Learn the essentials of choosing an enterprise tool with these tips

The world has moved to mobile communication, creating a culture of “work on demand” —Employees, and indeed everyone, expect to be able to seamlessly connect with their colleagues on the go and at their convenience.
But when there is more that needs to be conveyed, and a need for faster and two-way communication, there are alternatives that may be more efficient.
Here are some key elements that companies should look for when choosing an enterprise communication tool:

  1. Security: Protecting company and customer data is crucial to a company’s business and a breach could be disastrous. At the same time, it should be easy for employees to use software on mobile devices without having to jump through security hoops and protocols.

Features like single sign-on can help companies tie business accounts to all their tools. Policies on data retention and data encryption can ensure that data is secure and stored, following organizational codes.

  1. Organization in teams: A lot of tools have group chat abilities, but enterprise-ready products will allow administrators to pre-configure groups. This is a convenient way to ensure that anyone who is relevant on a team gets messages, and there is no miscommunication.
  1. Interoperability: Gone are the days where there was a standard device assigned to all employees. BYOD is becoming a well-accepted policy and a lot of employees are also given a range of options to choose from when selecting their laptops and mobile devices.
  1. Customer Experience: Enterprise products should be as intuitive as consumer products. Users should be able to pick up a product and start using it without a lot of guidance. It’s important to have support teams for business users but making the product simple to use is crucial so that employees can quickly make the transition.

While there are already a number of collaboration tools that organizations are using, I expect them to expand their communication tools to improve efficiency and responsiveness. There will be a drastic reduction in both phone calls and emails as employees look for products that can help them instantaneously communicate. This switch has real benefits for organizations, with the potential to increase productivity.
In order to make this transition, there is a combination of factors involved — a variety of good communication tools that are enterprise-ready, and a willingness for companies to adopt new tools and encourage employees to use them.