I argued frequently with one of my former business partners about the utility of Wikis in a business environment. He felt that the entire concept was too difficult for the average employee to grasp, and too foreign for the average company management to embrace. I, on the other hand am convinced that with a well-designed Wiki system, and adequate training and mentoring on its application and use, companies have the potential to use Wikis to achieve significant competitive advantages.
All wiki software packages have improved greatly over time, whether an open-source project or a commercial product. This improvement along with the increased awareness of wikis by the business community is allowing them to see more mainstream application.
One of the problem areas that wikis can admirably address is described eloquently in a recent entry in Tom Foydel's blog. He describes the all-too-common situation in which Management is clueless about how things really work in the trenches within their own companies. Unfortunately, with many front-line staff knowing only their piece of the process, they are in the position of the blind men and the elephant - the can't see the whole picture well enough to make improvements beyond their cubicle.
Having all processes completely documented would be a solution. However, using the usual techniques - static word processing documents created through email collaboration - such documentation would be extremely costly to create and difficult to maintain as the processes evolve.
Wikis are tailor-made to allow employees to contribute to the documentation of processes, and the on-going maintenance of that documentation. What results is a knowledge base that is a valuable reference for new employees, transferees, management and line staff. The value of this reference can itself provide an incentive to use and maintain the information that it contains.
The really good news is that wikis can be implemented relatively quickly and at a very modest cost. I can't think of another software implementation that has the potential to yield as great an ROI as a wiki.