Collaboration is essential for any business to run effectively. With up to 80% of employees’ time spent focusing on collaborative activities, such as meetings, calls and emails, ensuring that this collaboration can operate smoothly and effectively is key.
Most businesses have a diverse range of employees, the majority of whom are increasingly mobile. With multiple devices often in use, employees have come to expect the ability to work anywhere, at any time. The COVID-19 pandemic only furthered this expectation as offices shut down and moved to home working.
Despite a rapidly evolving business landscape, it’s commonplace for organisations to lack tools that enable employees to communicate and collaborate seamlessly and securely. Problems arise that are echoed by businesses globally.
Problem 1: Too many separate tools
Projects are often required to move forward quickly. With the need for strong team communication and frequent file sharing, projects are often slowed down by disparate tools not working in conjunction with one another. Team members often become frustrated when they are required to wait for scheduled meetings to discuss edits and input, creating a productivity bottleneck. Quick feedback is often difficult to obtain.
The Solution: A Shared Hub For Teamwork
A smoothly run project needs a collaboration and communication solution that doesn’t require employees to be in the office at all times. Microsoft Teams provides team members with access to a secure shared hub where they can find everything that they need to be productive.
Employees have access to built-in Office apps, such as SharePoint, Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, from any location or device. As every document that is shared in Microsoft Teams is saved to the cloud, team members will always be working on the latest document version, whilst chat history keeps track of team decisions.
All of Microsoft Teams’ features lend themselves to real-time collaboration, editing and finalisation of materials. With employees 5x more likely to be high-performing when their company promotes and enables teamwork, introducing Teams is a great solution.
Problem 2: Inefficient Virtual Meetings
With 2020 being the year that employees moved en masse to work from home, virtual meetings became a necessity. However, the struggle of participating in virtual meetings has become commonplace, with everything from poor call connections and people unable to log in, to team members unable to access shared screens or see an essential piece of content. Meetings are regularly interrupted and delayed due to these disruptions.
In the worst-case scenarios, team members are discouraged from using these virtual meeting tools, presenting a barrier to team collaboration for a remote workforce.
The Solution: Reliable Online Meetings With Screen Sharing On Any Device
Providing employees with a solution that empowers them to have better meetings is beneficial to both business and employee. Using Microsoft Teams, workers have access to an integrated collaboration and communication solution. Teams offers chat, calling and meeting experiences. And as everything is on one platform, technology complications are reduced, meaning employees can simply focus on getting their tasks done.
Problem 3: Lack of Version Control
Feedback and revision of documents is a crucial yet painful part of bringing a project to life. Many companies will use email to share files between a team for review. However, this is an extremely inefficient method, as it wastes time and results in multiple edited versions of the same document, often leading to conflicting feedback and changes. Files can be easily misplaced, lost, or overwritten.
The Solution: Secure, Cloud-Based File Collaboration
Cloud-based tools from Microsoft 365 provide the tools for employees to efficiently collaborate. Word, PowerPoint or Excel enable workers to co-author documents in real-time with their team – all from a single version of the file saved in the cloud. Large files can be seamlessly shared, there’s a built-in chat functionality in OneDrive for Business to discuss edits, and permissions can be controlled for contacts within and outside the company.
Problem 4: Disorganised, Inconsistent Apps
When it comes to their phone, users are used to downloading any apps they want or need. This comfortability with apps leads to many adopting a similar approach for their work-life – resulting in Shadow IT. As a result, there’s often a range of applications in use, that do different things, have different sign-ins and may not deliver the security and compliance that the organisation requires. There’s been a 161% rise in the use of high-risk apps and website this year within businesses as users work remotely, highlighting the unknown nature of many of the solutions that employees turn to without guidance.
The Solution: A Universal Toolkit For Teamwork
Using Microsoft 365 delivers a holistic collaboration solution that puts the right tools at employees’ fingertips. Microsoft Teams is customisable and extendable, meaning that required enterprise apps and services can be plugged in. As a result, all apps and services that are needed can be found in one place, making it easier for the employee. Users can easily move across applications with a single sign-on approach, greatly reducing the number of login credentials required. These assets are all backed by Microsoft security and compliance standards.
How Can We Help?
The workplace has changed and consequently, the need for effective and efficient collaboration is at an all-time high. Providing a shared hub for teamwork connects users, whether they’re in the office or working from home. Get in touch to find out more.
