Businesses thrive on making communication reliable. The biggest advantage a business can have over their competitor is better communication internally between their employees and better communication with their clients. It’s an easy concept in theory, but communication is one of the most difficult aspects of business to excel at.
In response to this, many pieces of software have been developed to assist with communication in all facets. Many software suites focus on bringing together people in various locations so that they can have easy and convenient meetings regardless of location. Other suites choose to keep everyone up to date on projects and tasks, allowing for people to jump in and assist in projects when they have time instead of needing to wait for requests.
Any business, whether they are small or large can be improved through the use of various collaboration tools. Just like Goldilocks, there’s a suite that’s “just right” for each business.
Popular Types of Collaboration Tools
GoToMeeting
GoToMeeting is a wonderful program to allow for people to communicate in meetings and share desktops to allow others to see what the meeting host is seeing. GoToMeeting features excellent video conferencing software. Any business offering up software programs to clients would be daft to not include it, as GoToMeeting allows clients to very easily receive a demo of the software they may be considering.
While GoToMeeting is a real time meeting application, it’s not perfect. It is limited like any other video teleconferencing system. Because it is desktop to desktop, it can sometimes feel cramped if too many people are attending.
Cisco WebEx
WebEx was purchased by Cisco when they saw a great piece of collaboration software that they could add to their software repertoire. Cisco WebEx is an excellent and versatile piece of software designed for meeting, conferencing and video conferencing.
Like many Cisco products, one of the biggest advantages of this piece of software is the customer service that comes along with it. Cisco provides excellent support for their products. In addition, WebEx is available on almost any platform, whether it’s a computer, tablet or phone. The only downside to WebEx is that it can be a pricey option for a small business. Cisco does know how to monetize their products.
Workzone
While the other tools on this list are often designed to facilitate immediate conversation, Workzone was instead designed as a way for everyone to see the status of all projects that a company may be working on. Different departments can see exactly where others projects are located at. Their status may be critical to something that someone else is working on. These clean lines of communication make everyone more efficient.
What makes Workzone so great is that it somehow manages to be two conflicting things at the same time. Workzone is an intuitive program that feels natural to lose and works for people who aren’t particularly computer literate. In addition, it’s also a powerful platform that has an incredibly large amount of functions available. Typically a program can only feature one aspect or the other.
When it comes to disadvantages, Workzone doesn’t have that many. The main one has to be the cost per user. Typically, the cost for Workzone will run somewhere between $20-$45 per month for each user in a business that uses it. While it’s not a huge cost, it can be up to twice
TickTick
This is another quality program that companies are adopting at a fairly rapid rate. Ticktick allows a company to list off all of their requirements in both a global and individual sense. In addition, it can send reminders and integrates with location technology.
It’s an interesting program, but on its own, it may not be as powerful as many other options. To get the most out of TickTick, it’s required to integrate it with many other platforms and programs. While this is useful, it can be time consuming and complicated. Though being able to integrate with Siri can make working on the go a breeze.
Important Facts to Consider About Collaboration Tools
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Business Size Matters - There’s no point in picking up a tool that’s designed for huge enterprises when you are a small business. There’s many tools available for the appropriate business size.
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Multiple Locations Benefit More - Since communication through multiple offices is more difficult than a single office, these will take advantage of meeting software more than other single business options.
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Management Support - While some employees may complain about their managers, management provides the support that so many workers need and want. Collaboration tools make it easier for managers to provide that support.
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Collaboration Makes Decision Making Easier - When employees collaborate, they will often arrive at the best decision that can be made when presented with multiple choices. Workers feel involved in the decision making process and more content in their roles.
