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Team collaboration tools are seeing an uptick in adoption among organizations of all sizes, according to a Spiceworks survey of IT professionals. From 2016 to 2018, adoption of these tools increased significantly among small businesses (42 percent to 58 percent), midsize businesses (38 percent to 61 percent), and large businesses (53 percent to 70 percent). This trend has been driven, in part, by major vendors adding enterprise-level features and improving the functionality of their solutions.

Instant messaging and chat apps are becoming a valuable supplement to email, though not a replacement as some experts had predicted. Chat provides context for communication, while email threads are increasingly viewed as disorganized and difficult to follow. Although security and compliance are still concerns, with many solutions failing to offer end-to-end encryption, more than half of survey respondents believe team collaboration tools are critical to their organization’s success.

Most people associate team collaboration with instant messaging. However, a number of other tools, such as video conferencing, document sharing and meetings, are required to realize the full benefits of team collaboration. Video enables face-to-face collaboration among geographically dispersed teams. Document sharing allows all team members to view and edit the most recent version of each document. Instant messaging is an important capability, but so much more can be achieved with a feature-rich collaboration solution.

Also, collaboration doesn’t always require real-time communication and information sharing. It’s not necessary for every team member to respond immediately or even be available at every stage of a project. In fact, this type of communication can be perceived as a constant distraction, making users less productive. While real-time communication is important, you also need tools that help you manage the project, monitor workflows, assign tasks and organize information.

Truly effective collaboration integrates all the necessary tools and eliminates silos to encourage teamwork. Mitel Teamwork brings together collaboration tools in a simple, easy-to-use web-based and mobile application to enable teams to be more productive. Virtual workspaces, video and audio conferencing, individual and group chat, text messaging, desktop sharing, and file sharing are rolled into a unified service so users spend less time trying to connect and more time getting things done. Built on a modern, secure cloud architecture, Mitel Teamwork also offers end-to-end encryption to ensure data is protected in transit and at rest.

Designed for Mitel MiCloud Connect, Mitel Teamwork delivers a consistent experience on any desktop or mobile device, making it easy for users to stop communicating on one device and seamlessly pick up on another device without disruption. Instead of dialing in, users can join meetings by clicking or tapping a “join” button. Instead of getting bogged down in email threads, users can assign tasks, tag users, monitor progress of team members, track conversations, and know which activities require their immediate attention.

The ability to collaborate effectively is more than a productivity enhancer. It’s a competitive differentiator. Let us show you how Mitel Teamwork simplifies team collaboration to help you keep your projects on track.