Staying ahead of your competitors is critical to success in the business world, and companies are forever looking for new ways to innovate, progress and grow. Team collaboration is a key driver in achieving this goal, especially for global businesses that operate in different time zones and use myriad devices to communicate and collaborate.
Yet, still, they are asked to achieve more together, and work more efficiently. But how?
The working world is ever-changing, don’t get left behind
Generally speaking, most employees turn up to work and give their best effort every day because they care about what they do and want to succeed. However, if they’re not equipped with the right tools and equipment to be able to do their job to the best of their ability, then you’ll prevent them from producing great work. As such, making your employee’s life’s easier will aid a positive mental state at work and ensure productivity is high throughout the working day.
In a recent survey conducted by the Harvard Business Review it was found that 72% of companies said “effective team communication” has grown in importance over the past two years – especially since the emergence of unified communications. Despite this, it was also found that only 54% of those companies said they are investing in more user-friendly collaborative solutions, meaning that the remaining 46% aren’t choosing to make the switch.
The working world is changing rapidly and integrated communications and collaborations solutions, such as Cisco Spark, are fast-becoming a necessity – where those who fail to modernise may get left behind.
Expectations for workplace technology is higher than ever
While employees are often asked to perform to the highest of standards at all times, it’s not exactly productive to be working on a variety of collaboration technologies that have been adopted at different times, for different reasons. Without a clear focus on a team collaboration working, a perplexing mixture of tools can have negative consequences on your team’s efficiency, motivation and productivity levels.
To support this, a recent survey found that 90% of businesses lacked any kind of collaboration tools, and the tools they did have consisted of conference phones, projectors, white boards and video solutions. Such technologies can tricky to use/set up for the general layman and are seemingly looking more outdated within the thriving, modern business world, often being under-utilised and representing a poor ROI. In reality, they’re not so practical anymore and most people have more advanced technology in their mobile phones, so it’s no surprise the demand for better workplace technology is greater than ever.
Great meetings never end
Cisco’s SVP & GM, Rowan Trollope, recently published a blog named “The best meeting never ends” and raised a few valid points pertaining to the overall meeting room experience. Great meetings don’t just stop when everyone goes their separate ways, they create a shared positive experience between everyone involved and motivate teams to work together.
However, to achieve this, persistent collaboration with easy access to anyone, anywhere and on any device is pivotal to progression. Moreover, it’s not just the meeting that’s important to get right, as the preparation and follow up from a meeting should also be treated with priority. This notion is especially so for teams working together across the world, where a streamlined system must be adhered to in order to maintain positive productivity levels.
Cisco are leading the way
The need for businesses to adopt team collaboration technologies couldn’t be greater, and there is a huge gap in the market for a single solution that can integrate everything together that hasn’t yet been filled. At the moment, though, it seems that the Cisco Spark platform and app seems to be leading the way just ahead of its competitors. By connecting physical and virtual meeting spaces, team members can continue their collaborations on any device and from any location even after the end of the meeting.
Also available on the platform is the game-changing Cisco Spark Board, which is a cloud and touch-based wall mounted device designed to dramatically improve the overall meeting room experience. Ideal for conference rooms, the Cisco Spark Board combines wireless presentation sharing, digital whiteboard collaborating, and video conferencing all through the same platform. All in all, Cisco Spark has raised the bar for technological innovation in meeting room collaboration devices and at accessible price points too, so it looks like it’s time to jump aboard or get left behind!