Since the beginning of 2020, digital transformation has come knocking at the doors of businesses across every primary industry. 

Over the past two years, we have transcended traditional work models and embraced remote-capable ecosystems powered by collaboration and productivity technologies. These have caused a tremendous shift in how people are collaborating and getting their work done. And this has been very beneficial.

Through this article, we’ll explore the many benefits of better systems of collaboration and how they can impact productivity and the workflows within projects. 

But let’s begin by understanding the pain points – why we need collaboration tools and the negative impacts on productivity due to a lack of effective collaboration among teams.

Read more: Moving to Hybrid Work Culture? Here’s What You Need to Consider!

How Lack of Collaboration Can Affect Projects

1. Stunted results

If you don’t have effective collaboration systems or communication tools across the organization, you may not achieve much. To build game-changing solutions in a highly competitive market, you need to leverage the skills and capabilities of your entire team. This is not possible if the digital systems in place don’t allow you to collaborate effectively.

2. Inability to plan properly

“By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail”, Benjamin Franklin said. The success of any project rests heavily on how effectively it gets planned. Whether your organization follows AGILE, Waterfall, or any other project management model, none of their capabilities are enough to overcome improper planning. And proper planning is not possible without effective collaboration across teams.

3. Organizational silos

This is a significant challenge, especially for projects that require a lot of knowledge sharing. If the teams are not consistently aligned with each other, one side will always have incomplete information about the project or the process. This extends even beyond just information. It also holds for goals, objectives, and priorities. Unless the entire team is singing from the same sheet, nothing is going to sound good.

4. Lack of trust among people

This is a people issue than a project issue. But people are vital to any process. If there aren’t enough systems for people to easily collaborate, organizations risk fostering unnecessary competitiveness. People can become disengaged and won’t be able to develop close professional relationships or build trust.

Read more: How Can Organizations Profit More from Collaboration Software?

So, what is the solution?

The simplest answer would be to facilitate better collaboration among their teams. And how do we do that? 

The solution lies in the digital ecosystem that the organization operates within. The right digital workplace orchestration could be the difference between a successful, collaborative project and one that’s struggling to take off.

This leads us to our next point of discussion – 

How better technologies can improve collaboration and productivity

1. Breaking Down Silos

Better collaboration means better communication, which leads to better transfer of knowledge among teams. An effective digital workplace solution can empower knowledge workers to access information or educate themselves on best practices in real-time. This enables them to continue and complete their tasks. They need not wait for the information to arrive from the source or mail it back to them.

2. Transparency and Visibility

A robust digital ecosystem is beneficial not only to the people who are involved in the project but also to those who manage it. For example, collaboration tools can allow managers to maintain oversight on the project and remain in constant communication with the people involved. It will enable them to interfere appropriately and resolve crises in real-team as they arise.

3. Enhanced Workflows

Workflows benefit in multiple ways from incorporating organization-wide collaboration systems. Firstly, it speeds up the processes by reducing the time between ideation to implementation. It can also help avoid version control issues by offering easy real-time file-sharing capabilities. This removes inefficiencies like having to pass documents through emails. 

4. Engagement and Morale

A study conducted at Stanford University claimed that “when people treated as partners work together with others – even when physically apart – their motivation increases.” The simple act of connecting people can help bridge gaps between teams and build engagement and morale. When people are working in silos, they remain unaware of how their work impacts the overall project. Connecting people not only improve organizational cohesion it gives them the motivation and perspective to deliver better. 

Read more: 5 Ways InfinCE Can Save On Your Enterprise IT Budget

InfinCE- A Perfect Collaboration Platform for Businesses

Now that we know how a great collaboration platform can improve productivity let’s look at a good option for your business.

InfinCE is the only true digital workplace orchestration platform ever built. It is a one-of-a-kind solution that offers all the collaboration and productivity tools and the technical infrastructure an organization needs. 

Leveraged effectively, organizations can use InfinCE to turbocharge their workflows, deliver better, and achieve improved innovation within the organization.

Let’s check out how.

1. Cloud-based infrastructure

InfinCE offers a fully cloud-based ecosystem for its extensive list of productivity and collaboration tools. It allows employees to access these tools anytime and from anywhere in the world, on a device of their choice. Further, the model also supports real-time file sharing, allowing teams and individuals to share documents through secure access systems. This avoids delays that can arise by relying on the manual transfer of files.

2. Easy tracking and analysis

InfinCE enables business leaders to efficiently monitor and review business metrics through personalized dashboards and data visualization tiles. In addition to a whole host of pre-built standard tiles for monitoring information, it allows for customized tiles for specific requirements like monitoring servers, apps, and even employees. These insights can help leaders make faster decisions and resolve problems faster. 

3. Security

Digital security is a significant point in today’s work environment, especially when talking about a digital workplace model. InfinCE takes this into special consideration by protecting all data stored within its infrastructure with the latest cybersecurity protocols. Everything is stored securely on virtual private servers with advanced firewalls. In addition, smart access control systems permit only the right people to access or edit files. 

4. Comprehensive and Extendable 

If the digital workplace system is not capable enough or extendable for everyone’s use, an organization-wide adaptation may be impossible. This means that you risk going from individual silos to department-based silos. This is where InfinCE stands out. It comes packed with a whole host of productivity and collaboration tools. It ranges from the software to edit documents and spreadsheets to email clients and servers and much more. Further, the platform’s unique infrastructure makes it highly extendable – businesses can remove old applications and add in new software or SaaS options from other vendors.

Through this discussion, it’s easy to see how greater collaboration is directly proportional to better productivity and project management.

A powerful and effective digital workplace orchestration platform like InfinCE with its suite of productivity and collaboration tools can do wonders for your project workflows. There’s no better way to empower your teams.

Chat with our expert to learn more about InfinCE. 

Every business faces two types of challenges – the challenges from within and the challenges from outside. If you could make your employees satisfied, motivated, and excited to work, many internal issues would be solved even before they arise. One such internal challenge is Employee Engagement! Studies have found that more than half of the employees are uncomfortable with their workplace; hence they are not wholly focused on their work. But employing business collaboration software can resolve these issues.

An innovative all-in-one collaboration platform like InfinCE can minimize all workspace-related issues and motivate your employees to work more eagerly and enthusiastically. The most attractive side of InfinCE business collaboration software is that it lets you unify the entire workforce and brings together all of them to strive for a common goal. 

Below explains what you should consider when looking for a perfect team collaboration solution for your business.

Read more: A Guide to Improving Workplace Collaboration for the Modern Enterprise

Criteria for Choosing Collaboration Software

As there are numerous business collaboration platforms out in the market, entrepreneurs often find themselves in a dilemma when choosing one that will benefit their organization. Apparently, there are many things to be considered to ensure effective integration of the software in terms of its cost, output, and scalability. Some of the key features an ideal business collaboration solution should include are:

1. Advanced Communication Options

The primary goal of any business adopting a collaboration platform is to ensure streamlined communication among the employees. Therefore, integrating communication features like instant messaging, audio/video calling options, private and group chat options, etc., into the application makes it a perfect fit.

Different companies have different policies when it comes to communicating within their company. They may even change their communication policies from time to time. For example, some prefer emails, while some others may rely on audio/video conferences. Some may also use multiple communication channels for different employee hierarchies, such as video conferencing with top-level management and audio calling for others.

It is important to keep a tab on these aspects before you finalize a collaboration software for your company. Additionally, it is also essential to check the compatibility of the software across multiple types of devices – PCs, tablets, and smartphones to ensure it improves employee engagement.

2. File-Sharing Tools

Conventional file sharing via email has many drawbacks, and it even exposes the data in emails to cyber threats. Besides, as more and more emails with attachments pile up in the inbox, it would be pretty challenging to find the required data when you need to pull out something quickly before a meeting. However, in a modern business collaboration software like InfinCE, there are many user-friendly options for file sharing, which make it all effortless.

For instance, you can quickly share the link to a file stored in the cloud storage of InfinCE while at a conference. It allows the other team members to access the file and relevant data quickly. It is even possible to set user-level permissions on the files to limit the access to sensitive data for the top management. 

Often, it is quite a nuisance to download a file from one cloud storage space and upload it into the collaboration tool again or upload a file from the local device when you are in a virtual huddle. However, it will never be the same when you use the InfinCE collaboration platform for your business.

3. Event Management Solutions

Meetings and conferences are quite common in a modern business organization. However, keeping all the members informed about a scheduled meeting, getting their participation confirmation, and coordinating the events is no cakewalk. Business collaboration software plays another significant role here by giving you a streamlined calendar.

The integrated calendar in InfinCE allows you to keep track of all the upcoming events from a single dashboard. You can share the calendar with the team members to keep everyone in the organization informed on what is going on in the company, even if they do not need to participate in all planned events.

Read more: How InfinCE Online Collaboration Tool Helps Achieve Your Business Goals

4. Support Services

While moving to a new working ecosystem of collaboration software, we are bound to have many questions. Getting everything on track will take time and requires assistance for the same. With InfinCE collaboration software, you will not face any issues because it offers round-the-clock technical support services via three modes – email, chat, and phone. Be it a simple requirement or a complicated problem, you can reach out to the tech support team to resolve things quickly.

Another benefit of having dedicated support for your collaboration platform is that it flattens the learning curve. There could be many features that you are unfamiliar with and may not have someone to guide you through them. With 24/7 support, you can master the functions of your business collaboration tool in no time.

5. Security Features

Before you choose your collaboration tool, you need to find out the level of security it offers. Does it speak about the security policies, the precautions users need to take, and remedial actions to observe in case of adversity? 

When using a top-level collaboration tool like InfinCE, the admin is entrusted with huge responsibilities to ensure the security of the software. However, the software itself can provide high security only if a well-informed admin monitors the processes from time to time. That is where InfinCE delivers a unified dashboard to help the system and network admin track the security of the tool. At the same time, it also allows assigning roles and integrating security features like two-factor authentication and secured sign-in options to evade risks. Above all, you can count on the transparency of InfinCE for all your security concerns.

Watch: How InfinCE’s Collaboration Apps and Productivity Tools Helps Businesses Gain a Competetive Edge!

How Can You Benefit from Using Business Collaboration Software

When great minds work together for a common goal, the result will be amazing. Business collaboration software creates a space for improved cooperation and lays the stepping stone for achieving impeccable results. Moreover, with effective collaboration among the workforce, the time required for realizing the goals becomes shorter. It eventually translates into business growth and the overall profitability of the company.

Apart from breaking the barriers to business growth due to lack of communication among the workforce, a reliable all-in-one collaboration platform also paves the way for better scalability. When you can monitor all the resources, experiences, finances, and infrastructure from a unified dashboard, it is easy to proactively tackle any challenges and make effective problem-solving decisions. What’s more, when you ensure optimal employee engagement and productivity, you can explore modern markets, build new relationships, and invest in diverse market structures.

Collaboration is an integral part of every business’ success. The above-discussed points highlight how business collaboration software promotes employee cooperation and satisfaction in today’s new world order. Superior innovation, productivity, and efficiency are guaranteed when you integrate a modern collaboration tool like InfinCE and utilize its features to the fullest. Connect with our experts today to know more about InfinCE, or just Sign Up 30 days free trial to explore!

How Online Collaboration Tool Like InfinCE Help Define Your Business Success

Online collaboration tools are a vital business asset today. The sudden shift to remote work has mandated the use of virtual collaboration tools across several business sectors. From defining a successful business strategy to helping employees connect with teams, online collaboration tools play an integral role in solving business challenges. The core benefit of using virtual collaboration tools is facilitating decision-making, enhancing productivity, and efficiently realizing the business goals.

Why do you need an online collaboration tool? What makes InfinCE the best fit?

To make the most of your business collaboration tool, you should first know why you need it and what pain points it can help you mitigate. Like other business aspects, proper planning should come before selecting the best online collaboration tool. Adequate planning coupled with the right tool selection can help you attain effective online collaboration. 

Read more: How Successful Leaders Engage Employees Using Modern Business Communication Tools like InfinCE

Following are the benefits offered by InfinCE online collaboration tool.

1. Saves time and costs for businesses

One of the key perks of deploying the InfinCE online collaboration tool is that it helps you save time. When your teams collaborate and work without lags or disruptions, they can achieve the targets much quicker. It translates to cost savings in the long run and ensures optimal employee performance.

2. Strengthens employee relationships 

The lack of face-to-face meetings in today’s remote work culture can take a toll on the relationships of your teams. InfinCE virtual collaboration tool helps you schedule audio or video meetings and one-to-one calls. The platform helps ensure robust team communication and work collaboration and boosts employee engagement and morale, no matter where your employees are.

3. Simplifies project management 

InfinCE online collaboration tool is designed to simplify your project management. With all the essential productivity apps in hand, you can keep track of your team’s performance, monitor the progress of different projects, improve communication, and ensure that you get the most out of everyone involved. InfinCE also offers a unified, custom dashboard to help you access every data required to manage your teams in a single place.

4. Streamlines information exchange 

InfinCE virtual collaboration software also makes data and file sharing more manageable, which means that your employees can access the information as and when needed to perform their tasks. Moreover, it helps organize your task management so that you do not have to run into any trouble due to missed deadlines. 

Read more: 7 Ways to Improve Team Collaboration in 2021 

5. Integrates with a multitude of third-party applications

You can integrate your preferred productivity apps with InfinCE to make the most of the collaboration software. By introducing social interactions into the existing business systems, you can see significant improvements in your teams’ overall efficiency and productivity. At the same time, InfinCE helps overcome the challenges of aggregating valuable files and folders to make business management easier for the leaders.

6. Prevents juggling multiple business apps

You can save time and resources by adopting a unified virtual collaboration platform like InfinCE. For instance, having all the required functions in a single place, such as data sharing, information broadcasting, project tracking, attendance monitoring, and more, you do not have to switch apps to manage your business. At the same time, you will not have to subscribe to multiple applications when you employ an all-in-one collaboration platform like InfinCE, which makes forecasting the monthly expenses much more effortless.

7. Helps stay on top with enterprise cloud innovations

InfinCE online collaboration tool allows you to interact with your colleagues, partners, customers, and stakeholders from anywhere in the world. 

Being an enterprise cloud application, InfinCE allows you to share the required information with your team and helps them work toward reaching a common goal. This way, you can streamline the workflow of your remote employees, ensure improved efficiency, drive superior productivity, and facilitate innovation.

With regular feature updates and modern technology provisions, InfinCE is helping businesses define their path to success through effective enterprise collaboration. It allows you to work on ideas that will come to fruition, avoid potential issues as they crop up, and create a stress-free and more enjoyable work environment. 

Case Study: How Fingent Achieved Breakthroughs in Collaboration with InfinCE 

3 tips for deploying your online collaboration tool successfully

Implementing a virtual collaboration tool like InfinCE can be done without disrupting your existing business processes. Yet again, it is always better to keep an adjustment period in mind when you deploy the concept of online collaboration into your business, as some of your employees may be new to it. Here are some tips to help you get started with InfinCE with minimal disruption to your current business systems.

1. Transition slowly

While starting right away and transitioning every business process into the new system is essential, you need to plan it well and move gradually. For example, shifting to an entirely different work environment can be challenging for team members who have never used an online collaboration tool earlier. A phase-by-phase transition will help ensure that everyone is on the same page and avoid any productivity loss.

2. Work with an expert

Although you may feel like using an online collaboration platform does not take much learning, and you can master it within a few days, it is always better to work with an expert initially to fully understand the scope of the platform. With InfinCE, you get 24/7 support from a well-informed team of experts who can guide you through making the most of the collaboration platform. This way, you can introduce the new concept more adeptly to your team and avoid potential issues.

3. Evaluate and select the right software

There is no arguing that you can easily get confused with the availability of so many different options out there. Nonetheless, as mentioned, you need to assess your requirements well to make the right choice. Consider the features offered by the online collaboration software, how you plan to use those features, and how these features will ease the challenges your business is facing. Meanwhile, also determine whether the cost of the platform is reasonable in terms of the solutions it provides.

Read more: 5 Points To Consider While Choosing Your Enterprise Collaboration Software 

While online collaboration can seem like a complex concept at first, the availability of powerful tools like InfinCE has simplified it to a great extent. 

Boost your virtual collaboration with InfinCE

If your business supports a socially collaborative work culture, you can make it even more engaging by employing the InfinCE all-in-one collaboration platform. With features like real-time messaging, voice and video calling, activity streams, and collaboration workspaces, InfinCE can enhance the efficiency of your business systems already in place. Get in touch with us to learn more about InfinCE. 

“If everyone is moving forward together, then success takes care of itself.” – Henry Ford.

Team collaboration is the main element in a business that spurs innovation, develops creativity, enhances productivity, and boosts employee satisfaction. When individuals come together openly, all the processes and objectives become more streamlined, steering the team towards a better success rate of achieving a common goal. A collaborative atmosphere makes each team member a potential resource or a tool that other members can rely on to make better decisions. This healthy employee relationship is what makes a company anticipate better business performance and productivity.

Team collaboration has always played an essential role in ensuring business growth. Post-pandemic, it has become indispensable to unite your employees and overcome the work silos that remote work culture has spiked. Setting up effective team collaboration in your organization requires proper planning and strategy.

The inevitable role of a team collaboration software

For creating an impactful collaborative environment, you may want to make use of team collaboration software like InfinCE. A team collaboration tool comprises all the essential features and functionalities needed to enhance your organization’s teamwork. 

For instance, InfinCE facilitates quick and streamlined communication among employees through live-chat, video calls, and virtual meetings, a crucial factor in improving teamwork.

Read more: 6 Ways Online Collaboration Software Helps Manage Your Virtual Team 

As far as improving your team’s collaboration strategy, you can consider these tips in 2021. 

1. Combine innovative ideas

In addition to bringing ideas and plans to the table, a project manager is also responsible for weaving in their teams’ suggestions, ideas, and objectives to achieve a perfect amalgamation. A project involving complexity and multifaceted elements require agile policies, including innovation from all stakeholders and parties to achieve goals. Real-time data availability helps participants comprehend and differentiate between advantageous and disadvantageous actions and instantly make amendments. It implies that successful team collaboration combines the most-suitable ideas and the promptness of being adaptive and flexible.

2. Everyone must have a say

Effective team collaboration is an art that requires filling the gaps between differing ideas and transforming them into feasible solutions. A collaborator needs to be an active listener to get to the root of an idea or proposal. Listening patiently to everyone with a stake in the outcome is inevitable to map the course better. When everyone has a voice in the room, it becomes easier to confirm and clarify the information shared and discuss the details in real-time. This way, a great collaborator can respond effectively when all participants’ suggestions have been duly heard.

Implementing this strategy for team collaboration is very important as team members want to feel valued and be ensured that they are more than just employees.

3. Create an energetic environment

An ideal collaborator must ensure that everyone is working with enthusiasm. For this, they can stimulate motivation and energy into a team meeting or group conversation by allowing the team members to share their ideas and suggestions. A collaborator must always appreciate team members who play their part well. Criticisms should be polite and thoughtful and help employees realize their role and its significance in making the project successful.    

Issues that need attention should be discussed in such a way that the discussion motivates the team. The most vital asset of a successful project is a team that collaborates well.  

4. Sustain a friendly atmosphere

As a collaborator, you must always be open and available to suggestions as you never know from where you may get that million-dollar idea. Not only this, but a friendly atmosphere is also vital for building trust among team members. When employees feel confident and comfortable to share their opinions and concerns, it becomes easier to make workplace relationships successful. Keeping your door opens to new suggestions, accomplishments, and thoughtful criticisms empower the team collectively. This practice leads to healthier teamwork, better trust, quick problem-solving, and eventually enhanced business performance.

Read more: How Successful Leaders Engage Employees Using Modern Business Communication Tools like InfinCE 

5. Transparency brings excellency

An effective collaborator is not concerned with roles and titles as much as they are with the results. When a group member brings a sound suggestion to the table, the collaborator should always give full credit to the team or individual to motivate them.

Besides, an effective collaborator should share information and define expectations throughout the board. Such transparency in communication allows team members to trust the company for keeping things apparent. When the required details are shared with the team, it brings a sense of workplace community, augmenting the spirit of collaboration among employees.

6. Work should feel like fun

A project or a company tastes success when trust, motivation, and morale are high among the employees. Organizations need to motivate team members by organizing team outings, dinner parties, games, and events that help build strong connections between various departments. 

Building such a fun and friendly atmosphere among team members fosters a sense of accountability that goes past schedules and deadlines.

7. Rise above inflexibility

Just like the joined blocks that make up a building, team collaboration builds up a workplace. Although workgroups are known for tending to the silo, modern workplaces function well when employees have the freedom to work without boundaries. Instead of working individually, foster team collaboration to ensure that all the members are accountable for their participation.

Effective team collaboration in business ensures that individuals realize their value in helping a company achieve the desired objectives collectively. Team collaboration helps transform a business environment into an atmosphere that makes employees feel like family.

Read more: 5 Points To Consider While Choosing Your Enterprise Collaboration Software 

Benefits of integrating InfinCE team collaboration software

• InfinCE offers enhanced data security by ensuring data privacy through advanced firewalls, virtual private servers, and encryption-based access.
• Reliable support through various communication channels like phone, email, and live chat helps companies determine the appropriate solutions.
• The zero-coding feature of InfinCE allows you to set up a domain, mail server, website, and business applications in no time.
• No hidden charges if you ever wish to increase your server capacity and data storage.
• The user-friendly interface allows you to carry out tasks quickly and uninterruptedly.

Read more: 5 Features of InfinCE that will Transform The Way You Work 

Whether your business needs to build an IT infrastructure or requires specific apps for team collaboration, InfinCE helps you get the desired business tools and software to achieve your objectives. Get in touch with our expert to understand how InfinCE can boost team collaboration at your workplace.

Leading Examples of How Technology Helps in Managing Virtual Teams

Technology advancements have eliminated the constraints of physical boundaries for businesses. Today, every business is looking to serve a global customer base leveraging different digital channels. Even organizations that only serve regionally are increasingly adopting digital tools to improve their business processes better and cater to their customer’s growing needs.

All of that has led to the increasing popularity of remote work culture and virtual team management. Employees nowadays find it more convenient to perform their duties from remote locations using team collaboration apps. It also helps companies cut infrastructure costs. Today, it has become vital to employ the right online collaboration software to manage the virtual teams and ensure the right outcomes effectively.

How Team Collaboration Software Helps Manage Virtual Workforce

Virtual work culture has benefits as well as challenges. Common challenges faced by entrepreneurs managing virtual teams include scheduling work across different time zones, lack of transparency, ineffective communication, and other technical and socio-emotional issues. Leaders need to be more disciplined with their team management strategies and use a robust all-in-one online collaboration software platform to ensure optimum productivity.

Modern all-in-one team collaboration software comes with multiple features, such as instant messaging, video conferencing, file sharing, data storage, time tracking, reporting, and other capabilities to keep your team engaged and ensure better results. This way, you can also instill individual accountability, clarify job roles, define team norms, and do a lot more. Below are some examples of how technology and remote work tools can enhance virtual team management.

Read more: 5 Points To Consider While Choosing Your Enterprise Collaboration Software 

1. Improved Communication

Efficient and fast communication always plays a crucial role in facilitating the flow of ideas across the workplace. Online collaboration apps allow you to connect with team members at different locations via one-on-one or group video conferencing, audio calls, instant messaging, and other means. This way, you can remove all the communication barriers that often crop up among virtual teams and keep your team aligned with the business goals.

Read more: 5 Best Practices To Enable Seamless Communication For Your Remote Workforce 

2. Superior Brainstorming

Remote work removes time pressure and allows all team members to contribute toward achieving the business objectives. Generating ideas through brainstorming helps find the most suitable alternatives and devise the best plans for realizing your short-term and long-term goals. Besides, online collaboration software also makes project management more effective by facilitating real-time interaction and access to essential data. You can also set realistic deadlines so that the brainstorming process yields the best results.

3. Informed Decision Making

The cloud-based document storage features in the collaboration apps allow seamless cooperation across different departments. In other words, it overcomes the hurdles of not being in the same location. Having a shared space for communication and collaboration empowers employees to work collectively and figure out the best strategies, inspirations, ideas, and tactics to achieve the business goals. Moreover, discussing the possibilities over video conferencing can help make more informed decisions while keeping the entire team in the loop.

4. Seamless Information Access

Gone are the days when you needed to inform your team members about the changes in business policies or other strategies by email. Using online collaboration software, you can let your virtual team know of the updates in real-time while also sending individual notifications about the changes. You can even tag different team members to review the updates or take the necessary action. As you can store all the data and files in a centralized location, remote employees can easily access the relevant information to perform their jobs.

5. Easy Reporting

Working with virtual teams means collaborating with people in different time zones. It can make monitoring team productivity and efficiency a bit confusing for project managers. However, modern team collaboration software platforms can make it painless by providing employee performance tracking and time management features. You can also generate reports on the progress of different projects and advise the team about what needs to be done to meet the shortcomings.

6. Better Relationships

Building good relationships is a vital aspect of a successful business, which may seem quite challenging for companies managing virtual teams. Remote teams usually spend very little time engaging with each other than what happens in a typical physical workplace. That is why you need to schedule regular meetings and keep the channels open for social conversations to build better employee-management relationships. That will go a long way to develop rapport and boost the confidence of your team members.

Read more: 4 Tips To Attain Success In The New Normal Remote Work Environment 

All-in-one online collaboration software can effectively tackle your virtual work culture’s challenges and let you make the most of your digital workforce. By following the best practices and getting the right virtual collaboration tool, you can ensure the most productive outcomes.

Read more: 5 Features of InfinCE that will Transform The Way You Work 

The pandemic showed us that it is possible to maintain your productivity levels while working from home to be on par with an office-based culture. Hence the only requirement is that you make the right collaboration platform available to employees. With secure information policies, seamless cloud-based deployment and management, InfinCE offers the best enterprise collaboration platform for today’s businesses. Get in touch with us to explore more. 

How can businesses gain a competitive advantage with Virtual Private Servers?

As more businesses take the digital route to beating competition, there is an increasing demand for Virtual Private Server (VPS) technology. It is becoming the number one hosting choice for businesses that experience very dynamic digital operations that peak and subside in a matter of hours or days.

For those who are new to the concept, a VPS is a virtual server dedicated to your business, but hosted on the cloud and managed by an underlying hypervisor that facilitates a portion of a physical server and associated computing resources to be allocated exclusively for a tenant. A VPS may be hosted and managed in a physical machine that also hosts other VPS and the entire ecosystem is made available on cloud by a cloud service provider or a hosting service provider.

Read more: 3 Strong Reasons for Your Business to Embrace Cloud-based IT Services

This VPS can be used by businesses to host a variety of digital platforms. So why has this technology of VPS having so many takers today? Here are 5 benefits of VPS that make it a formidable choice for businesses of all kinds:

1. Cost-Effective

Investing in a dedicated (private) server infrastructure would take costs through the roof. For small and medium businesses, this is not a luxury they can focus on since IT budgets would have to be optimized. With virtual private servers, SMBs get access to all the benefits of a private server on an on-demand pricing model where they only pay for the resources utilized. This helps them keep costs down and save on capital and salary expenses that would have to be borne had they decided to build a dedicated server infrastructure on their own and hire staff to maintain it.

2. Instant Scalability

Just as with cost, a Virtual Private Server based service offers businesses the desired flexibility in scaling their server performance and resources on demand. For example, a peak shopping season would require an e-commerce business to increase their computing and storage bandwidth on their servers to accommodate large spikes in traffic. The traffic may subside within a few weeks or months and then there would only be a normal flow of traffic to their website. Hence, it is not advisable to buy expensive server power to meet the demand for just a short period of time. With VPS, you can keep aside the tension of having to scale your server infrastructure due to demand without worrying about yearly costs. 

VPS service providers offer intuitive on-demand scalable packages for servers that allow you to subscribe for additional resources like bandwidth, storage, and computing power for limited periods to accommodate spikes in demand.

3. Reliability and Performance

The other option that has been popular with businesses for hosting their digital infrastructure was shared hosting. But this came with heavy reliability and performance issues. When the same infrastructure is shared by multiple businesses, spikes in traffic to other businesses can impact the availability of server resources to your business. 

With VPS, this problem is solved easily as your dedicated virtual space and computing space in the physical machine is abstracted and made available to you exclusively and is independent of the workload other businesses may exert on the same hardware. Hence businesses relying on VPS to run their critical digital infrastructure can be assured of reliability, high performance, and continuous availability all through the year.

Read more: How IT Teams Can Prepare to Support Remote Workforce During COVID-19

4. Customizable Configuration and Control

A shared hosting service does not offer businesses the flexibility to choose operational software on their server infrastructure. The configurations, operations control, software stack, etc. are all decided by the hosting service provider as they need to leverage the same machine for multiple businesses without any abstraction. This limits the freedom of hosting or operational technology for businesses in their digital platforms. 

With VPS, businesses are given full freedom to choose from a variety of operational software, hosting environments, and other added software installation support capability to build an environment best fit for their digital systems.

5. Managed Services

We have mentioned earlier that VPS does not require you to hire dedicated technical specialists to handle your IT infrastructure. Service providers like InfinCE offer a managed service wherein their specialists and consultants will continuously monitor the machinery and computing resources and network traffic to enable a seamless experience for your digital ecosystem. 

Read more: 5 Features of InfinCE that will Transform The Way You Work

You can continue to focus on improving your business via digital rather than worrying about keeping the backbone of your digital platforms stable and available. You are also relieved from having to invest continuously in upgrading infrastructure and software required to manage a private server for your digital platforms. The service provider will continuously monitor emerging market trends, evaluate their feasibility and ROI and make investments to ensure that your business gets access to the most competent server resources available in the market at no extra capital cost.

Read more: 4 Tips To Attain Success In The New Normal Remote Work Environment

As the world is continuously moving into a digital-first approach in every sector, SMBs need to have a firm grip on the digital ecosystem to keep their customers happy and satisfied. Having a fully integrated virtual digital backbone for your business with capabilities such as VPS is essential to ensure sustained growth. This is where InfinCE can be a game-changer. Get in touch with us to explore how your business can excel in the digital era with an all-in-one digital collaboration platform for all your needs.

How can businesses pick the right enterprise collaboration platform?

Recently, we wrote about the leading online collaboration tools that facilitate remote work in 2020 and which are the best alternatives to Microsoft Teams your business can consider. We know how important it must be for you to facilitate remote work collaboration among your teams positioned far and wide, at their homes or co-working spaces. That’s why this time we decided to share a few tips on what all you need to consider while choosing the best enterprise collaboration software for your business. 

Half the year down, COVID-19 is still doing its rounds worldwide, pushing the economy to a slow reopening after months of lockdown. While some countries are experiencing drastic spikes in the number of cases, others are witnessing a gradual decline of cases. Irrespective of their geographical positions, a huge section of the global workforce is poised to continue working remotely for a long time to come in the interest of safety.

Read more: 5 Tips To Effectively Manage Remote Teams During Challenging Times

So, here are 5 things you need to keep in mind while choosing an enterprise collaboration platform for your business:

1. Evaluate your needs

All modern-day enterprise collaboration platforms have tons of features and each of these features may sound exciting when you hear or explore them initially. However, not all businesses need all these features to be present in their collaboration software. You need to go back to the drawing board, run a campaign internally within your workforce to identify the challenges they face in collaboration, the tools, and support they need through a collaboration platform, and then have a look at features offered by leading vendors. This will help to keep your digital infrastructure optimized and personalized according to the needs of your workforce. 

Rather than the management implementing a platform that is most appealing to them, the focus here is to garner requirements from the actual workforce who would be using this platform for collaboration and then pick a vendor that offers these features on demand.

2. Scalability

It is likely that every collaboration software you came across in your search will be a cloud-based one. Thus, you assume that they will be scalable. But scalability is not restricted to just storage on the cloud. By scalability, we mean the ability of the platform to grow across all dimensions as more departments and processes in your business go into the platform. It includes support for feature additions, easy development of new features, accommodating multiple processes and new policies over time, and above all, handles more complex computing needs in the future based on your business’s growth. 

A digital collaboration platform is not something that you invest and implement for the short term. It will be a crucial digital platform that will grow with your business and adapt to changing work trends in the future.

Read More: How IT Teams Can Prepare to Support Remote Workforce During COVID-19

3. Cost Efficiency

As described in one of the previous points, your business may not need all features as advertised by vendors. By subscribing to more features, you will end up paying more on the subscription fee if the platform offers a “pay for what you use” model of subscription. Some features may be needed only in the future when your business grows and more employees use these features. Hence a platform that allows you to configure your subscription is the most desired option from a cost perspective. Once you identify the features you really need as described earlier, you can pick a vendor that offers you the freedom to pay for only those features on demand.

4. Security

When almost all of your employees work remotely, it is likely that confidential and sensitive customer information will be handled through the enterprise collaboration platform you deploy. Hence there needs to be an adequate security protocol in place within the software that lets you make governing policies on data and information exchange within the digital environment. Permissioned access, transparent work and project management, logged activities, etc. will be required to ensure that there is no compromise in security.

Read more: Why Is InfinCE A Better Choice For Safe Video Calling Than Zoom

5. Usability

When employees are suddenly moved into a new paradigm of working, there will be disruptive impacts on their daily routine. On top of that, if they are allotted a new collaboration platform without adequate onboarding time and awareness, the chaos will multiply many folds. To make a smoother transition into a new enterprise collaboration software, companies must pick a digital platform that has a high focus on usability and provides a comprehensive support and training exercise to help make the transition seamless. 

These tips could be video demonstrations, how to use manuals, a comprehensive FAQ section, dedicated support associates available all time, and much more. Platforms with intuitive interfaces and a shorter learning curve can be given preference for quicker adoption in your workforce.

The remote work culture is here to stay for a long time. We did not mean to say that there will not be a return to the office, but even when work resumes from office, employees would certainly feel much more comfortable to avail of Work from Home options occasionally. The pandemic showed us that it is possible to maintain your productivity levels while working from home to be on par with an office-based culture. 

Read more: How InfinCE Helps You Quickly Transit to Remote Working

Hence the only requirement is that you make the right collaboration platform available to employees. With secure information policies, seamless cloud-based deployment and management, InfinCE offers the best enterprise collaboration platform for today’s businesses. Get in touch with us to explore more. 

5 Ways Small Businesses Can Promote Collaboration Among Teams

For every small business today, the key to success lies in empowering their workforce to work together in the best possible way to deliver value to customers. This is true irrespective of the industry that your business focuses. Studies show that nearly 39% of employees feel that people in their organization do not value the importance of collaboration. Team collaboration is all about bringing everyone on the same page. But it is easier said than done. For small businesses, you have the benefit of having to bring fewer people into the same wavelength, but the core challenges of collaboration like communication, transparency, and accountability need to be addressed as much as what bigger players do. So how can small businesses improve team collaboration and promote a culture of continuous employee engagement in their work environment? Here are some tips:

1.Create a Unified Vision

To foster a culture of collaboration, it is important to ensure that all your employees work to achieve a common goal. As a business owner, it is your responsibility to create a powerful vision for the organization and then seamlessly connect the end objective of every project or work your company undertakes, to this vision statement. This will ensure that irrespective of the team or project an employee is a part of, they will work towards achieving the common goal as defined in the vision. For example, if the vision is total customer satisfaction, then every effort your workforce puts in can be seamlessly translated into steps taken in achieving maximum customer satisfaction. This vision statement or concept can be used in the awareness sessions to help team members bond with each other, understand their responsibilities and realize the need to be accountable for one’s own actions so that the collective effort of the team is successful in the end.

Related Reading: The Office Of The Future – 5 Innovations To Know

2. Smarter On-Boarding

It is often found that new joiners in a company or in a team face difficulty in getting acquainted with the culture and nature of work in the first few weeks or months in the company. This is predominantly due to weak onboarding policies at small companies which pretty much focuses on sharing a couple of PowerPoint slides about the company and expecting new joiners to automatically align themselves with the goals and culture prevalent. Instead, companies should cultivate a smarter onboarding experience by getting rid of boring presentation sessions and documents. They should instead, pair newcomers with an existing team member who can guide them into the company’s routine and help them adapt faster to the culture prevalent in the workplace.

3.Ensure Effective Task Management

There are many instances where employees need to collaborate and work together on projects. In today’s highly competitive talent market, some of these employees may be remotely located as well. Small businesses need to invest in empowering your resources to collaborate efficiently over tasks irrespective of where they are geographically located. Using a powerful platform like InfinCE, your business can ensure there is a virtual space for employees to work together and with accountability for each action. Such platforms allow you to monitor task progress, enable smooth interaction between colleagues, facilitate the exchange of files and documents related to work and much more. Managers can efficiently manage their team with improved transparency and unbiased decision, thanks to insights from such employee management solutions. The end result is better team collaboration and improved productivity levels in the organization. When tasks and people are brought under a common technology framework, it keeps employees organized, managers aware of their team’s progress and clients happy about fulfilled commitments on delivery.

Related Read: InfinCE – A One-Stop Technology Solution for Small Business

4.Encourage Transparent Communication

A key driver of team collaboration in any business environment is open and transparent communication. Only when people strike a comfortable level of conversation with each other, do they develop mutual respect, trust, and understanding for their colleagues. For organizations, there are several ways to encourage a culture of open communication. A big part of the exercise involves mentoring managers to promote a healthy atmosphere for open communication and not a culture that works by just giving and obeying orders. 

It is important to bring technology into the picture here to work as an enabler for open communication. Most of the organizations typically use just an email system for employees to communicate. However, employees need more than just a simple email system. Bring on-board a powerful intranet system with social media-inspired virtual news spaces for sharing news and information about the company, activities, and events planned and much more. Employees can express their responses for such intranet posts similar to what they do on social media like Facebook. Another option would be to have a good instant messenger system where employees can converse with each other in real-time for a better understanding of problems and scenarios.

5.Promote Socializing Outside of Work

Every employee in your small business has a side of talent, skill or ability that can help them create healthier conversations and relationships with others. As an organization, you need to create avenues for employees to socialize and celebrate their individual and personal skills. Team building exercises, lunches, dinners, and sponsored team vacations or holidays where employees can get to know their colleagues better are just a few ideas to use. This will enable them to build better working relationships in parallel and stand up for each other in collaborative tasks with more responsibility and trust.

Team collaboration is vital to ensuring the continuous growth and success of every small business. Having the right vision, the most relevant business processes and the best technology is the way forward to achieving excellence in team collaboration. Get in touch with us to see how InfinCE can be the game-changer in enabling a collaborative and productive work culture within your organization.