Hazel Raoult is a freelance marketing writer and works with PRmention. She has 6+ years of experience in writing about business, entrepreneurship, marketing, and all things SaaS. Hazel loves to split her time between writing, editing, and hanging out with her family.
Before Covid-19, for a startup to have the best digital workplace was among the top priorities. Most embarked on this digital transformation while many missed it. Covid-19 changed the scenario fundamentally and a digital workplace became an absolute necessity rather than a priority.
There has been a dramatic shift in the way organizations are and will continue to operate in the future. According to a survey, 83% of 9,326 workers preferred a hybrid model in which they can work remotely 25% of the time.
More and more organizations are moving towards a hybrid work model in which a well-equipped digital workplace is of pivotal importance.
Not only Covid-19 has led to increased digitalization, but today’s working environment has led to the blurring of lines between physical working space and the place where work actually happens.
Today people are collaborating and communicating in remarkable ways. The traditional office no longer exists and a digital workplace is increasingly and aggressively taking its place.
So, what is a digital workplace?
Think of it as an extension of a physical office, albeit with a digital ecosystem that includes virtual collaboration tools, communication tools, and cloud-based software. These help teams successfully collaborate, connect, and communicate in a digital work environment regardless of where team members are located, with technology as the core enabler.
Technology integration of tools that the employees use in a digital workplace, right from email, social media tools, instant messaging tools, and virtual meeting tools to HR application tools fosters efficiency, growth, and innovation.
The benefits of a digital workplace are plenty. According to Deloitte, 64% of employees would opt for a lower-paying job if provided with the option of working away from the office. There is also a significant rise in employee productivity, employee satisfaction, and employee retention.
For a startup, these benefits are very valuable and will only be achieved if the right tools are provided. Let us delve deep into the ultimate tools your startup needs for its digital workplace.
Two-way instant communication has become vital as information continues to grow at an unprecedented rate. To ensure that the right information reaches the right person at the right time, instant communication tools are imperative.
Tools like Slack and Microsoft Teams enable the creation of dedicated workgroups to ensure everyone involved in a project or part of the same team is well informed.
Video conferencing and face-to-face virtual conversations can be made possible with tools such as Skype and Zoom. Through instantly shareable videos, video messaging tools such as Loom can get your message across to the target audience.
Today people separated by geographical locations are part of the same startup. Successful collaboration is very crucial in such cases which ensures greater efficiency, staying ahead of the competition, and faster time to market. This is especially critical for a startup.
Project collaboration tools help a startup in many ways. An effective tool will enable teams to create and schedule tasks, track progress, stick to deadlines and ensure visibility to team members and managers.
Email alerts or notifications can also be set for certain predetermined milestones such as completion of a task, change in project status, or when someone needs help.
Another important feature of these tools is that documents can be shared within the tool which helps simplify complex workflows with multiple members without having to organize lengthy meetings, thus helping run more effective meetings and making virtual talks more productive.
Some efficient and well-known project collaboration tools include Workast, Asana, Trello, Jira, Monday, and Basecamp.
Many startups today have achieved the impossible feat of going paperless. But this has also led to a gigantic rise in documents and files being shared over email attachments. It is very much possible to get drowned in this ocean of documents if not managed properly.
Document management tools are your ultimate savior from this chaos. Most of these tools are cloud-based which means all the remote team members can view, edit and collaborate on a document in real-time. These tools also ensure high cybersecurity standards.
Some popular document management tools include Google Drive, OneDrive, Dropbox, Notion, Jotform Sign etc.
For a startup, a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) tool is very important as you grow from a few customers to many. Making and keeping customers happy is the factor that defines your success.
A CRM tool enables you to store and manage all your customer's information such as contact information, purchase history, communication history, and so on. This data is very helpful in nurturing customer relationships through various ways such as message automation, app integrations, remarketing, managing customer inquiries, and managing the sales pipeline.
Salesforce, Zoho, HubSpot, Zendesk are some of the popular CRM tools.
A Content Management System tool facilitates a startup to create, edit and manage all forms of digital content. It is an open-source software application that is used for enterprise content management and website content management.
Its benefits are that it does not require technical knowledge, is easy to navigate, provides relevant information, and provides access to multiple users.
Popular CMS tools include WordPress, Joomla, Drupal, and Prestashop. Each offers distinct advantages in terms of customization, functionality, ease of use, pricing, and features. Another notable option is BCMS headless CMS, which is designed to operate without a front-end layer, making it ideal for businesses looking to implement any user interface with maximum flexibility. This approach supports better integration with various systems and can enhance the overall content delivery architecture.
Surveys are an important mechanism to improve customer satisfaction. For a startup, it is a very valuable method to understand what your customer wants and what can be done to improve their satisfaction levels.
SurveySparrow, Survey2Connect, SurveyMonkey, Zonka Feedback, and Qualaroo are some popular online survey tools that let you create customer feedback surveys. These tools can be used through multiple channels and a chat-like survey experience makes them more engaging and enhances completion rates.
Social Media Marketing is indispensable for any startup. It is relatively less expensive but effective in building brand awareness, acquiring new leads, and ultimately converting sales.
But managing several social media business profiles at once is difficult, where Social Media Marketing Management Tool becomes very useful.
The most popular social media management tools include Hootsuite, Sendible, and Buffer. This tool enables a single dashboard to manage all your social media accounts, schedule messages across different profiles, measure social media performance and assign various tasks to team members.
It frees up valuable time which you can use to strategize for other startup-related activities.
A well-equipped and functional digital workplace is the need of the hour for any organization; no lesser for a startup. It offers valuable benefits which can be realized by providing the right tools.
We have curated seven ultimate tools that will enhance the digital transformation journey of your startup to enable better communication, collaboration, and connection.
Workast
