Collaborate Online To Increased Profits and Productivity in 2010
Does your team work together on presentations, RFP responses, budgeting or other documents? Are all your team members in one location? Do any of them work remotely? Chances are this information is getting passed around in emails or the data resides on a file server. While a team could function this way, many issues arise from this type of work style. Version control, tracking multiple changes and version rollback or recovery are all issues that plague collaboration through email. In fact, you cannot really say that true collaboration occurs through email.
If you need to have a more accessible process along with control over changes to these documents, then you need a collaboration solution. If you want to have your remote employees, or partners, to participate in discussions, get announcements about a project, work on a document with your team, then collaboration is the answer.
Collaboration sites are easy to get started. Microsoft, Google and many managed service providers offer their version of intranet sites. These sites are modular in their approach and take little to no technology experience to implement. However, it is risky to “just jump in” without some pre-planning. This planning includes a solid understanding of your functional requirements, implementation timeline, change management, data migration and training. Unsuccessful implementations of intranet sites (and there are many) make the assumption that “if they build it they will come.” User adoption will be difficult when they are not sure when to use or how to use this important tool. They will tend to continue to behave in the tried and true way. Part of the change management is to both sell them on the idea of the intranet but also some tough love. Saying “this is the way we are going to work together” is sometimes necessary.
Your successful intranet implementation will open up your world to new, efficient ways of working that do not tie you to your office. Work remotely, when you want or need to, share ideas with everyone and have your discussions with your whole team.