Collaboration is a top priority for company owners, which is why the market for teamwork software is booming. This is brought about by the need to organize a diverse and global workforce and the increasingly complex internal and intertwined processes. On top of that, 70% of employees from around the world are often working outside of their offices, CNBC points out in an online piece. There are also those who are remote workers, whose number is steadily growing.
Apart from flexible and remote work, other trends are driving the use of collaboration applications as well. Meanwhile, some organizations are taking it a step further by using collaboration tools for business outside of task distribution.
Here, we discuss how innovative companies are implementing collaborative application software for synergetic environments.
1. To distribute tasks and monitor progress
Collaboration and teamwork are important aspects of a work environment for employers. In fact, in a Queens University of Charlotte survey , 75% of respondents stated that it is of high importance. It is easy to see why having employees work in harmony together is critical: internal workflows are becoming more dynamic with numerous workers involved in every stage.
Managing tasks and their progress would be challenging without the help of a dedicated collaboration software. That is why innovative companies are relying on such collaborative system to delegate tasks to every member of the workforce. It also helps to track your business time as well as to keep an eye on each task and project is eased too because of real-time monitoring. This is possible since team members and executives can share screens with each other and watch how everybody works. This enables leaders to provide instant feedback to make sure that tasks are on the right track and are proceeding at a quick pace.
2. To attract millennials to the company
Dynamic Signal cited multiple sources in an article and said that millennials have been dominating the labor scene since 2016. Back then they numbered 54 million. By 2030, they are expected to make up 75% of the workforce.
The first-generation of digital natives are familiar with new technologies and rely on them for different purposes like connecting with family and friends. They are also the ones who are on mobile most of the time--85% of millennials connect to the internet using their smartphones and tablets more than other generations, which prefer desktop or laptop computers.
Because of this, it has been imperative for companies to level up their hiring and recruitment approaches to attract millennials. Forty-nine percent of young employees surveyed by the Queens University of Charlotte said they use social networking sites to collaborate. By adjusting their policies on the use of social media or similar collaboration tools for teamwork, organizations can retain younger workers. Plus, a sizable number of baby boomers, Gen X’ers, and millennials say that social tools help them become more productive at work.
It also makes it easy to offer affiliate programs . With this strategy, you can open a new channel for generating income and promoting your brand. Having this in a single tool centralizes processes
3. To share confidential information without risking security
In 2018, there were 1,244 data breaches with 446.2 million records affected across the education, government, banking, medical, and business industries in the United States, as reported by Statista. The latter is the one that suffered the most attacks. These numbers are cause for concern and they make passing around files containing sensitive information a risky activity, which can hinder collaboration.
Fortunately, there are project management collaboration software that lets companies share confidential data with measures to safeguard them. This is possible because of co-browsing. This lets one party share their screens with others, be they colleagues or customers, during a live conference.
Since the former has control over the info that they can share, they can highlight only the relevant areas. This way, they can prevent some parts of files or documents from being seen by others without affecting teamwork.
4. To create shared experiences
Friends often shop together in brick-and-mortar stores. Online, it is a different case since they are unable to see what the other is looking at unless they exchange links or screenshots. Forward-thinking companies can provide them with a similar experience as in a physical store through co-browsing. This is one of the contemporary collaboration software features available that is similar to screen sharing, albeit faster. This lets visitors shop together and even get insights from experts at the same time. They can all communicate seamlessly as well since a built-in chat is available.
Best of all, co-browsing is convenient for customers because they do not have to download and install anything.
Collaborating as a team can also be achieved with a feature called “team links.” If you are tracking campaigns, for instance, different participants get different rights to streamline managing and monitoring each campaign or brand promotion.
5. To provide real-time support to clients
Without proper context, it can be difficult for customer service representatives to assist customers adequately. This can lead to friction that may affect the relationship between the company and the client.
Organizations that have implemented project collaboration tools, though, can resolve this problem with ease. That is because customers can show support employees what their issue is through co-browsing. And as two parties can exchange control when necessary, customer support agents can show clients exactly how they can address their concern.
Since both sides are able to understand each other better, they can arrive at a resolution that is satisfactory faster.
Collaboration outside the walls
Teamwork is often associated with colleagues working together physically to complete tasks. But the nature of collaboration itself is changing due to the advent of technologies and changing employment trends. Online collaboration is on the rise, too, as more organizations are going beyond their vicinities to look for workers. This FinancesOnline new research lists down online collaboration tools for virtual teams to work together regardless of their location.
But the best team collaboration software is not just for working teams, they are for clients as well. Support is elevated because of contextual understanding of situations, leading to faster resolution of tickets. As such, customer service representatives can assist more clients within a short time. Through this, organizations can gain the trust of their audience and attract more customers.
What did you learn?
- What are the types of collaboration?
- What is a collaborative system?
- What is collaborative application software?
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