How do you make the business case for a wiki? What’s the return on investment (ROI) for Enterprise 2.0? These are legitimate and important questions, and at a time of economic uncertainty, Wachovia has one possible answer: lowering corporate travel expenses. Pete Fields, the company’s e-business director, recently talked about the firm’s efforts:

Wachovia’s Enterprise 2.0 project is also reducing travel expenditures at a time when transportation costs are soaring. With online collaboration tools, such as one-to-one video conferencing, in place, employees can spend less time on the road meeting with colleagues. Wachovia’s Sharepoint project was in part funded through anticipated travel savings, Fields noted. Managers from various departments committed 5% of their annual travel budgets for five years to fund the effort.

With the news today that Wells Fargo has agreed to acquire Wachovia, what might happen to a project like this? Collaboration and knowledge sharing tools can make it easier for employees in Wachovia’s primarily east coast offices to work with their new counterparts at Wells Fargo, which primarily has a presence in the Western US. That, of course, assumes the merger goes through.