Member Article

Using collaborative technology to make your business successful

Collaboration in the workplace is critical in building a productive, competitive, organisation — research shows that companies that promote it are five times more likely to be high performing. After all, collaboration can enable teams to come up with more innovative products and more creative, engaging campaigns that can propel the business towards new growth peaks. However, with many workforces becoming increasingly global and remote, this is often easier said than done.

Thankfully, companies can now leverage a wide range of technologies and platforms that help teams collaborate more efficiently.

Messaging platforms such as Slack can help team leaders keep everyone up to speed on projects, and make sure that regular progress updates are shared with the whole team. Task managers like JIRA can give every person a view into what needs to be done and when. Face to face communication is also key, and video conferencing tools such as Zoom can be invaluable in connecting teams from all around the world.

Many times, teams also need to create presentations that require everyone’s input. This can be a tricky challenge when the team working on the presentation is not in the same office or even country. Furthermore, each individual has a specific style of presenting and interacting with the audience. To overcome these challenges, senior leaders need to be the guiding force that steers the team, making sure everyone understands what is required and how to deliver it. At the same time, the team leader is responsible for ensuring the group is using the right tools for collaborative tasks.

The most effective way to help a whole team deliver a successful presentation is to use an online presentation tool that will allow them to easily collaborate and co-edit their presentations. This way, you can keep version control tight, ensuring that all team members are working on the most up-to-date content without duplicating work. We’ve all had the experience of sending out a ‘final’ version of a document, only to receive edits a few minutes later, resulting in a spiral of ‘final final FINAL v3’ versions being passed around. This just creates complications and can lead to embarrassing mistakes when the wrong version of the presentation ends up on the screen in front of the audience.

And so, while the benefits of a collaborative work environment are clear, creating one doesn’t happen overnight. For collaboration to work, it must be consistent and purposeful, with resources dedicated to it. The technologies that companies use are key to this — business leaders have to make sure they are choosing the right tools for the organisation’s and employees’ needs. By focusing on a collaborative company culture with the right tools in place, you’ll drive more consistent and impactful results.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Nadjya Ghausi .