Enterprise collaboration is vital for an enterprise, as it ensures the continuity of business processes and guarantees their accomplishment. Still, enterprise collaboration is often reduced to a kaleidoscope of tools (emails, messengers, corporate clouds), and it’s not so easy to transform it into a powerful, centralized system.
When thinking of centralization, managers usually rely on such enterprise systems as CRMs or ERPs that can enable collaboration. However, the deployment of a fully functional collaboration space in the heart of an enterprise system turns out to be very costly and time-consuming. As the native collaboration capabilities of enterprise systems are rather raw and don’t meet the real-life needs, enterprise collaboration functionality has to be developed from scratch.
So how to add collaboration to an enterprise system? Our answer is to introduce enterprise collaboration with the help of a dedicated platform (e.g. SharePoint) using the following formula:
Enterprise System + Collaboration Platform = a + b + c,
where a, b and c are 3 integration outcomes. Now let’s reveal these unknowns.
a = User Convenience
To meet users’ requirements, a collaboration platform should run like clockwork and offer high-quality user experience. Two-way integration and user-friendly collaboration tools are the most important components here.
- Two-way integration allows connecting CRM or ERP entities with their designated collaboration spaces (e.g. every CRM opportunity has an individual collaboration space). Moreover, once a new entity is created in an enterprise system, its own collaboration space will be automatically created with no additional efforts from the participants.
In practice, users receive a direct link to switch from an enterprise system’s entity (e.g. an opportunity in a CRM, an order in ERP) to the respective collaboration space. They can also see the snippets of the latest/most important posts on this entity’s page. At the same time, employees working in the collaboration space have a direct link to the relevant entity in a CRM or an ERP and see the snippets of those entities in the designated collaboration space.
This way, users access and discuss exactly the project they are involved in, without interfering into other users’ projects. As a result, the information on a particular entity, including the discussion history, is well-structured and never mixes with the information of any other entity.
This is how it works:
- User-friendly collaboration tools are crucial for users’ high buy-in. By choosing a dedicated collaboration platform, you get a rich set of out-of-the-box enterprise collaboration tools and avoid development from scratch.
Thus, users will be able to use a quick search to drill down in their conversation history, and to attach and share documents to support their discussion with relevant files. As far as employees should stick to time management, they can use a flexible system of notifications to follow their work progress.
At the same time, a dedicated collaboration platform such as SharePoint is compatible with mobile devices and is available in cloud, which is valued by those who need to access the system remotely.
b = Data Protection
When it comes to collaboration, the data security issue arises immediately. Integration of an enterprise system and a collaboration platform should be made in compliance with the established data governance policies.
Generally, data security strongly depends on the access rights and permissions granted to users. When the integration is made correctly, users’ rights within collaboration spaces get inherited from those in the CRM or the ERP. So no additional assignment of access rights is needed.
This correlation of access rights also helps to structure work processes, since only project participants can work in the dedicated collaboration space, as well as edit, save or share files with other project members.
c = Reasonable Cost
Cost is always a stumbling block that can hinder the implementation of a new system, and an enterprise collaboration system is no exception. Still, this is a unique case when implementing a new system is a way to win, not to lose.
Going for a dedicated platform allows to avoid development from scratch and thus saves a considerable part of the budget. But what is even more important, a collaboration platform enables you to revise the license purchase policy.
Let’s take a simple example. A company with 20+ sales managers works in a CRM. Due to the complexity of the solutions offered to customers, sales managers need to constantly collaborate with around 50 technical specialists. If a collaboration space were developed in a CRM, 50 more CRM licenses would be required. If the same approach is applied in a large company with around 200 technical specialists involved into pre-sales, the price of licenses will be pretty sensible.
So why not provide technical specialists with the access to a collaboration platform with cheaper licenses and save your budget? This way, the employees will get a fully functional collaboration space at a much lower cost.
Conclusion
Now if you put everything together, you will get the final formula:
This formula is useful from the very beginning, as it will help you to choose an optimal collaboration platform that combines all the components. It will be also helpful during the implementation period, as it allows to see if your collaboration platform integrates with the enterprise system according to your expectations.
SharePoint is one of the platforms you can choose to develop dedicated collaboration spaces that will work alongside your enterprise system. Our SharePoint consultants will show you how to make it work according to the formula, in order to ensure the perfect marriage of systems and to provide your employees with strong enterprise collaboration tools.
Are there any other components that you would add to the formula? How do you think, is it better to tailor an enterprise system for collaboration needs or to step on the integration road? We invite you to share your opinion in the comments below.
This article originally appeared on ScienceSoft Blog and has been republished with permission.