Lotus Notes is still a byword for workflow automation, and there is a huge global market for replacing paper by electronic documents. Notes also provides calendaring, scheduling and contact management and in all these modes, presence awareness now supports communication. "Whenever you see a name in Notes, the user can always see the presence awareness of the individual and right click to start a chat, write an email, or perhaps even click to call them on his IP-enabled phone," said Tony Lee, sales manager for IBM Lotus.

Available with Notes is Sametime, a browser- based instant messaging application, which supports electronic meetings with integrated communications.

Communications systems are only tools, and management needs to create a culture of open communication to profit from them. "We have been using Discussion Forums-part of Microsoft SharePoint-for several years, and it's very useful when you have specific topics to discuss," said Ken Chih, CIO and corporate director, OOCL.

On a similar theme, OOCL has introduced an intranet service called 'Knowledge-a-Day.' "Anybody from any department can come up with some interesting information or views, and the corporate administration will publish it. That is true knowledge sharing within the company and it often plays a part in job training," said Chih.

"We are also considering building a Wiki, which is a website (like Wikipedia) that allows visitors to easily add, remove or otherwise edit content," said Chih, "The benefits include the encouragement of collaborative authoring and other forms of knowledge sharing that can give OOCL an edge in competitive market conditions."