Work has shifted from a place you go, to what you do. Today every company must create its own digital HQ which connects its employees, customers, and partners, allowing them to thrive in a work-from-anywhere world.
As a concept the digital HQ is simple but creating a digital-first platform that equips your business with the capability to serve customers, to grow and react quickly is not without its challenges.
In this regard there are three foundations to success. By integrating collaborative technologies, teams can turbocharge productivity; organising data in one place, they can become more agile and build more meaningful customer relationships. By breaking down the formality of communication, organisations can heighten engagement and build a greater sense of community.
Integrate Collaborative Technologies to Turbocharge Productivity
Reducing the number of emails and meetings, collaborative technologies give teams the ability to connect and react quicker. Providing an open and secure line of communication with clients, vendors, or partners, if any issues arise they can address them immediately.
By streamlining all kinds of processes companies can do business faster. Teams aren’t waiting for someone to react to an email or go through a cycle of approvals. Instead, they have a direct connection to the people in charge on the client-side and to their team members in contracts, negotiations, and delivery. Everyone — both internally and externally — can be in the same channel.
Most importantly, less friction and context-switching prevents bad customer experiences and enables teams to be proactive and show clients they really care about their business. Where communication silos and botched handoffs are typically used to drive bad customer experiences, collaborative technologies address the problem of balls dropping across departments by connecting the entire company in service of the customer.
Being able to problem-solve in real-time and easily leverage expertise from across the business with collaborative technology is single-handedly transforming customer experiences, for the better.
A Single Source of Truth will Build more Meaningful Customer Relationships
Together, collaborative and data capabilities are making teams more agile and effective, helping them deliver greater value for customers and grow the business. With a single source of truth, sales teams for instance know they’re working with the right template, the right proposal, the right enablement, with the most accurate information. If they’re light in a certain area, they can do that research directly from the platform.
Leveraging the power of automation speeds processes up further. In one communicative channel, with inherent workflow and automation experiences colleagues can prompt and nudge others if certain tasks have not been actioned. Everyone now is orchestrated around the workflow required to get the job done.
From developing proposals and sales pitches, to negotiations, receiving real time answers frees up teams’ time to develop more meaningful relationships with customers.
Having a trusted, shared view of every customer also enables seamless working, whatever the circumstance. Should an individual leave the company or take on new accounts, with all the conversation history searchable and streamlined in one place, new team members can get up to speed quickly.
Ensuring Simplification over Complication, Teams can Succeed from Anywhere
All employees want to know they’re making a difference. They don’t want to wade through hundreds of applications just to discover what’s relevant for their work and development. Simplifying and curating appropriate tools and making them readily accessible in one secure platform is what the digital HQ is all about.
It’s also about saving time and breaking down the formality of communications, helping teams to do their jobs better and to focus on more strategic work. Instead of writing a long-form email to approve a deal or discount, you can react with a quick thumbs-up or thumbs-down emoji. It’s speeding up everything from employee onboarding and workplace training to heightening engagement. Even these simple examples demonstrate how the future of work will be built upon innovation and efficiency.
Investing in a digital HQ is an investment in a platform that will continue to evolve with your business and help deliver long-term value for the employees, customers, and partners alike.
The above article is authored by Arun Kumar Parameshwaran, SVP & Managing Director, Sales – Salesforce India
