There are so many factors that contribute to the success of organizations. The main ones are the advantages you have over your competitors.
The business world is growing at a rapid and unsustainable rate. Amid this confusion, clients are looking for a digital workplace platform that satisfies their requirements.
Any company that wants to remain relevant must meet growing market and client expectations. It should embrace digital change to provide useful and straightforward services, spot what isn’t working, and design, test, and establish service improvements; free up employers to focus on higher-value tasks, and draw closer to their clients.
Sure, your IT solutions may be relatively new, but in line with the advancement of technology, they may be holding you back from gaining the top spot. Remote work is the order of the day and establishing a digital workplace is your only chance to survive and succeed in the business landscape of the future.
What is a Digital Workplace?
A digital workplace is a secure cloud-based platform that contains all the necessary applications and tools for employees to perform their work tasks in a seamless, collaborative manner. Since it’s on a protected online interface, employees can have access to the platform from anywhere at any time, and on any device.
With a good digital workplace, you can incorporate various applications that you use within your organization and make it easier for employees to have the required tools and data on one single platform.
Unlike the traditional intranet or worker portal requirements, a digital workplace gives a new face to technology requirements in terms of employee experience and business value.
The system can comprise portal or intranet software but should be combined with growing technology that helps companies react to changes in working patterns and drives engagement.
It should support:
• Centralized communication applications that sync offline and online engagement, including company social media tools, email, and instant messaging.
• Remote working tools, mostly mobile solutions, that allow workers to perform tasks wherever they may be.
• Improved user experiences that make smooth links between core business applications, virtual work tools, and employee social networks.
How to Maximize a Digital Workplace for a Competitive Advantage
As a business owner, you can leverage a digital workplace for holistic advantage in the following ways:
1. Cloud
A digital workplace provides cloud storage, where you can save files and data in an off-site location that you can access either through a dedicated private network connection or public internet.
This makes retrieval of information easier among people who have access to the data.
2. Collaboration
Regardless of your organization’s size, employees need the latest interaction tools for effective productivity and collaboration. That’s what a digital workplace offers. Employees can use powerful collaboration tools within the platform to interact with each other as well as your clients.
3. Productivity
When it comes to productivity, employees get more work done within a short time. They also feel less exhausted and overwhelmed at the end of the day in a digital workplace. According to a study, companies that had a modern, well-functioning digital workplace showed a 67% increase in productivity. Additionally, when you have Digital Workplace, you can also:
a. Clearly specify the goals to achieve – When all the projects and processes are managed digitally, it becomes easier to track and help align the work that needs to be done according to deadlines.
b. Avoid confusion by having all the information together – Since there is a digital footprint of everything that goes on within the business, employees can always refer to it if there is any discrepancy. The employees also have access to all the applications, data, and tools they need.
c. Better collaboration and coordination – Employees have a platform to share their opinions freely and collaborate as a team. Since it serves as a replacement for the standard physical office space, a digital workplace can help you create projects, streamline workflows, automate processes, assign tasks to team members, anything you would need to do in a physical office. You can even create customized communication channels with specific team members to make collaborating so much easier.
4. Digital Dexterity
A digital workplace is all about technology. And technology is the highlight of a majority of organizations. Workers who spend more time using it quickly adapt to new technology or any latest one. This puts your business a step ahead of the rest, especially those that still employ a traditional work pattern.
5. Employee Experience
Workers eventually lose the motivation to work if they have to tackle all the tasks alone. A depressed worker will ultimately leave or develop health issues in the long run and this will put a dent in your organization.
A digital workplace provides all the necessary tools for a seamless working experience, making workers comfortable and content.
6. Innovation
In the ever-competitive business arena, creativity is the key component to stay ahead. Traditional work-pattern establishments find it hard to compete since they can’t stay with the times.
However, organizations with a digital workplace and creative employees always have an edge since they have the latest tools at their disposal.
7. Automation
There’s nothing as frustrating and tiresome as replying to individual messages from clients. A digital workplace takes away that hassle from employees by allowing them to automate messages to every possible query from customers.
The more time they have, the more they can concentrate on other pending issues in your organization.
8. Retention
The remote working experience is an attractive feature for a significant number of employers. According to a 2019 survey, at least 80% of workers prefer a mobile workplace scenario to a 9-5 office setup.
This means that employers with a digital workplace get to keep their employees in these trying times. Also, they attract millennials who bring fresh energy and creativity to the table.
To Sum It Up
If you want your company to remain relevant, you need to make sure it meets the ever-growing market and any client expectations. In order to provide your services seamlessly to others, you need to embrace digital change. With a good digital workplace, you can have different applications that you use in your company incorporated together to make it easy for employees to have the required data and tools on one platform. As a business owner, you can use a digital workplace to your advantage and have automated processes, better collaboration between teams, and increased productivity, digital dexterity, and employee retention.
Chintan Jain is Associate director of marketing functions at Kissflow. Chintan is a skilled digital marketing practitioner with deep experience in working with web solutions, marketing, analytics, and product management. Chintan writes extensively on topics like digital marketing, work management, and the digital workplace on various business and technology platforms.
