Top 4 Social Collaboration Tools
Social business collaboration is evolving. Here’s why ISG consulting has recognized Workplace as a leading social collaboration tool in a changing landscape.
What are Social Collaboration Tools?
Earlier this year, ISG - a global technology research company - produced a Social Business Collaboration report exploring the current state of social-centric collaboration in the enterprise space.
At Workplace, we believe great organizations focus on people, not technology. And in developing a social collaboration software that promotes team collaboration, openness, feedback, and diversity, we’re thrilled to have been nominated in a ‘leader’ position in ISG’s report.
Untangle work with Workplace
From informing everyone about the return to the office to adopting a hybrid way of working, Workplace makes work more simple.
4 must-have Social Collaboration Tools
ISG identified four segments of social-centric collaboration in business. How does your collaboration platform stack up?
1) The Modern Intranet
Challenge: Many companies still rely on a conventional intranet for top-down business communication. This remains a one-way approach that prevents transparent dialogue and makes it difficult to track audience sentiment and employee engagement.
Potential solution: Modern solutions focus on being the entry point to the digital workplace for people. Vendors continue to design with ubiquitous availability and connectivity in mind.
As people become more digitally mature, they’ll expect intranet solutions to provide easily searchable content from knowledge management systems or wiki pages. The best platforms will promote open and two-way dialogue between the top and bottom of an organization.
2) Workplace Chat
Challenge: Digitally mature employees are looking for ways to communicate that extend beyond existing tools like email.
Potential solution: Instant messaging and chat applications enable people to have easy one-on-one conversations. These collaboration tools are some of the most effective for employees working in different geographies or working on the frontline
New chat and instant messaging solutions for enterprises focus on providing a team or project-specific working environment. The best platforms will focus on continuously improving audio/video capabilities to enable effective collaboration. And they’ll aim to increase the use of automated responses, artificial intelligence, and bots.
Social collaboration tools enable people to connect and engage
3) Cloud-based File System
Challenge: Sending multiple files over email for editing or sign-off is still a viable element of team collaboration. But people want more than just the basics.
Potential solution: Cloud-based file system solutions have evolved to provide sync-and-share services for businesses. These solutions provide cloud-based file storage and retrieval systems and can also sync content across platforms and devices.
Modern content collaboration solutions offer co-authoring, co-editing, and version-control. They can also provide a customized solution for different parts of a business and integrate seamlessly with other work tools that people use every day.
4) Virtual Meeting Platforms
Challenge: Disparate teams and hybrid or remote working habits can put a strain on traditional meeting solutions. Experienced users increasingly expect meeting tools to provide ubiquitous connectivity and communication outside normal enterprise boundaries.
Potential solution: Chat and communication solutions generally provide multi-channel communication options like virtual meetings and webinars. These help people to connect with contractors, suppliers, and even customers outside the organization.
The best platforms, however, will continue to explore new technologies such as augmented and virtual realities to translate a physical meeting into a virtual one or live translations and note-taking.
The future of team collaboration
Social collaboration tools for business are witnessing rapid growth and change. Organizations increasingly want to find ways of working efficiently with geographically spread teams on specific tasks and projects. But new expectations from users, and an increase in digital know-how is now governing the evolution of new social collaboration tools in the workplace more than ever before.
The challenge for business leaders is how they use these tools to connect people. Because we believe when you connect employees and give them a voice, you can empower them. And when that happens, you don’t just change the way people work - you can change the way they feel about work.
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