A report from International Data Corporation and McKinsey Global Institute suggests that employees spend 28% of their work time reading and answering emails that lowers down their productivity to around 25%. Email has become a central communication tool for every organization and replacing it is hard, but not impossible.
There are certain drawbacks of email that has forced employers to think of possible new solutions that are effective enough to replace emails. Email lacks transparency, they can be ignored or forgotten, they do not require instant action, the average response time of an email is huge and they lack real time collaboration features.
Global information-technology service provider Atos, headquartered in France, was able to reduce email by 64% through an internal collaboration system that functions like a wiki, with members of a community — which might be based on a project, client, or topic — editing documents together and getting approval for changes from community members and other stakeholders.
So, if your organization is ready for a new solution to increase employee productivity then here are some new digital communication tools that might help:
Bitrix24
It puts the power of enterprise social networking into your company’s daily operations. It offers features like drive, calendar, CRM, telephony, chat, video and an activity stream that covers all production, social, and mixed-function sections of the intranet. From personal ToDos and simple tasks to complex projects, it helps delegate and coordinate, making sure the job is done properly and on time.
ZulaApp
“Zuu-lah” means a place where you are happiest, relaxed and most comfortable. It offers teams the ability to manage a task without the hassle of being glued to a computer. It offers streamlined mobile collaboration and productivity. Zula has all the tools a team needs for ongoing interaction: instantly joining a conversation, discussing ideas, sharing content, taking a poll, and connecting over a conference call.
UcallWeconn
Is your remote team still stuck to old fashioned emails and taking a lot of time of time to complete a task? Switch to UcallWeconn that offers affordable international calls at great speed. Collaborate directly through a Virtual Phone Number (you can choose and activate a phone number from more than 70 countries, it all takes from 5 to 10 minutes). It allows you to use Mobile Google Chrome browser on Android or Firefox Browser for Android.
Slack
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory is one of tens of thousands of teams around the world that use Slack for their work. Slack is a collaborative platform that has features like direct messages, file sharing, integration with existing services like G-drive and Dropbox, archive searching, customized notifications and much more. The best part is that most of the features can be used for free.
Sharepoint
Microsoft Sharepoint offers some easy features for enhanced productivity. It is easy to integrate with O365 and Yammer, offers enhanced security technologies, super easy to start conversations, collaborate on files, and organize around projects so you can go further—faster. Sharepoint allows you to integrate with One Drive. The storage capabilities offered by OneDrive is huge. It offers 1 TB of space per person for as little as $5/month. As part of Office 365, OneDrive for Business lets you use familiar tools to create, edit, and review documents in real time and even discuss them on Yammer.
HipChat
It offers group and private chat, file sharing, and smart integrations for fostering employee productivity. Hipchat is persistent, searchable, and loaded with goodies: video calling, screen sharing, and robust security. You can access it via apps that runs on Mac, Windows, iOS, Android, and yes, even Linux. It offers integrations for JIRA, Bitbucket, GitHub, Heroku, Zendesk, Mailchimp, and 80+ more applications. Moreover, it’s fully customizable and fully searchable.
Jive
One of the leading provider of modern communication and collaboration solutions for business. Major products offered by Jive includes Jive N (offers pre-built pages for employee onboarding, sales enablement, HR portal, IT help desk and more), Jive X ( offers easily customizable and deployable solutions optimized for mobile. The solution is SEO-friendly and integrates seamlessly with your CRM and marketing systems), Jive Chime (real time messaging offering both public and private chat rooms), Jive Daily (it’s a company news app employees actually enjoy using) and Jive Circle (the mobile employee directory for your company).
Fleep
An app that works with your existing email. It merges emails and messages, and groups them together with relevant files. Fleep channels everything you need into one place. You can use it on PC or Mac, Android or iPhone. You can frame all your conversations around a topic, files get shared and stored in File Drawer, important notes and tasklists are kept on Pinboard and everything is easy to search.
Companies today are looking for solutions that can make life easier, offer more storage and finally have good search capabilities. Slowly and gradually we are reaching the end of the Gmail era; Are we prepared for it? Please let me know your suggestions by commenting below.
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