Nowadays it is widely acknowledges that the most successful businesses are the ones who encourage a high level of collaboration between individuals, between teams, and between departments. This has been especially true in the last 2 years, where more and more businesses have opted to go remote. Although there are lots of advantages to going remote, it is important that the business’ means of collaboration are addressed. When we asked the professionals, they came back and said that the best solution is to implement digital collaboration solutions.
What is Digital Collaboration
This form of collaboration is considerably different from traditional collaboration. Any situation where digital technologies are used to support individuals or groups collaborating with each other is considered digital collaboration. Digital collaboration includes the use of software and applications, the internet, and mobile devices to make communications more agile, and the sharing of information easier. We spoke about this with a company that provides IT support services in London – they stated that a modern business can, in part, be defined by their approach to collaboration, which is normally much more fluid and agile, thanks to the use of digital technologies.
Why is Digital Collaboration Important for Remote Businesses
It is not hard to see how a remote business may face some challenges around collaboration and communication. Unlike a traditional, office-centric business where employees can engage in face-to-face communications at the drop of a hat, remote businesses need to either be more structured with their communication and collaboration, or be more fluid with the help of collaborative tools.
Benefits of Digital Collaboration
- Better Team Interaction
As mentioned earlier, remote businesses need to make sure that employees and teams maintain sufficient levels of interaction with each other, considering that everyone is working independently from home or a co-working space. Many of the IT support companies London businesses rely on stated that their remote clients consider remote team interaction and communication as a high priority within the business.
Digital collaboration normally includes the use of software like Zoom, Slack, or Microsoft Teams, which provide instant message and video calling capabilities. This makes communication and team interaction more fluid.
- Information Accessibility
Digital collaboration also incudes the use of cloud storage. Solutions like Google Drive, Dropbox, and Microsoft OneDrive enable teams to store all of their important data centrally in the cloud – meaning there are very few barriers to accessing information. As long as a user has a computer, an internet connection, and have been given access by their company, they will be able to access the information they need for work from anywhere, and at any time. This can make collaborative workflows more streamlined, and allow people to be more productive.
- Better Business Execution
Most of today’s digital collaboration solutions enable teams to unify information and communication into a single platform – meaning teams can share files and data, have conversations about their work, and reach decisions together, all in one place. These means work can be complete much quicker, because everyone is working in-sync and in the same place. Using tools like Microsoft Office’s suite, will help you execute your operations in better ways – many of the Office 365 consulting services offered by IT Support Providers include this kind of support.
- More Business Agility
There are a few different ways in which digital collaboration can make a business more agile:
Firstly, digital collaboration solutions (like Slack or Microsoft Teams) help to remove organisational silos. This is where departments, or even teams, remain isolated form one another, because they answer to different people. However, digital collaboration makes the flow of information and conversations much easier. Departments and teams can collaborate and communication with one another much more effectively.
As the previous points have outlined, digital collaboration invariably means that teams and departments operate more efficiently. A business with highly efficient teams and departments that can communicate fluidly with one another means that the business as a whole will be much more agile – much quicker to pivot and adapt to external changes.
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