December 28, 2023
With each passing month, new cloud collaboration tools are rolled out that allow your employees to improve interaction in the office and with customers, drive innovation, and prevent issues that derail productivity.
But given the seemingly endless supply of cloud collaboration tools available, which ones are the best for your business? Below, you’ll find six cloud collaboration tools that offer significant benefits to any business, from startups to national organizations.
What Is Cloud Collaboration?
Cloud collaboration refers to the practice of using cloud computing services or platforms to support communication, coordination, and collaboration. Instead of being tied to a physical location, teams can work together from anywhere, making remote teamwork easy and efficient.
Prior to the pandemic, cloud collaboration solutions were often assumed to be less effective than in-person meetings. However, once remote work was a necessity, many teams found that cloud collaboration had a few hidden advantages — like better organization, higher levels of participation, and less frustration, among others.
What You Should Look for in a Cloud Collaboration Tool
As more cloud tools are flooding the market, it’s more difficult to pinpoint the solutions that are actually going to be the best investment. However, if you want three easy ways to separate the good from the not-so-great, here’s what we tell our clients to focus on.
1. The User Experience
Cloud collaboration can be just as immersive and effortless as a great in-person brainstorming session, but not if the tool is difficult to learn and master and doesn’t allow for real-time, informal conversation. There are excellent platforms that are just as powerful as they are intuitive and designed to let human beings do what they do best.
And just to make sure this sticks: If you overlook user-friendliness, your staff may avoid using your brand-new solution in favor of something they already know — but doesn’t work nearly as well.
2. Flexibility and Control
People move around, and different departments may have projects in common. Look for a solution that makes it easy to make changes to users, roles, teams, and permissions in a few clicks. Also, look for one that will offer a seamless experience across different operating systems and multiple smart devices.
3. More Functions, Fewer Tools
You can just get an instant messaging tool, a separate project management tool, and one that’s more suited for brainstorming. But the more tools you add, the easier it is to lose important conversations, have multiple versions of the same document, and add frustration and confusion to what otherwise could be a fairly simple project.
Every tool you add is another tab open, another tool to onboard, and another tool to have to keep on top of. Whenever possible, pony up for a single tool that offers most, if not all, of the communication and project management tools you need.
4. Compatibility
Some teams need to check in with each other once a day. Others may communicate every hour at the very least. Some individuals prefer to be disturbed as little as possible when they’re on a roll, so loud notifications they can’t control are really going to be a problem.
Find a tool that offers a decent balance of interdependence and autonomy to your staff so everyone is free to do their best work.
5. Affordability
Some beefier cloud collaboration tools come with a beefier price tag. However, more “affordable” solutions may lack some of the capabilities your team needs most, and may require additional support and management from your IT department.
IT time is expensive, so in calculating which solutions are more affordable, keep the big picture in mind. Enterprise-grade cloud collaboration solutions are also known for their ability to dramatically increase productivity, which can offset the subscription cost and then some.
6 Cloud Collaboration Tools for Small and Medium Businesses
Google Apps
Google Apps is often the first collaboration platform that businesses think of – whether they know it is in the cloud or not. As a service, Google Apps has been around for the longest period of time (since 2006) and is used by a large number of businesses, five million and counting.
Google Apps allows businesses to sync information from Gmail, Calendars, and Drive (its cloud storage service). Users can collaborate through Google Apps in real-time; for example, you can share and edit files (Word docs, PowerPoint presentations, and Excel spreadsheets) with authorized users in Docs. Google Apps is available as a free platform as well as a paid version.
OneDrive
OneDrive is a fantastic collaboration tool for small to midsize businesses for many reasons. It’s perhaps best known for how easy it is to share files and folders securely from anywhere. Any changes automatically sync across users, so there’s no more confusion from different versions of the same file.
OneDrive also integrates seamlessly with other Microsoft Office apps and benefits from Microsoft’s significant investments in enterprise-grade security, with encryption and data loss prevention capabilities.
UCaaS Platforms
Microsoft Teams, Zoom, and Webex by Cisco are all incredibly feature-rich platforms that, in the past, we’d typically only recommend for larger businesses. However, with the rise of remote and hybrid workplaces, these tools have finally had the chance to prove their worth for small to midsize businesses. And — spoiler alert — they did exactly that.
While Teams, Zoom, and Webex by Cisco are all listed in Gartner’s Magic Quadrant, at Marco, we tend to prefer Webex and Teams because they tend to integrate better with the tools most businesses are already using, and they offer a slightly better user experience. And thanks to our strategic partnerships, we can also offer more competitive pricing, which we’ll talk more about in a bit.
However, the tool that will bring you the most ROI depends on what you’ll be using it for and what it’s replacing. In fact, you might be surprised at one tremendously popular cloud collaboration tool that’s used by the likes of Target, NASA, and The New York Times…
Slack
Slack. It isn’t as feature-rich as the big players, but it really helps reduce the productivity drain of composing and reading long emails (and, even worse, the dreaded email threads). Slack makes it easy to ask a quick question, have a short, impromptu video meeting, and communicate in a way that’s more casual and conversational. In essence, it makes workplace communication feel more human, and don’t knock it…if you’ve ever struggled to decipher the tone behind an email, those emojis really do help.
Pinpointing the Best Solution
There is a cloud collaboration tool out there that is right for any business. It’s just a matter of identifying your collaboration requirements and choosing a tool that best facilitates them. Easy, right?
Okay, it probably isn’t. For starters, Teams and Webex are all pretty similar on paper. But this is where a technology provider like Marco can really come in handy. Our cloud collaboration experts can have a more in-depth conversation with you and are free to recommend the solution they think is most in line with your needs. And because we also get volume discounts on software, we can provide you with as good or better pricing than the software developer can.
In addition to cloud collaboration tools, we can also help you save on cloud-based backup and disaster recovery solutions, email security tools, and more. Browse our cloud services page to learn more!
