The stakes are very high for Collaboration Technology Vendors.

In 2020, companies were in a new age where remote work reigned supreme the day, and collaboration between virtual teams was the mainstay of sales, innovation, and customer service. Since then, companies have invested more in technology for their teams to streamline and speed up the process of virtual team collaboration. The world workforce has proven that it can quickly adapt to a new work model. But, many organizations think they haven’t yet fully utilized the possibilities of the virtual worker.

The majority of companies taking a step forward in the hybrid model of work invest in innovative technologies for collaboration, such as workplace endpoints and enhancing the effectiveness of virtual collaboration. Virtual collaboration is here to be around for a while, and leaders at most organizations aren’t sure whether they’ve chosen the appropriate technology to meet their requirements. Thus, they continue to evaluate processes and technology to improve virtual workforce collaborative work, engagement, productivity, and wellbeing/happiness.

Background

The necessity of supporting remote work has accelerated the adoption and usage of collaboration tools to ensure business continuity.

These technologies comprise the vast array of products from many vendors covering videoconferencing as well as interactive collaboration (including using virtual reality as well as the metaverse), chat/messaging, document management electronic whiteboards, touch-activated as well as audio-visual controls that are voice-activated such as digital signage/content streaming, contact centers, virtual private networks, platforms, laptop and PC devices, and many more.

Technology for collaboration continues to develop quickly. There are many more solution options for virtual collaboration now than ever before.

The user experience is the most important thing.

Organizations are studying the application of technology and training to create exceptional experiences for their employees that are essential for maximizing the engagement of workers and productivity, and overall wellbeing. In the context of virtual team collaboration, IT has been using collaboration technology performance management to enhance users’ digital experience by monitoring the efficiency of collaboration devices and infrastructure on-premise.

With the massive shift towards cloud-based applications, particularly for collaborative work, technology for collaboration performance management has to be improved. Effective virtual collaboration begins by ensuring that the user has an experience beyond the technology used. Users cannot collaborate, engage or collaborate effectively when they don’t have extraordinary experiences with their users.

For many reasons, it isn’t easy to optimize and manage by both IT and users.

1. The variety of applications and devices (PC/laptop tablets, phone endpoints for conference rooms, AR/VR headsets, and glasses) employed at home, at the office, and from anywhere remotely has grown exponentially.
2. Workers are more mobile than ever, and they are constantly changing their workplaces on a weekly, daily, or monthly basis. They utilize a variety of networks, including local and regional area networks, corporate networks, home networks, and public networks.
3. The volume of communication (instant videos, messages, conferences, email, voice calls, and instant messages) throughout the day is causing anxiety and stress.
4. The research conducted by Professor Dr. Steven Rogelberg, professor of Organizational Science, Management and Psychology at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, discovered that poor user experiences due to various disruptions during meetings waste 50% of the meeting time. Our analysis discovered that information workers spend about 25% of working time in virtual one-to-one or multi-person sessions. In contrast, managers could spend as much as 75percent of their during meetings. The loss in productivity can be costly.

Transitioning to a Collaboration Intelligence Strategy

The management of user experience using most technological tools in the workplace is now a top priority to increase employee participation, productivity, and overall wellbeing.

Joseph Pine II, The coauthor of The Experience Economy and a consultant to management for Fortune 500 companies and entrepreneurial companies, said: “It’s your employees who create all the economic value for your enterprise. You need, therefore, to stage a remarkable employee experience.”

Concerning the market, it is evident that there is a significant transformation in collaborative “crossing the chasm” from the management of collaboration performance by IT technology to management of user experience using the workspace, technology, and employees as teams collaborate from any location.

To enhance and manage users’ user experience and engagement, organizations can begin using a collaboration intelligence-first approach in focusing their efforts on three crucial areas.

1. People. To ensure that employees are engaged in health, productivity, and wellbeing, it is vital to equip users with the correct information that allows users to eradicate (1) disruptive practices in collaboration, (2) the lack of engagement in meetings with others, and (3) unjust meetings between teams and within.
2. Technology. To improve the quality, reliability, and ROI of technology assets for collaboration employed for customer and employee engagement, businesses should provide the IT department and their users with context information that can help them solve technical issues that adversely impact users’ experience using the technologies for collaboration utilized in remote environments as well as at the office.
3. Space. To drive efficient and safe use of workspace, organizations need to make insights available to IT, facilities, and users to eliminate non-functional meeting space, underutilized/overutilized space (occupied hours per day and number of occupants relative to room capacity and social distance guidelines) and suboptimal room experiences (lighting, air quality/CO2, temperature, safe distance between people).

Outlook

The stakes for the next 2 to 3 years will not be lower. We are beginning to witness the shift in the strategic chessboard of collaboration technology vendors. The most convincing evidence is M&A actions being initiated in response to the evolving collaboration landscape.

Shortly, digital collaboration and hybrid working are going to be around for a while, which means the need for collaboration technology will be constant. This creates a critical need for user experience management to help organizations maximize their efficiency of collaborative virtual work. Therefore, to stay competitive and adapt to the demands in the current market conditions, the collaboration technology vendors will have to develop, collaborate or purchase the necessary collaboration features.