Mobility, the speed of communications, and employee demographics have changed the business landscape. Today’s market environment is always moving, continuously connected and faster than ever before. Your ability to maintain and increase your competitive advantage in this dynamic environment is determined by how well your organization adapts to the new norm. By leveraging the most advanced communications and collaboration tools, you can improve the efficiency of daily communications between employees and with customers.
New expectations require new solutions
To adapt and succeed, you must address the forces at play. Incredible advances in mobile communications technology have served as the catalyst for change. Most people now have mobile devices that are more powerful communications tools than the desktop computers that were in every office 10 years ago.
For many employees, a smartphone is the first thing they pick up in the morning and the last thing they put down at night. These devices have blurred the lines between work and play, and have made it possible for employees to work anywhere and everywhere. As a result, your employees now expect ubiquitous connectivity that will allow them to maintain conversations with colleagues and customers at all times — whether they are in the office, at the airport or on the golf course — and with whichever device they choose.
At the same time, your customers expect that they will be able to connect and conduct business with your employees using a variety of communications options — from traditional phone calls to email, text messaging, video and web chats.
These expectations are important to the Generation X and Millennials that account for two-thirds of the global workforce. They will be more important by 2020 when 50 percent of the workforce will be comprised of Millennials, the digital natives that have grown up with the web and advanced personal computing devices at their fingertips.
This guide outlines five steps that will help you adopt the team collaboration and communications tools that address the speed and mobility requirements of your changing workforce. With the right tools, you can enable more efficient interactions between employees and with your customers. And you can compete more effectively wherever your business takes you.
Collaboration tools increase efficiency and productivity
A 2017 study revealed that over two-thirds of an employee’s work day is spent on communications-based activities:
- Almost three hours per day is spent on real-time, person-to-person communications
- Almost an hour and a half per day is spent on email The same study revealed that almost 15 percent of total work time is lost or wasted because of inefficient or ineffective communications
The study concluded that the typical cost of inefficient communications to a mid-sized organization is approximately $11,000 (USD) per employee, per year. But it has been shown that organizations that leverage team collaboration and communications tools are more efficient, more productive and save time and money:
- 60 percent of businesses using unified communication and collaboration (UCC) report saving three hours a week per mobile worker
- Social and team collaboration technologies can raise the productivity and interaction of workers in an organization by 20-25 percent
- Shorter service appointments, fewer missed calls and increased customer satisfaction all result in tangible cost savings and even revenue generation
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