Effective collaboration that creates purposeful connections among business users to work towards goals or solve problems by harnessing the power of varied skill sets, strengths, and perspectives, has been a core part of successful businesses for decades.
Fast forward to today, a time when hybrid work has become the norm and workforces are more physically fragmented than ever before, facilitating effective collaboration presents a challenge for organizations. Business users demand true openness and ultimate flexibility, yet many organizations’ IT infrastructure was simply never designed to accommodate the modern digital workforce.
This is where modern enterprise collaboration and the systems and solutions that enable it to come into their own.
What Is Enterprise Collaboration?
Enterprise collaboration is the term used to describe how an organization’s workforce, who may be physically distributed, successfully interacts, seamlessly communicates, and effectively collaborates.
The main goal of enterprise collaboration is to equip business users with all the tools they need to have a seamless experience and empower them to be as productive as possible, regardless of where they are working on any given day.
What Is An Enterprise Collaboration Solution?
An enterprise collaboration solution specifically refers to the digital tools, applications, and systems that are used to enable said collaboration across multiple locations, including remote environments where an organization’s business users increasingly find themselves.
With the right enterprise collaboration tools in place, business users should enjoy a consistently uniform working experience. If this is not the case, then true enterprise collaboration has not been achieved and, as a result, productivity could end up suffering.
What Are The Main Elements Of An Enterprise Collaboration Solution?
Instant messaging applications, unified communications, social networking tools, online company intranets, huddle rooms, the internet, and more all often form a part of an enterprise collaboration system.
The actual mix that an organization opts for will depend on a number of factors including its size, locations, structure (hybrid or remote), budget, and overall goals. After all, no two organizations are identical, so one-size-fits-all enterprise collaboration systems are never going to be the most effective.
A few Enterprise Collaboration Solutions Yorktel regularly works with:
One significant consideration that organizations must take into account is not only to implement the tools, but the quality of service & maintenance of that tool. An investment in an enterprise collaboration solution that does not perform at levels business users expect will lead to both confidence and adoption of the solution abating. That’s why many organizations choose to take advantage of continuity managed support services to ensure their enterprise collaboration management capabilities include real-time monitoring and management, allowing their chosen solution to always perform at its best.
Cisco Consulting Services & Solutions
Learn how our Cisco Consulting Services help businesses to understand Cisco’s extensive portfolio of cognitive Enterprise Collaboration solutions and services.
How To Successfully Implement An Enterprise Collaboration Solution In Your Organization
Perhaps the most important consideration when you are looking to implement an enterprise collaboration solution is to get your business users involved with the process from the start.
Enterprise collaboration strategies usually do not achieve their objectives if user input at all levels has been omitted. This is because adoption can not happen without user buy-in. They oftentimes are also the ones who know exactly the problems that any solution needs to solve.
Ignore what your business users are telling you and there is a strong chance they will turn to shadow IT for their needs (i.e., they will take advantage of tools and technologies that have not been signed off by your IT department).
Our blog post – How an Enterprise Collaboration Strategy Can Revitalize Your Workplace Environment – contains even greater insights into the importance of having an enterprise collaboration strategy and how to develop a successful one.
The Benefits Of An Enterprise Collaboration Solution And Why Your Organization Needs One
Professional enterprise collaboration solutions provide a number of benefits for organizations, including:
- Reduced email – At a time when most business users are trying to achieve better work-life balances, reducing email overload is a big topic for organizations. By implementing an enterprise collaboration solution, businesses can facilitate real-time communications and negate the need for long email chains, boosting productivity in the process.
- Better teamwork – Innovations such as real-time communications, centralized file storage, and concurrent document editing enable better teamwork and allow business users to be the most productive versions of themselves.
- Fewer apps, improved efficiency – Constant application switching is a drain on employees’ time, which is why moving to a consolidated enterprise collaboration platform can boost efficiency and reduce the need for shadow IT.
- Cost consolidation – Multiple apps and tools usually means overlapping costs. Furthermore, by replacing traditional on-premise collaboration solutions with predominantly cloud-based offerings, businesses can drive agility and benefit from economies of scale to boost cost efficiency.
Take The First Step On Your Enterprise Collaboration Journey
Interested in learning more about enterprise collaboration and creating a strategy that is tailored to your organization and its needs? Contact Us and talk to one of our enterprise collaboration service professionals to find out more.
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