In the past few years, there has been a growing trend of integrating collaboration tools to businesses. Entrepreneurs across industries have adopted different collaboration tools to fit their specific needs. 

Some common collaboration tools are designed essentially to provide file sharing capability and support communications within organizations, but lately, the functions performed by collaboration tools have become far more sophisticated. 

Here is a list of common collaboration tools that are helping businesses run better.

 

Communication tools

 

Some of the most common work collaboration apps used by businesses across the board are communication tools, many of which are adopted for internal communication of an organization. Some popular communication tools include:

Chats & Instant Messaging: Chats and instant-messaging tools allow employees to interact with each other without needing to make calls or write emails. Some tools like Slack are in fact meant to provide an effective alternative to internal emails of an organization that keeps piling up unnecessarily.

Video Conferencing: video calls and conferences have pretty much become a norm these days. In these times of a pandemic, especially, most team meetings are being conducted on apps like zoom, Google meets & Skype etc. 

 

Storage & sharing tools

 

Another set of tools that help professionals collaborate with each other is storage and file-sharing tools. These tools allow people to store important documents and files in secure places and access or share them with ease, as and when they may be required. These tools include: 

 

Cloud storage: Cloud storage allows all files & documents to be stored remotely and there is a lesser need for local storage hardware. This helps organizations to bring down the cost of hardware storage over the long run. 

File sharing tools: it is hard to transfer heavy files like videos, large documents, books & software etc via email. File sharing tools like Dropbox and SHARE it allows for large files to be transferred with ease and also help manage access control. 

 

 

 

 

Enterprise collaboration software 

 

In these times of the COVID-19 pandemic, Enterprise collaboration tools are nothing short of a godsend for professionals and organizations alike. With many employees working from home, enterprise collaboration tools act as a virtual skeleton of an organization’s functional structure. Here are some functions that these tools perform: 

 

Project & task Management: Collaboration tools like Asana, Trello, and the newly launched Crotle perform a lot of project management functions like forming teams to work on specific projects, setting timelines for tasks, a delegation of responsibility & streamlining of workflows, etc. They also allow for project managers and team leaders to supervise effectively and have greater control over the projects being carried out.

Reporting: Most enterprise collaboration tools provide a birds-eye view of all the projects, which gives the project managers all the information they need for effective decision-making. Some common reports include a progress report on projects, performance reports of team members, lists of completed, and pending tasks. 

Communication & document sharing: online task management software also acts as a forum through which the internal communication of a team can be managed. They allow team members to share essential documents and files with ease.

Collaboration tools for businesses have been in the limelight for a while now, and their utility has only increased with time. Looking at the trends, it seems quite likely that these collaboration tools will become a norm in the near future.