Why many businesses are falling behind

Social collaboration tools are becoming unavoidable when you want to stay relevant as a business. Read this before you make your choice of which one to use.

Social media has grown to be more than just Facebook and Instagram. The move from our personal sphere and into our professional lives started years ago. First came headlines saying how much time employees waste on Facebook daily. Later companies started implementing social media into their work flow.

Today social media and online collaboration tools should be integrated into the very core of every business. It opens up new possibilities, makes processes run smoother and raises the level of effectivity. We believe that companies that do not become social enterprises will have a hard time staying competitive in the coming years.

The perks of online collaboration tools are many.

Less planning and meetings means more time to get the job done. There is no need to chase each other via emails to get the latest update on what’s going on.

Social collaboration tools make the reporting and tracking process easier. In fact, the openness in itself leads to a lesser need of reporting in general. Clients can also be included in the process, which in certain cases can be an advantage. Transparency can lead to very strong customer relationships.

Your employees can work from anywhere. A business trip doesn’t have to mean you are less involved. It brings the possibility of putting together a team completely based on which of your employees or collaborators are best suited for the task at hand.

To choose the right social collaboration tool for your company is the most important step. It should be easy to use, visually pleasing, effective, well-functioning, secure and suitable for the size of your company.

Let us stress the point of security and integrity further.

There are risks involved with online collaboration, as is the case with all online activities. It is very important to choose a safe and private tool.

The human factor is not insignificant. Keep in mind the risk of your employees migrating their work discussions into other platforms, for example private channels (Hillary Clintons email scandal being a high-profile example). It is important to stress the point of security and to keep employees from working outside of the tool implemented.

For a company to stay relevant and competitive, one of the keys is to reflect the time that it exists in. For a business to thrive it needs to stay attractive to its workforce. It is important to make sure that your employees can work in an effective, social but private and creative way no matter where they are.

Today’s world is fast, globalized and connected. Your company should be too.