Collaboration Practices for Efficient Cooperation

Communication is a key part of doing business. Today, there are a variety of solutions devoted to improving your business’ communications strategy in some way, shape, or form. Here, we’ll go over the communications tools that businesses use today, and discuss why today’s business should be invested in most or all of them.

Video Conferencing

While it’s hard to beat face-to-face conversation when you’re trying to communicate, video conferencing provides what is possibly the next best thing. Video conferencing solutions enable you to hold meetings with groups that could very well be separated by vast distances, without sacrificing too many of the communicative benefits of a face-to-face, in-person meeting. As a result, collaboration is more convenient via the increased accessibility to the rest of a team.

Chat Platforms

For those conversations that need little more than a sentence or two to complete, a chat platform is an excellent tool for business users to leverage. Not only do these platforms offer an efficient means of collaboration, they also maintain a record of what has been discussed and what progress has been made on a project. Teammates can share ideas and inspiration as they strike, advancing towards their final goal more effectively.

Voice over Internet Protocol

Voice over Internet Protocol (often referred to as VoIP) has proven to be an extremely cost-effective communication tool for businesses to use. As it runs off of your existing Internet connection, you can eliminate the added cost of traditional telephony, only needing to pay a relatively nominal fee for service and the equipment as needed. Furthermore, VoIP is very easily scalable, featuring more or less plug-in-and-play functionality. In short, VoIP allows you to provide your employees with a necessary communication tool, without breaking the bank.

Mobile Devices

Mobile devices were once a somewhat controversial topic in the workplace, especially since smartphones turned what was once a simple means of communication into a phone, a web browser, and a comprehensive entertainment suite in one compact package. However, with the right preparations, mobile devices can prove to be a huge benefit to a business’ operations. After all, if configured to be sufficiently secure, a mobile device could allow an employee to maintain their productivity from effectively everywhere.

Cloud Services

Most cloud services today have some aspect of collaborative capabilities included. Most support multiple members working together on a file, regardless of where they are, with everyone’s updates reflected for everyone. The primary benefit to this is that collaboration isn’t something that everyone involved needs to assemble for, which allows progress to be made more quickly.

Collaboration Apps

Today, there is software specifically designed for collaboration. They typically include text messaging, project management tools with options to share documents, and useful integrations that give users the ability to share more on demand and be as productive as possible. 

Unified Communications

One of the best strategies for a business’ communication needs is a unified communications platform. This platform enables you to integrate your communications tools into your productivity and management solutions. By offering a variety of communication methods via a single platform, unified communication solutions are a great tool for the business that takes its internal interactions seriously.

Washington Works can help you enact any and all of these solutions to help boost your business’ productivity. To learn more, reach out to us at 301-571-5040.