[caption id="attachment_31497" align="alignright" width="300"] Collaboration Tools Make the World More Connected[/caption] 63% of companies have employees that work from home or remotely at least part of the time. While this represents an opportunity for the employer to find more talented people by widening their search, it also presents challenges in terms of collaboration. Nothing really beats talking to people in the hallway or at the coffee station. And while someday there may be robots with mounted tablets walking around with people’s faces displayed on them to try and replicate this experience, the most cost effective way to replicate this today is to ensure your team has the right collaboration tools. And Unified Communications certainly ensures this with its robust set of collaboration tools. So what are some collaboration tools that make workplace collaboration more efficient? First off, presence capability is key. With presence, you can see when an employee is at their desk (or available via a smartphone). Many times you simply have a quick question, and an instant message is the perfect way to handle that. You can even respond in the middle of a conference call! I make this point not because conference calls are boring, and you’re looking for something (anything) to do, but because in an actual meeting, in an actual conference room, it would be rare for someone to pop in, ask a questions, and leave. So there’s one instant productivity improvement! You can also utilize that presence capability to make phone calls and share screens. And these two capabilities are key because together they can replicate the experience of being in a room with a person, collaborating over documents such as spreadsheets, booth graphics, marketing plans, etc.

Collaboration Tools as Part of Wider Unified Communications Strategy

While you could utilize a tool like Slack to get some of the collaboration benefits, having more involved collaboration tools as part of a larger unified communications strategy makes more sense because it integrates and ties into your phone system. This makes it easier for the business to manage and also enables integration with other business systems, such as CRM systems. And that just makes more sense.

To accommodate these modern business needs, Sangoma offers a full Unified Communication suite. Learn more about how UC can improve your business by reading our free guide, packed with 128 benefits UC offers.