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As companies struggle to keep costs down and streamline operations, they can find themselves losing ground in the equally important battle to hold the loyalty of customers and employees. Virtual workplaces—online "spaces" where people can find each other, communicate, collaborate and share documents—provide ways for organizations to gain ground on both fronts. By connecting employees and integrating them into the flow of on demand business, they allow businesses to save money, while benefiting from the responsiveness and intelligence that only human interaction can provide.
Why build a virtual workplace?
If your company is already using e-mail, instant messaging, document sharing and other online communication tools, you might be seeing some productivity gains. But they could be overwhelmed by the cost and inconvenience of managing an array of point solutions. A single, integrated electronic workplace—with an interface and toolset that remains consistent from department to department, from task to task—gives you far more power to bring your employees together to solve your most pressing issues.
And bringing employees together is what virtual workplaces are all about. Along with process integration and data integration, people integration is one of the pillars of on demand business. When employees can find each other, communicate and pass along experience, regardless of departmental, functional or geographic boundaries, organizations as a whole can realize huge gains in productivity and responsiveness. And when employees can gather into online communities centered around their areas of expertise (like SCM, CRM, and HR), they can focus on solving business problems, rather than chasing each other down through phone calls, e-mails and other isolated communication methods.
There are many ways for companies to reduce costs. But most of them can result in unsatisfied customers and unmotivated employees—a disaster in a world driven by demand. Electronic workplaces give companies a way out of that double bind. Because they create one point of entry and one set of tools for a wide range of communication and collaboration functions, they allow companies to save money by reducing duplicate investments in hardware and software. At the same time, the easy-to-use yet powerful communication environment encourages participation by both employees and customers.
One of the most obvious, yet often undervalued, benefits of e-workplaces is their ability to give employees access to the information they need to do their jobs. In the age of the knowledge worker, data is the lifeblood of any organization; providing access to it will be key to organizational success in the 21st Century. A single, convenient entry point to trusted information is one of the most important job tools a company can provide.
What is virtual workplace?
A well designed e-workplace combines hardware, software, services and expertise to create a secure online collaborative environment. IT provides employees with powerful yet easy-to-use tools to access the people, content, applications and processes they need to do their jobs most effectively. This environment:
- Is unconstrained by the boundaries of the enterprise, allowing employees to work anytime, anywhere.
- Leverages maximum value from the company's resources by eliminating redundant systems and consolidating information.
- Is unified, providing a single entry point, interface design, brand experience and toolset across the organization.
- Is personalized to each user's specific role. Employees get convenient, secure access only to the resources they need.
A solution that delivers on this vision can help control costs and boost organizational productivity across a range of business functions, from training, tech support and HR to procurement, SCM and CRM.
The benefits: cost savings
A virtual workplace can replace a wide array of IT and organizational infrastructure, allowing companies to save money by streamlining processes, repurposing existing resources and eliminating redundant systems.
Because it is designed specifically to facilitate communication, , the workplace gives organizations a powerful new way to reach their employees. W2s, earning statements, corporate newsletters, speeches and more can be posted electronically, replacing mass mailings, e-mails and Web pages. This eliminates costs for printing and postage, and removes inefficiencies like misdirected deliveries. It also reduces server loads and storage requirements, freeing up resources that can be used elsewhere.
Online collaboration also allows companies to provide training, HR and other services for less money. These savings can come from a number of places, including reduced travel expenses, elimination of printed collateral materials and lightened use of meeting rooms and other corporate resources. (And because e-workplaces provide "anytime, anywhere" access to these services, companies can reap these benefits while allowing employees to work at their convenience, increasing loyalty and satisfaction.) In addition, an enterprise-wide workplace can consolidate procurement of travel and other necessities, creating new economies of scale.
As companies deploy and expand their workplaces, they can continue to find new ways to save money. By eliminating redundancies—whether in personnel or in IT (a single workplace can replace multiple servers and applications, as well as thousands of Web pages)—an organization can reduce costs, while keeping its employees working effectively.
The benefits: increased productivity
The same qualities that allow virtual workplaces to reduce costs—streamlined processes, simplified architecture, company-wide integration—also allow them to boost organizational productivity. For employees, these benefits begin with the simplicity of the interface. A consistent design, with common toolsets across functions, smoothes the learning curve, ensuring that people can quickly begin participating in online collaboration.
With access to multiple information sources—everything from company phone directories to in-depth research—in a single location, employees can work with greater speed, bypassing repeated trips to Web sites, printed records and other data. This streamlining also allows IT departments to reduce the number of Web pages, applications and servers they support, allowing them to focus on more business-critical projects.
In an economy increasingly dominated by knowledge workers, online collaboration gives companies new ways to harness the experience and expertise of their employees. Connecting people across disciplines, divisions and geographical boundaries, it allows employees to quickly solve problems, develop ideas and share information on a scale that was previously impossible. And since employees can participate from anywhere, at any time, it eliminates unnecessary time-wasters like choosing a location, coordinating schedules and arranging travel—providing a level of convenience that traditional business processes can't match.
Moving ahead: Getting started with virtual workplaces
Building an effective e-workplace takes more than just the right technology. To truly experience the cost savings and increased productivity we've described, executives need to take an active role from the very early planning stages. Here's how to ensure that your workplace really works:
- Create a single, unified vision for your e-workplace. Many of the benefits described above—streamlined processes, productive collaboration, ease of use—will depend on this. Establish this vision at the top levels of your company; communicate it repeatedly and effectively.
- Make it an extension of your overall workforce strategy. Make sure that it can support your business objectives and increase your company's overall competitiveness.
- Establish clear ownership. Both business and IT executives will need to work on this. To ensure it goes smoothly, establish clear ownership for governance, based on the executives' roles.
- Build a spirit of collaboration throughout your company. If your corporate culture and processes don't encourage collaboration, no amount of technology will get your employees working together.
- Solicit participation and community building. Encourage employee participation in the planning stages and every other step of the way. And make sure that the information in your workplace is accurate, current and accessible. Reliable information will keep employees coming back when they have questions.
- Integrate your virtual workplace into your company. Don't view it as an add-on. To be truly useful, it needs to become an effective conduit for your people, processes and technology.
- Don't delay. The sooner you implement your e-workplace, the sooner you'll start gaining the competitive advantage your company needs.
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