Online collaboration tools have been a lifeline for employees working remotely. Voice and video conferencing, instant messaging, chat and other tools enable workers to stay connected, share information, make decisions and serve customers.

But the rapid transition to remote work caused many organizations to implement collaboration tools in an ad hoc manner.

There is near-unanimous agreement among small to midsized businesses (SMBs) that collaboration tools are now essential to operations. In a recent Techaisle survey, 96 percent of SMBs ranked improved collaboration as their second-most important IT priority, just behind cloud.

Most historians agree that The Old Admiralty Office built in London in 1726 was the first example of a dedicated office building. For nearly three centuries since, most people have thought of work as both something they do and someplace they go.

That concept has been thoroughly upended in the last 12 months.

Although remote working was hardly new in 2020, the coronavirus forced many organizations to implement remote work strategies overnight. Technology and employee preferences were taking businesses in this direction anyway. The pandemic just accelerated the process.

Providing IT support for telecommuting employees has always been a tricky proposition, but it is particularly challenging now that COVID-19 stay-at-home orders have effectively forced entire companies into work-from-home arrangements.

Even before the current crisis created a surge in telecommuting, remote workers said IT support problems limited their productivity.

In our last post, we discussed the total cost of ownership (TCO) of collaboration tools. Lacking a coherent collaboration strategy, many organizations adopt multiple collaboration solutions from multiple vendors, and don’t have much of a grasp on how much it all costs.

The office has evolved from a designated workspace to a gathering place for team collaboration. People work from home, while on the road and at customer sites. Cross-functional teams include employees, consultants and business partners who could be anywhere in the world.

Right product, right place, right time, right price – that’s the new customer expectation. Issues must be resolved without delay on the channel of the customer’s choosing. The problem facing businesses is that every customer has different preferences.