Many companies are moving their enterprise collaboration solutions to the cloud, and that trend will only continue in 2014. With benefits like low upfront costs, better access to all the latest features and improved mobile accessibility, it’s not surprising that 56 percent of IT executives and decision-makers in a recent Forrester survey reported that they plan to move or have already moved part of their collaboration platform to the cloud.
If you’re considering making the move, here are five key elements of a successful cloud collaboration strategy to keep in mind, as outlined in a recent article from CloudTweaks.
- Stakeholder buy-in: Executive buy-in is critical. Leadership needs to “walk the talk” and use the tools they are encouraging employees to use. This doesn’t mean that executives have to blog every day or post in newsfeeds continuously, but they should use these channels as de facto choices for corporate communication, and get out of the practice of relying on company-wide emails. This will start to reinforce the notion that each of these tools has a specific use and purpose, and that executives understand this.
- Targeted implementation: Collaboration for its own sake hasn’t worked very well. It needs to be put in the proper context and used to solve a clearly defined problem. Pick an area where improved communication will help to solve a specific problem and determine the specific needs of that group with respect to the depth, breadth and timelines of the communication. You can then develop a specific use case or user story around which you can configure a collaboration solution.
- Understanding of the transition from freemium to paid: Giving users the freedom to pick their own apps along with their own devices is fine in the consumer world, but presents potential challenges in the enterprise. Having a cadre of point-solution, freemium apps saves money in the near term, but could be costly over the long haul if there isn’t a clear understanding of the product roadmap and potential future capabilities, compatibility and integration with other systems, and ongoing ecosystem and support for the product. Although customers don’t like the idea of vendor lock-in on a single platform, there are advantages to this approach from a long-term cost, stability, support, migration and integration point of view. Try to focus on delivering your “must-have” functionality through the platform and augment selectively from there.
- A plan for training and user adoption: Treat the rollout of your collaboration solution as you would a product rollout. Think about user groups and constituencies and design your communications to highlight what’s in it for them. Focus on benefits rather than features. The onboarding and rollout process is just that — a process and not an event. The key is to avoid user frustration that leads them to stop using the solution and spreading negative feedback. Give them outlets they can easily tap into if they run into any trouble. This could be a help desk staffed with collaboration specialists, a library of tips and short articles, a short instructional video, a recorded webinar series or an online community composed of power users that can post responses. Don’t expect users to troubleshoot to any extent, because they won’t, and don’t let frustration simmer as it will kill adoption.
- A backup plan: Understand the implications of cloud architecture for end users who may need to access data offline, as well as backup and governance requirements for the enterprise as a whole. Run a pilot to test offline capabilities for users to understand the specific requirements and potential third-party tools that would need to be deployed.
Implementing a cloud-based collaboration platform can be a great move for businesses. Just be sure to take into account the above best practices when putting a strategy in place.
Source: CloudTweaks, December 2013
