We are now part of Eviden, discover more...

Assessing Your Collaboration Tools: 5 Top Future of Work Considerations

As the future of work continues, enterprises must take a step back before charging forward. Assessing how legacy or pandemic-patched collaboration tools are performing will play a critical role in ultimately enabling a mobile, collaborative workforce. C-suites must also thoroughly vet new collaboration tools because — despite how robust the tool is — it will only be effective if it aligns with the organization’s goals. While those ambitions most likely shifted throughout the last few years, Google Workspace is guiding and empowering teams to work smarter (no matter where they are) while fostering much-needed human connection.

Assessing Your Collaboration Tools: 5 Top Future of Work Considerations

It’s also worth noting that not all assessments and action plans are the same. Some sectors can’t afford their teams the luxury of working from home. A future-driven roadmap for healthcare, manufacturing, and financial services will look quite different compared to behind-the-desk-type companies where workers can successfully perform their jobs from any location. For critical industries, it’s even more vital to enable workers on the factory floor and the frontlines with the ability to collaborate and communicate in real-time. In fact, according to The New Decision Makers from Harvard Business Review, 87% of organizations say they will be more successful when frontline workers can make important decisions in the moment. To do that, collaboration tools will be key.

As enterprises assess their collaboration tools, there are many flexible features to consider, from integrated file storage to video meetings to instant messaging and more. With a detailed Google Workspace Action Plan, companies can align features with their goals to transform the way teams collaborate and build an iron-clad cloud workforce.

In this blog, we take a deep dive into five of our top considerations to amplify collaboration in the future of work. Keep reading for a closer look at what to assess.

1. Built Securely: For a Safer Future 

Now more than ever, safeguarding your organization across all facets is vital, especially with dispersed workers. When assessing your digital collaboration tool (whether current or future), it’s important to look closely at the design of its cloud model.

A few questions worth consideration include:

  • How well does the cloud provider understand the security implications of the cloud? 
  • Is security a priority across its organization? 
  • How committed are they to protecting against security threats of all kinds? 

When researching the answers to these must-ask questions, your search — like billions of others — will lead you to a shortlist of options. 

At the top of your list, you’re bound to find Google Workspace, powered by Google Cloud. From supporting the strictest compliance requirements across healthcare and financial services to vulnerability protection and malware detection, Google Cloud is backed by technology with security at its core. And when it comes to malware detection, Google Cloud prevents more than 99.9% of spam, phishing, and malware from reaching its users. To learn more about Google Workspace security, download this security-focused whitepaper here.

2. Transparency: Defense for the Trek Ahead 

When partnering with a provider on your cloud workforce journey, you also need transparency and a partner with a security-first mindset that prioritizes your data. Dispersed teams open up your organization to threats and vulnerabilities, and you need to know if the benefits outweigh the risks. Meetings need to happen and need to be secure, no matter the location. With over 3 billion users worldwide, IT leaders can attest to the protection Google Workspace’s Security Key provides to organizations — from phishing attacks that appear in the form of meeting invitations to information requests seemingly from fellow team members. To see how administrators can leverage the Security Key, watch this video.

Additionally, to defend against threats and combat abuse, Google Workspace recently launched a series of enterprise security enhancements to accompany its $10 billion commitment to cybersecurity improvements, including Work Safer, designed to help enterprises collaborate safely in hybrid environments. Work Safer brings together the cloud-native, zero-trust solutions of Google Workspace with BeyondCorp Enterprise for secure access with integrated threat and data protection. Moreover, Google Cloud recently debuted its security-focused task force, the Cybersecurity Action team.

3. Scalability: Eliminate Growing Pains 

Where your organization is today isn’t where it will be in the future. Whether scaling up or down, enterprises need the capability and flexibility to meet their evolving needs. With cloud technology becoming more advanced every day, scaling becomes far more seamless and secure. Adding or removing employees should be effortless, especially in the fast-paced digital world where recruitment efforts can be managed with the click of a button.

As more enterprises accelerate growth and look to recruit top talent, their collaboration tool should embark on this journey with them. That said, according to an eye-opening stat from McKinsey, 82% of Fortune 500 executives don’t believe their companies recruit highly talented people. So, where does your collaboration tool stack up on this complex task? Is your collaboration tool able to help fill new roles? Can it plan for increased capacity? 

With scalability at the core of Google Workspace, making a bold jump to a new collaboration tool that will grow with you is covered. With a strategic change management program, your team will have all of the building blocks needed to create scalable, growing teams. For one leading financial institution with 65,000 internal users, Google Workspace was far superior to the scaling capabilities of its previous toolset. To see how this transformation unfolded, download our white paper, Winning in the Cloud: Big Bank Makes a Big Bang with Google Workspace

4. Ease of Use: Uncomplicated Collaboration 

Did you know that 20% of an employee’s time is spent looking for information? This is like hiring five people and having one person never show up for work. Enterprises simply can’t afford this loss in productivity. With the right collaboration platform, finding information across teams should be effortless. When assessing collaboration tools, companies need to validate that their employees can share, find, add, and collaborate intuitively and efficiently. This is necessary across all facets of the organization, from training to sales presentations and critical company financial records.

When adopting Google Workspace, employees can reduce time searching for docs and files with a fully integrated platform that applies AI and ML throughout. From creating a company Drive and Sites to hosting working docs, training materials, and product information to scheduling meetings and brainstorming sessions via Calendar, Chat, Jams, and Meet, everything within Google Workspace is connected to make work-life simpler and faster for users.

5. Sustainable Collaboration: A Greener Future Awaits

With sustainability becoming increasingly important globally, enterprises want to ensure the cloud provider they choose aligns with their sustainability goals. Not only do business leaders want to fuel collaboration and make an impact productivity-wise, but they also want to make an impact when it comes to the environment.

Companies that adopt Google Workspace can not only reduce IT costs, mitigate risk, and drive revenue growth but contribute to a more sustainable future. Carbon neutral since 2007, Google Cloud is committed to reducing its carbon footprint and has expanded its partnerships and solutions to help enterprises mitigate their environmental impact. In fact, during Google Cloud Next ‘21, they announced a carbon footprint tool. This new tool will allow companies to take a closer look at the carbon emissions their cloud usage generates.

Google Workspace: Designed for a Digitally Collaborative Tomorrow

As C-suites make their assessments, it’s a top priority to provide teams — regardless of their physical presence — with the collaboration tools they need to fuel better business outcomes, patient results, and customer experiences. With this in mind, a thorough evaluation of a company’s collaboration toolbox will give leaders a better idea of where they are to get to where they need to be for the future of work.

Is your enterprise ready for the future of work? Take this Google Workspace Assessment now to evaluate where your business is on this important journey. 

Take the Assessment
October 29th, 2021
ENTERPRISE COLLABORATION

Get the latest industry news and insights delivered straight to your inbox.

Sign up for our Newsletter
2021-11-10T13:41:40-06:00