Is Your Team Collaborating Remotely?

By the DynaSis Team

We recently came across a study, released earlier this year, about the challenges that professionals face with remote collaboration. The survey, which queried some 5,000 business professionals at various levels, was quite interesting.

As a whole, the group named poor audio and video quality to be their number one remote collaboration challenge, with 39 percent of respondents selecting that option. The group cited numerous other leading causes of remote collaboration problems, with technology-related issues popping up quite frequently. Among respondents, 35 percent said they had a hard time sharing content in a remote meeting, and 27 percent indicated that unreliable technology was a challenge for them when collaborating remotely.

Despite these challenges, respondents overwhelmingly said remote collaboration was valuable.  Among methods for collaboration, web conferencing and video conferencing were their top two preferred methods (27 percent and 25 percent, respectively). The least preferred method was instant messaging at 12 percent.

Here’s where it gets even more interesting. Unlike a few years ago, when executives and professionals often cited financial benefits as the primary reason for remote collaboration, according to the study they now cite benefits such as increased corporate efficiency and improved work-life balance.

In other words, many of these professionals believe that remote collaboration has become an important driver, not just of savings, but also of both business productivity and professional satisfaction. Executives, in particular, stressed these aspects. Among respondent CEOs, 88% stated that remote collaboration is key in helping their organizations meet objectives.

What does this tell us? That companies―and especially their executive leadership―are embracing the notion that workers and clients in distributed locations can have productive, collaborative engagements. “Remote” in the traditional sense of “far away and isolated” is no longer an accurate definition. The problem, it seems, is that professionals need a better way of achieving the collaborative environments they seek, no matter where they and their peers, clients, vendors and other partners might be.

At DynaSis, we’ve spent more than two decades helping our customers adopt the latest productivity tools, and we believe that mobility means more than being able to check email from the road. It means having the ability to achieve your work goals remotely, not only when you are working alone, but also when you want your entire team “with” you, even though they are really far away.

We’ve spent quite a bit of time researching the options for small and medium-sized businesses to achieve this goal, and we’d be happy to share our insights with you. For more information, fill out our inquiry form or give us a call at (770) 569-4600.