By: Pranjal Gandhi, Associate Consultant, CMT, LTI

Stressing over the next project deadline, I wondered if I could find a niche technology specialist for a client in 2 days. Suddenly I realized that the answer was right in front of me all the time – I could tap into my company’s talented employee base of 25,000 through our organization’s collaboration platform. I was able to find the right person in 2 hours!

Workplace collaboration is becoming increasingly important. The ability to work together in cross-functional teams is one of the biggest factors contributing to the success of any business. Team work is faster, enables faster learning and improves motivation levels.

An enterprise collaboration platform incorporates social networking capabilities into business processes. The primary objective of collaboration software is to foster innovation by incorporating knowledge management into work processes so employees can share information and solve business problems in a more organized and structured way. Some of the key features of a collaboration platform include email client, screen sharing, social media sharing, video conferencing, file sharing capabilities, session recording, instant messaging, content consolidation and more. Enterprise collaboration platforms can be installed on-premises or deployed via the web as a cloud-based service.

Enterprise wide collaboration reduces the need for face-to-face meetings, allowing companies to reduce travel and related expenses. It makes employees more “available” per se. A chat or a text medium to collaborate offers flexibility when people are unavailable to speak over the phone. A Business Collaboration Portal makes document management a seamless task. Employees can share files with a community, small groups, or individuals with just a few clicks. Moreover, today’s enterprise collaboration platforms are more integrated and interactive. Platforms such as G-Suite offer a wide range of applications and functionality under a single cloud solution. Hence, the whole ecosystem drives productivity and performance.

The enterprise collaboration landscape has permanently shifted. From traditional tools like spreadsheets and standalone documents, work is being moved to more sophisticated platforms that offer the added advantage of sharing, organizing and managing work in a user friendly, efficient and collaborative way. Today, it is important to find the right balance between two critical factors when evaluating an enterprise collaboration solution: the usability and business productivity as well as the security & compliance aspect. Businesses are meticulously curating their cloud collaboration applications that help increase productivity and efficiency, without compromising on security and compliance. Through my consulting experience with a technology major, I have been able to build a framework that evaluates enterprise collaboration platforms based on the business needs and digital strategies of our clients.

Research indicates that the enterprise collaboration market is expected to grow from USD 34.5 billion in 2018 to almost USD 60 billion by 2023. The highest growth is expected to be in the enterprise social collaboration platforms. With the ever-evolving communication dynamics enterprise collaboration is starting to see a shift towards social collaboration. Today social media is all-pervasive at a personal level. Going forward, social technologies will get deeply embedded within business applications, enabling a rise in virtual teams and amplifying enterprise-wide collaboration.