Technology that Can Have You Cooking Up Collaboration

Of any operational strategy, collaboration is both the simplest to set up and the most difficult to master. The organizations that do, stand to benefit greatly from the massive amount of efficiency that is created, and the productivity that results from it. The organizations that struggle with it,won’t be as efficient and that typically means costs will rise. Let’s take a look at some of the ways businesses can work toward collaborative mastery.

What Collaboration Means to a Business

Say you run a sub shop. You have two employees working in two shifts. If one of your employees refuses to cut vegetables, it makes other employees do it and requires that the employee that refuses to cut vegetables either be replaced, or be good at something else to make the shop run as efficiently as possible. 

Ideally, you want all of the people working for you dedicated to doing their part to make the business the best it can be. Unfortunately, this isn’t always the case, so technology can stabilize operations so that collaboration doesn’t cost more than it should. Consider for a moment that the reason collaboration is so important is that it allows you to cut costs, and normalize those savings by doing more with less. If you pay too much for your collaboration tools, you are effectively cutting into the reason you need your employees to collaborate better in the first place. Let’s go through some tools you should consider that will help sustain a solid workflow.

Cloud-Based Productivity

Your business likely utilizes the cloud in several ways as is, but in case it doesn’t, your organization can benefit considerably by implementing today’s dynamic cloud-hosted productivity software. In particular, you should be implementing applications that give your employees the opportunity to work together on documents, spreadsheets, presentations, and so on, all at the same time in a secure environment. These types of cloud-based productivity tools open up countless possibilities for your business to get work done out of the office.

Instant Messaging

Being able to send and receive messages at any given time to get practically immediate answers to questions or inquiries is beneficial to completing any workflow. To this end, instant messaging provides a way to take the guesswork out of when someone will respond to an email or return a missed call/voicemail.

Collaboration Hubs

Collaboration software is becoming more and more common in countless forms, with many of them accessible on Intranets or within the cloud. A couple great examples of these are Slack and Microsoft Teams, which both offer integrated third-party communication and collaboration tools for individuals, teams, departments, and more, all based on the organization’s specifications. These collaboration hubs are what give businesses and their employees the tools to stay connected and efficient while working on projects or other tasks.

Video Conferencing

Just because you don’t work in the same physical location as your co-workers doesn’t mean it has to be challenging. With the right communications software, you can meet as if you were sitting side-by-side. Video conferencing gives your organization the ability to communicate “face-to-face” even if your employees are in different physical locations. It also offers other features that you can opt into, such as integration with various other tools your organization uses.

Software and technology are making collaboration much more effective. If you would like to talk to one of our IT professionals about getting the right collaboration applications onto your computing infrastructure, give us a call today at (703) 743-3056.