instant messaging is cost effective; and some providers offer free downloads. Individuals and businesses can access free or low-cost programs online and install a software client, which enables users to connect to offsite servers through their PC with a provider-issued password and username. Once the client is logged on, the server verifies the client's Internet Protocol, or IP address and the client's unique port. The server essentially acts like a telephone operator, connecting the company's computer or client, to users in the company's contact list. As individual users log on, the server notifies chatgroup members of one another's availability and proceeds to send instant messages to and from their individual IP addresses.

To carry on an instant message "conversation," individual work or chatgroup members simply click on the name of a user who is noted as online and begins typing a text message into a window, similar to an email message box. Senders click "send" and the instant message is immediately and directly sent to the recipient. Having succeeded in making a connection between the right users, the IM server simply bows out of the picture and allows the clients of each individual within a chat group to "talk" as long as they want without worrying about long distance fees or rates. Each string of the text message appears to each individual logged onto the client, as users converse back and forth in real time. At the end of a corporate instant messaging session, clients end online conversations by closing the message window and logging off. The client sends a digital signal to the server that the user has logged off; the server discards the temporary file created by the client; and the username is placed in "offline" status.

The advantages of using business instant messaging are better corporate communications and increased workplace productivity. However, corporations must implement strategic and effective security policies and software programs to prohibit employee abuses and infiltration by insidious viruses and malicious hackers. Installing security measures to protect sensitive and confidential employee and corporate data and system hardware is an enterprise's greatest defense against cyberspace culprits and Internet crime.

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