Collaboration technology is key to establishing a Digital Workplace, especially in the enterprise space. Remote teams are becoming an acceptable norm, and immediate communication is the standard for collaborating with clients, employees, and suppliers. As a result, companies are turning to collaboration solutions like Slack and Cisco Spark to achieve productivity efficiencies, better customer service, effective communication with remote teams, and more.
In fact, 59% of respondents to a recent study conducted by Edelman Intelligence said that they expect collaboration applications to continue to be vital to organizations’ success through 2019.
Some companies are using collaboration solutions to support remote job roles, allowing them to hire the best talent available regardless of physical location. Allowing employees to work remotely improves productivity, promotes a better work-life balance an increases employee satisfaction, while cutting traditional overhead costs. The average real estate savings with full-time telework is $10,000/employee/year.
While a bit unconventional, a co-founder of 37 Signals, creator of the collaboration tool Basecamp, advocates for silence in the workplace, remote positions, and collaboration technology to fuel productivity. Using this methodology, the company generates $100+ million annually.
But collaboration technology isn’t just for remote teams. With 50 offices around the globe, communications firm Golin knows exactly how hard it can be to effectively collaborate with teams scattered around the world. Specifically, the company struggled to efficiently collaborate on design projects. By implementing Cisco’s Spark collaboration solution, Golin reduced design review and approval time by 50%.
Companies like 37 Signals and Golin are already benefitting from collaboration technology.
While the application possibilities for collaboration platforms are seemingly endless, here are three ways you can ensure successful adoption of a new collaboration solution:
1. Get Cross Departmental Leadership Buy-In
Enterprise collaboration solutions are most effective when everyone uses them. The common goals are to increase effective communication with internal and external stakeholders, increase efficiencies and time-to-market, eliminate errors through transparency, and effectively communicate with teams in multiple locations. These functions touch multiple departments and require utilization by all involved to be effective.
Best Practice: Effective IT leaders have already sold their solution internally before it’s ever presented. Meet with other department heads prior to the proposal and roll-out, and get buy-in and full support. This is very important when the roll-out occurs, as any type of change typically causes some push back from users.
2. Define How Success Will Be Measured Before Rollout Occurs
When deciding how you’ll measure the success of your collaboration solution, think beyond just user counts and adoption. Used effectively, collaboration tools can drive measurable performance improvements within your company. Determine what success looks like when positioning the platform, and get everyone to agree on a set of results. This helps not only with justifying the costs of the platform, but also with ensuring departmental leadership is promoting and supporting the tool with their own teams.
Best Practice: Be as transparent as possible with the achievement or miss of the agreed upon metrics. Leverage reporting or a dashboard to openly share the goals and how your organization is doing. Use the results to gain momentum if the organization is attaining its goals, or as an opportunity to push for more support if performance is not hitting the mark.
3. Develop a Detailed and Well Documented Change Management Plan
When deciding how you’ll measure the success of your collaboration solution, think beyond just user counts and adoption. Used effectively, collaboration tools can drive measurable performance improvements within your company. Determine what success looks like when positioning the platform, and get everyone to agree on a set of results. This helps not only with justifying the costs of the platform, but also with ensuring departmental leadership is promoting and supporting the tool with their own teams.
Best Practice: Be as transparent as possible with the achievement or miss of the agreed upon metrics. Leverage reporting or a dashboard to openly share the goals and how your organization is doing. Use the results to gain momentum if the organization is attaining its goals, or as an opportunity to push for more support if performance is not hitting the mark.
One of the benefits of today’s enterprise collaboration tools is the ability to customize the entire platform for each organization’s use case. As a result, there really is no playbook on the individual steps involved. An IT partner can be very useful here as they will leverage their experience from previous roll outs to ensure a successful launch and adoption.
