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It turns out that the cloud aspects of your IT strategy may have more holes than you think. A recent Mitel/Spiceworks survey revealed that two out of three enterprises were unhappy with functions they’ve moved to the cloud. And it’s not just the IT department that’s feeling deflated. The rise of shadow IT shows how widespread cloud cheating has become.
If you want to know why some enterprises are down on the cloud these days, look no further than collaboration. For years, unified communications and collaboration has been touted as an ideal function for the cloud, but most cloud collaboration tools haven’t lived up to the hype. Instead, they’ve struggled to gain traction with employees who find them complex, inconsistent and clunky to use.
Looking back, the road to cloud collaboration has been paved with broken promises:
Promise: “It will be intuitive to use.”
Reality: Unfortunately, most collaboration suites aren’t as simple and intuitive to use as the new generation of mobile collaboration apps. Instead, they feel like collections of applications force-fit together, which is a poor fit for young professionals who want mobility, simplicity and flexibility. The solution? Look for collaboration tools that have app-like simplicity.
Promise: “It will simplify your inbox.”
Reality: Remember how unified messaging was supposed to eliminate all that time you spent checking your messages? Yet here you are, still combing the cloud for emails, voicemails and texts. Apparently, the makers of many suites of collaboration tools didn’t get the message: Users don’t want to toggle between different screens to track down their messages.
Promise: “It will work seamlessly with your phone system.”
Reality: Adding collaboration to your existing enterprise communications system can add another layer of management, particularly when you’re dealing with two different solutions from two different vendors. Collaboration should be built in to your communications platforms, not built on top of it, or separate from it like many of the new over-the-top (OTT) collaboration apps.
Promise: “It will increase employee productivity.”
Reality: More collaboration does lead to more productivity, provided that employees are actually using all of the collaboration features that came with your solution. The reality, however, is that many employees will resist using corporate collaboration tools if they’re not easy to use out of the gate, instead falling back on legacy applications or searching for their own tools in the shadows. To be effective, collaboration tools have to be better and simpler than the alternatives.
Promise: “It will save you money.”
Reality: As more collaboration capabilities move into the cloud (e.g., audio/videoconferencing), legacy apps and services can be discontinued, leading to significant savings. But if cloud adoption is slowed because the collaboration tools are complex to use, businesses will end up paying to maintain two systems and see little savings. In order for businesses to truly save money with the cloud, they need a solution that employees are using on day one so they can start cutting the cord on legacy contracts on day two.
Keep your promises with MiTeam
Reality: If you really want to keep your promises with cloud collaboration, choose the one unified communications and collaboration solution that was actually designed to work like one solution: MiCloud Office with MiTeam. MiTeam’s collaboration capabilities are built into the MiCloud Office communications platform to function as a single, seamless, simple-to-use solution that works the same on different devices and embraces the app-friendly, mobile-first mindset of today’s workforce.
