How to Encourage Managers to Use Online Collaboration Technologies

Online collaboration can strengthen the team spirit and unite people no worse than classic meetings. However, many managers try to avoid working with such tools. It is more comfortable for them to distribute tasks by email or instant messengers in an old-fashioned way. Learn about the benefits of online collaborations in this article.

What are the advantages of online interaction systems?

Here are some compelling reasons to switch to online collaboration tools:

  • Collaborate from multiple locations – Even if your team members are away, you can continue to work together.
  • Save time as there is no need to send unnecessary email messages – Email correspondence has become a common offline communication concept and takes a lot of time and effort. However, sharing data via email has many limitations and is not always conducive to successful collaboration.
  • Data Centralization – With online collaboration tools, you can store all the data you need in a central location that all stakeholders can access, no matter where they are. Data centralization significantly improves resource availability.
  • Real-time communication – thanks to such programs, you can be in touch with your team at any moment. At the same time, updates occur in real-time and not after a couple of hours. So react instantly to the actions of colleagues.
  • Project tracking is an essential option for a manager. He can note what is happening in the team, who is at what stage of the project, who has hitches, etc. The history of work on the same document is reflected in the program.

With more and more companies opting to keep their various divisions in different parts of the country or even the world, the need for online collaboration tools is becoming increasingly important. And the effectiveness of the whole work depends on how the right tool is chosen.

Online Collaboration Application Examples

You can take a look at these tools.

Slack

This corporate messenger allows you to collect all discussions in one window (in general topics, private groups, and personal messages), search among all messages at once, set up integration with the Trello project management system and analytics, exchange files, and exchange files search through them.

Google Hangouts

This is Google’s development for messaging and video conferencing. Allows you to add content to the chat, where team members can interact with each other, discuss files, and be in several conversations with the same interlocutors.

WebEx

Another audio and video conferencing software has a standard set of features and is often used in corporations.

Trello

An online project management system used by our Media Direction Group innovation team. The interface is built on the principle of kanban boards. Allows you to monitor the execution of tasks (they can be broken down by type: scheduled, ongoing, completed – or at the discretion of the team), quickly evaluate the progress of all processes at once (in real-time and on one screen), set up direct integration of Trello with Slack, add service using different extensions. It has convenient versions for mobile devices.

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