Can Collaboration Save You From the Deadline Day Dash?
As deadline day looms you and your team can become quite frantic, grasping at loose ends of information and trying to communicate with each other when it can be quite hard to make contact. Having the right technology in place for collaboration will vastly improve your approach and standing when it comes to making that all important decision.
It is a situation which every marketer can imagine; a decision has to be taken before close of play but not all your team are in the office, final sign-off is needed but the key decision maker is away seeing a client, you’re on time for that vital meeting but your team are stuck on a train. Decisions have to be taken and failure to do so could severely impact your project timeline and ultimately your bottom line.
By investing in the right technology, maximising the capabilities of your tools, synchronising information and documents across your team’s devices, you can make the deadline day dash a thing of the past, or at least less stressful.
How collaboration can save you from the deadline day dash
86% of employees and executives cite lack of collaboration or ineffective communication for workplace failures. This can be detrimental to the decision-making process on deadline day. Miscommunication can lead to the wrong decision or commitment.
There are various ways to effectively collaborate, including the use of:
- Instant messaging for communication
- Technology such as video conferencing
- Easily accessible documents that are updated in real time.
Collaborating effectively can increase the efficiency of the decision-making process. Ensure that all apps, documents and technologies are synchronised, giving you access to expertise and decision makers (wherever they are), right up to the last minute.
Make your communication Effective
The technology you use to enhance communication and collaboration needs to promote mobility, availability and flexibility. Video conference, instant messages or audio conference removes those long drawn out meetings and internal email chains. 47% of employees believe meetings to be the biggest waste of time in the office and only 48% of employees open emails regarding internal communications.
Digital technology will help you to collaborate and communicate at any given time across multiple projects and teams. This will enhance your ability to make more than a singular decision if it’s a particularly busy time of year for your business.
Remember productivity doesn’t equal efficiency
Collaborative technology should be implemented where it can make communication easier, better and smarter. Multiple team members working on separate copies of a document might be productive per person, but collating their separate changes into one master document is hardly efficient.
Technology such as Unified Communications can enable your team to collaborate in real-time on one master document enabling you to keep track of all the changes and ensure that none get lost. After all poor internal communication and sharing of knowledge is estimated to cost companies in the Fortune 500 as much as $31.5 billion per year and is the number one reason why people quit.
So make those deadline day decisions less stressful by having everyone pulling together in the same direction before crunch time arrives. Not only will this strengthen your position before the deadline, it will strengthen your team as they work in unison towards the same goal. This will also keep your employees feeling satisfied, ensuring that they are onboard to help when that deadline comes round.
Path to success
Collaboration is the key to success, boosting your bottom line, making your team work as more of a cohesive unit, getting your people engaged and aligned to top-level strategic goals. By ensuring that this culture of collaboration and communication is in place you can prevent the deadline day dash and if it comes to it make informed and involved decisions at the eleventh hour.
Takeaways :
- Collaboration can make the decision-making process more efficient
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Collaboration capabilities can be enhanced by technologies such as video conferencing and instant messaging platforms
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Collaboration is a by-product of effective communication, best achieved when your team are working together towards one common goal.
Collaboration is important all year round, not just before deadlines. Discover benefits by downloading: Marketing's Connected Business Bundle
This article was first published on the Arkadin Blog