It is not uncommon these days: a ping is sent to an employee via a standalone chat application on a project created with the tool of a different provider for which the relevant file is within a system of independent data storage.
According to data collected in late 2021 by Reclaim.AI, the number of meetings has increased by 70% since the start of the pandemic. With companies using such a wide range of third-party software to operate, it’s not uncommon for messages and documents to fall through the cracks. It is impossible to collaborate as a team when so many of these team members are simply trying to catch up to find the right information across multiple chair systems.
Unified Workplace Application Office Suites, with an emphasis on functionality for online team collaboration, ensure that all employees stay on the same page through seamless communication and universal access and consistent with the data.
Advantages of Unified Office Suites
Elimination of silos
Basketball players cannot function as a team if each of the players is working with their own playbook or cannot hear what their coach is calling from the band. Similarly, employees of a company will sacrifice collaboration if they cannot easily communicate with each other or make sure they are looking at the correct and most up-to-date version of a spreadsheet.
Consolidating disparate systems, especially when they are fundamentally different from each other, is an arduous task and costs companies hours of productivity, not to mention various expensive license fees. But a unified set of applications ensures that a system upgrade in a single location will proliferate in the rest of the organization.
Zoho Workplace is a good example of how unification leads to perfect online team collaboration. It ensures that everyone has access to every file, entry and information entered into the system, no matter where they are or where the data has been entered. The suite includes email, files, documents, chat and social capabilities within a single platform.
Definitive time savings are what companies are no longer required to do: look for the right information in internal systems. All facets of Zoho Workplace and other unified applications are accessible via a central dashboard that each employee can customize by simply dragging and dropping widgets. In addition, the platform includes a unified search, without the need for the meticulous process of combing application after application to search for the most accurate information. Emails about a project can be found from this dashboard just as easily as tasks or calendar items.
Better communication with customers and employees
By consolidating everything under one banner in unified office suites, companies are taking proactive steps to ensure closer communication while allowing employees to maintain access to everything they need to do their job and if not , access can be done from the same application. .
Unified office suites also work wonders for customer service. Data abounds these days, and small businesses looking to take advantage of these figures to improve their customer experiences would be wise to make sure the data is accessible and available for updating, no matter where your employee is. This practice also eliminates any unnecessary communication: the last thing customers want is to be contacted several times by different team members or be forced to sign the same terms and conditions twice due to redundancy and overlapping responsibilities. of employees.
Also consider how applications are joined. For example, when operating within Zoho Writer, employees can tag other people in comments, triggering an email alert as a reminder, and including a link directly to the document. This works wonders for marking important information that needs to be disseminated as soon as possible; navigating to a different application, especially one with a non-intuitive interface, opens the process to errors.
Enabling remote work
Zoho believes in a mentality we call “transnational localism,” which involves focusing on supporting local communities and hiring candidates from small towns above large cities, a practice that unknowingly can divert the sun group · bidders towards a richer class of individuals who can afford to live. comfortably in a metropolis, or at least move to one.
An important facet of transnational localism is the emphasis on smaller, localized offices that serve as spokespersons for a large city center. This not only saves employees the time they normally spend on an extensive trip, but also gives distant employees a hybrid work model and a sense of community.
Regardless of where employees choose to work, it’s important that they maintain access to the same variety of tools available to those who travel to an office every day, especially on their mobile. A unified system works completely out of the cloud, with full functionality from any imaginable location.
A unified work environment greatly helps to correct the errors caused by the pandemic: the data collected by Project.co during the first year found that 26% of the participants surveyed stated that communication, both internally and with customers , deteriorated during 2021.
Unified office suites may not be a silver bullet for efficiency and collaboration before the pandemic, but they are a critical step, especially for small businesses. A unified office suite, where all tools are tightly integrated, offers simplicity, power and affordability, all critical concerns for advancing businesses.