This article will give you some insights on how collaboration in digital transformation can enhance collaboration across different functions in the organization’s level.
Overview of Digital Transformation for Workplace Collaboration
Digital transformation is no longer an option in the modern workplace but a necessity for an organization. It is particularly necessary as a strategy to enhance how people collaborate and communicate. For instance, digital transformation introduces advanced tools or platforms that allows employees to work seamlessly, regardless of their locations or time zone. During COVID-19 pandemic, for instance, many organizations proved that employees could utilize these advanced tools and platforms effectively.
However, the implementation of advanced technological tools and platforms may cause collaboration issues at the workplace. When a new project is launched, employees from different departments—such as marketing, finance, and IT, found difficult to work together. Each department stores information on different platforms, making it difficult to access information for relevant purpose. For instance, marketing team may struggle to forecast campaign budget for the next quarter. It is because they lack access to the latest financial statements while finance team store information on a different platform. Later, this issue may lead to miscommunication between departments and create bigger silos at the organization level.
Therefore, it is necessary to create a digital transformation strategy that is not only implements high-tech tools but also fosters collaboration. Digital transformation should include tools that can cater faster decision-making. At the same time, it should break down team silos and foster inclusion for stakeholders at the organization level.
Breaking Silos Across Department in Digital Transformation
Team silos, which Raffaelli describes as a “collaboration trap”, undoubtedly damage most organizations’ transformation goals1. The collaboration trap begins when employees prefer to isolate themselves from any stakeholders at the workplace. This phenomenon may negatively affect trust, knowledge sharing, and innovation efforts between people across the organization. Furthermore, organization finds it difficult to achieve common goals when silos exist.
As a result, organizations need to pay a significant price when silos develop. Foremost, organization may lose opportunities to innovate. It is because people tend to keep their insights on their own and avoid group discussions at the workplace. Innovation might still happen, while it remains suboptimal. Besides, potential resources are not utilized effectively due to misalignments at the workplace, which may cause conflicts between stakeholders. Finally, these workplace misalignments make employees less engaged, affecting their productivity and motivation at the workplace.
Therefore, breaking down team silos and fostering collaboration consider as top priorities for organizations in digital transformation. An ideal strategy to overcome such issue involves implementing a unified platform that enables a better collaboration and information sharing across departments.
Unified Platform: One-Stop Solution for Cross-Department Collaboration
E-cology, a unified collaborative management system, applies the concept of collaboration. This concept aims to create a barrier-free digital management environment by integrating multiple business functions under a unified platform. As its name suggests, it combines multiple tools and functions under a single system. Tools and functions—such as project management, financial statement, payroll management, and HR management—integrate into a single platform. This integration can enhance a seamless collaboration and communication across departments.
Interestingly, both internal and external resources can also integrate under E-cology. For instance, employees can interact with customers on the same platform. Combining both functions and resources under this platform make the cross-functional collaboration become even easier.
How Unified Platform Integrates Team
E-cology combines various functions at the organization level. It includes information portal, knowledge document management, workflow management, customer relationship management, project management, financial management, and others. What makes it unique is the ability to create a series of solutions for various functions at the organization level.
We provide some insights into enhancing cross-team collaboration by using E-cology through 3 (three) most common scenarios.
Project Management
Coordination is a common problem that occurs in the project management. As project managers, we may encounter issues where tasks related to the project are not delegated properly. This occurs because issues often record on a scattered tool, makes it difficult for team members to find their job scope within the project. In addition, we may encounter issues when team members do not update the progress properly, which cause delays in on-time output delivery.
In response to these issues, E-cology can enhance cross-department collaboration through seamless communication in project management function.
- Manage the entire cycle of the project. This includes project initiation, planning, execution, control, and termination. On top of that, project managers can properly allocate the project’s human, financial, or other resources under the same platform.
- Optimize task delegation. Under the project management function users can store and manage relevant information under a single platform. It provides all information about specific designation of team members, even from different departments, in the project. Moreover, task delegation in the project can be more optimized and updated in a timely manner.
- Identify projects with 360 degrees. For project managers, project management function under E-cology can help them analyse projects from multiple dimensions. This is because the project management function under E-cology is highly integrated with other functions—such as finance or HR. For instance, it can help project managers to identify project progress and the utilization of related resources. It may help them identify the root causes of issues. Furthermore, changes can be made immediately so that optimal performance can be achieved.
Knowledge Sharing
Knowledge or information is one the most valuable assets for an organization. However, stakeholders are somehow not aware that it is not managed properly, which eventually cause knowledge mismanagement or loss. This mismanagement or loss may create new hassles for stakeholders in an organization. For instance, an employee needs to search through emails to find customer information because it was not stored properly. Another situation occurs when an employee needs to wait a respond from cross-department members to obtain the information while they are on leave. In such cases, organization may utilize technological advancement for knowledge sharing. However, employees or stakeholders often need additional time to input data because it is stored across different platforms or databases.
Under E-cology, knowledge management can be centralized and integrated with other functions within the organization. By using this platform, stakeholders can store, manage, and share information for more optimal communication and collaboration.
- Establish an optimal knowledge-sharing ecosystem. E-cology’s centralized knowledge management system can help an organization to establish a knowledge-sharing ecosystem where stakeholders can exchange information. They can find suitable information directories to meet their needs. On top of that, they can optimize information storage under the system.
- Find the right people effectively. Since this function integrates with other functions, it is possible for users to find stakeholders with suitable knowledge to address their needs. For instance, Employee A can connect with Employee B, from another department who has expertise in customer relationships. Moreover, Employee A can save time addressing their needs with just under E-cology.
Communication Management
Culture Amp reported in 2024 that about 76% employees, particularly in Asia, are feel engaged in their workplace. However, this also means that the remaining employees who participated in the survey may less feel engaged—or not engaged at all. The main reason for low workplace engagement is a lack of effective communication strategies.
In response to this situation, E-cology can provide an ideal solution to enhance seamless workplace communication. By improving communication, it can help employees to feel more engaged. Furthermore, it can break down barriers within the workplace, even with different departments.
- Instant messaging. E-cology seamlessly integrates instant messaging features across all functions. This feature is important, as most organizations already rely on instant messaging for its daily communication. E-cology’s instant messaging feature can enhance collaboration among stakeholders, fostering a more connected workplace.
- Email management. Email remains as the primary communication medium for most organizations today. However, many of them are still use it solely for sending and receiving messages. E-cology’s email feature offers a convenient way to manage emails by integrating with other functions, such as finance or HR. This integration can streamline both internal and external communications. On top of that, the system enables users to manage email-related information more effectively to improve the overall workflow.
Conclusion
Organizations should go beyond adopting advanced tools to navigate digital transformation successfully. Ultimately, they should foster seamless collaboration and communication. Without an integrated strategy, silos can occur, hindering productivity and leading to misalignment among stakeholders. A unified platform like E-cology can address these challenges by integrating key functions such as project management, knowledge management, and communication management. By integrating various business functions, it enhances cross-team collaboration, streamlines workflow, and improves decision-making. Eventually, implementing a holistic digital transformation strategy with E-cology can break down workplace barriers, drive innovation, and boost employee engagement.
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Reference
1Carreno, A.M. (2024). Breaking Down Silos: Strategies to Overcome the Collaboration Trap and Drive Innovation. Institute for Change Leadership and Business Transformation.
