As businesses transition to more permanent models of remote and hybrid working, the concept of ‘cloud collaboration’ is gaining more and more traction.
The pandemic showed that remote workers can communicate easily enough, through voice and video calling, email, messaging and more. Staying in touch isn’t such a problem.
What businesses really worry about is whether or not dispersed teams can collaborate effectively. Collaboration is vital to successful business. In one recent survey, 86% of employees said that projects they’d worked on had failed due to a lack of collaboration.
The problem is, all that used to happen in the office. Teams would gather formally for meetings, but much more often colleagues would collaborate informally, through a quick brainstorm over coffee or a brief chat by the watercooler. On other occasions, team leaders could project a document onto a large screen and gather everyone together for thoughts and suggestions.
The great challenge for businesses looking to implement hybrid working is replicating that teamworking instinct outside the office. The answer, as we’ll explain in the rest of this article, is cloud collaboration.
What is cloud collaboration?
At its simplest, cloud collaboration is the ability for colleagues to work on the same document, at the same time, wherever they are. Documents are housed in the cloud, so anyone with the right permission (and an internet connection) can access them whenever they want.
Cloud collaboration doesn’t just let colleagues view documents. It lets them work on them, alone or simultaneously. They can edit text, resize images, add links or simply add notes and suggestions. They can do all this (and more) whether others are working on a document or not.
The really clever bit is that they all work on the same document, rather than multiple local versions of it. There is only ever one document and it’s available to everyone.
Compare that to a long email trail full of edits and suggestions and various iterations of the same document. That can be seriously confusing, but with cloud collaboration there is only ever a single version of the truth.
And that’s true even when several colleagues are working on the same document at the same time. When someone is making changes, everyone can see what they’re doing in real time.
Communicate to collaborate
Of course, communication is integral to collaboration. To collaborate is to make suggestions, ask advice, solicit help and talk through challenges as a team.
That’s why communication is at the heart of cloud collaboration. Good solutions dispense with confused email trails and replace them with voice and video calling, conferencing, chat, messaging and more.
It all makes for smarter ways of working together. Instead of breaking off to make a call, colleagues working on the same document can simply discuss changes in the group chat function. Instant messaging allows teams to comment on changes as they happen.
Teams can get together more formally through video conferencing, sharing screens so that everyone knows what anyone else is talking about.
Everyone can access the same document wherever they are
Colleagues can work on it simultaneously, seeing changes happen in real time
Group chat and instant messaging replace the informal get togethers colleagues have in the office
Video conferencing with screen share lets everyone brainstorm together
The business benefits of cloud collaboration
What does all this mean for your business? Well, most fundamentally it means that you can adopt new hybrid ways of working without worrying about undermining team productivity. Collaboration can happen out of the office as well as it can in it.
A sense of community
The need for speed
Everyone contributes
You won’t lose anything
A sense of community
Weekly meetings and the occasional video conference won’t solve that issue. People need help when they need it. Cloud communication and collaboration gives employees the means to ask for help, anytime and anywhere. They can message a colleague with a quick query, or ask the whole team to put heads together to solve a trickier challenge. Sharing documents means everyone knows exactly what the issue is, and can work together to solve it in real time.
That means problems get solved efficiently, and it also means colleagues always feel connected to the wider team. Employees may be far apart, but cloud collaboration brings them together.
The need for speed
That leads to quicker decision making and the speedier completion of projects. It streamlines project management so that team leaders always know exactly where things stand in the timeline. Good solutions will alert everyone involved whenever a change is made, so even if a colleague isn’t working on it at the time, they’re always aware of what’s happening.
Cloud collaboration also allows businesses to employ colleagues or freelancers in different time zones, should that be necessary. Wherever you are, whenever you’re working, you’ll always have all the materials you need in their most up to date versions.
Everyone contributes
Cloud collaboration allows everyone to contribute in the way they feel most comfortable. A colleague who isn’t confident piping up in a 10-person meeting might be happy to message suggestions to a group chat. Someone who has problems describing a change they want to make can demonstrate it, in real time, onto a live document, so the improvement is obvious.
It all makes for better, more inclusive teamwork. That’s important for both team morale and the quality of work you produce.
You won’t lose anything
That’s far harder to guarantee when there are five colleagues working on the same project. As mentioned earlier, it also adds to the confusion around what constitutes the latest version, and whether or not the most up to date iteration includes everyone’s changes and suggestions.
With a cloud solution, it’s all done for you. Documents are automatically saved and backed-up, whenever anybody in the team makes a change. There’s always one version of the truth, and with a good solution it will always be saved in at least two geographically dispersed locations. Your projects are safe as houses.
One version of the truth for easier project management
Everyone’s involved, and everyone feels valued
Faster decisions increase productivity
Every change automatically saved for peace of mind
Collaboration tools – what you need
You’ll probably have heard of popular cloud collaboration services like Office 365, Teams, Gdocs, Trello and Slack. These are all good solutions, but they all do things a bit differently, and might be better at one aspect of collaboration and not so good at another. So what should you look out for when designing a complete cloud collaboration solution for your own business?
The first thing to say is that smaller and larger businesses might go down different paths in this regard. Enterprises often employ tailor made solutions for their particular circumstances. Smaller businesses are more likely to buy off-the-shelf services.
Communications
The communications aspect of any solution should include voice, video, conferencing, group chat and instant messaging. You might also think about unified messaging, which puts email, voicemails and texts in one place, so you can easily find all relevant communications.
Document sharing
It needs to be easy to share documents with anyone, and preferably on any device (desktop, laptop, tablet and smartphone), and collaborate in real time. Screen sharing during video calls is also an increasingly essential tool.
Project management
Many cloud collaboration solutions offer project management tools, letting project leaders monitor progress, assign tasks and ensure timelines are being adhered to.
Integration is essential
You don’t tend to find everything in a single, popular tool. For example, Teams is better for internal multichannel communications, while Trello is a project management app.
But if you have to mix and match, integration is essential. Your cloud collaboration solution becomes more powerful – and easier to use and manage – when various tools and services work together. Integration with other apps is something to look out for when considering cloud collaboration software. A good provider will be able to advise you on the best tools and applications for your needs.
Everything Voice is a cloud specialist
At Everything Voice, we have decades of collective experience in cloud communication and collaboration software.
That’s why we won’t just sell you a product. We’ll design a cloud collaboration solution that gives you everything you want (and nothing you don’t) and makes it all work together.
If you’re considering adopting a hybrid working model, your employees need tools that allow them to work together at home, on the move, and in the office, with no difference in features and functionality. Everything Voice can help ensure your teams always work effectively together, wherever they are.
Contact Everything Voice
For more information on future-proofing your business communications, please contact Everything Voice. We would be happy to help. Simply book a call, fill in an enquiry form, or chat with us now online.