Collaborative Apps. Simple, inevitable, game changing!

Collaborative apps. It sounds like just another tech phrase in an endless line of tech marketing output. Yet the reality is that it’s going to be big. Really big!

I was only about a minute into an early demonstration in 2021 when the penny dropped. Covid and now hybrid working have brought a different magnitude of video calls, chat, screen sharing, document sharing, file sharing and simultaneous editing of files. It was the only way to keep our businesses going, and with that we developed different thought processes and learned new habits. So just imagine what it would be like to extract all the data, the information and the insights from the applications we use every day and surface them in Microsoft Teams as a platform.

That’s exactly what you get with Collaborative Apps. To be more precise, you can query any application; your CRM system, your order system, your finance system, in fact most of the systems you need to do your job, directly from Microsoft Teams. And with the huge benefit of AI driven assistants, automation and recommendations.

Just imagine the increase in focus and reduction in hidden admin overhead when all your systems effectively become one single system….imagine the possibilities!

How many times have you been in a Teams meeting and said, hold on, I just need to jump into another system to find some information? That will become a thing of the past. The information’s brought to you so you “stay in the flow” of the meeting. You stay focussed on the task in hand and you get the job done. There and then. Attendees no longer leave meetings with a long list of actions because you can complete your tasks inside the meeting and update the relevant systems in real time.

Take a seller for example. They could be in a conversation with colleagues about a new opportunity with a client. During the conversation within the Team’s environment, they could be brought information from their CRM system, which could be Salesforce. Information from their finance system, which could be SAP. In fact, they could have information brought to them from any internal or external system. They would have all the information they require, in real time, to be able to make better decisions and move to the next stage of the sales process quicker and with more success.

The accelerated adoption of Teams in the enterprise means that most vendors have already integrated with the platform to surface the critical business data they hold within the collaboration experience. Microsoft, however, went two steps further with their own business applications. Firstly, by enabling anyone in an organization to view and collaborate on records held in Microsoft’s business apps, known as Dynamics 365, from within Teams at no additional cost. No other technology vendor enables this without the need to pay for multiple underlying software licenses. Secondly, by building the power of Teams directly into the business processes that these Dynamics 365 apps manage. For example, proactively connecting a seller to somebody that just closed a similar deal as they review their pipeline, seamlessly putting an agent in touch with the right experts and information to resolve a high severity case, and bringing teams together to better plan and execute a marketing campaign and a hybrid event.

As you can see, it is not just the employee’s experience that is enhanced. Business is a multiplayer game and this improved collaboration and access to information also applies to the way you interact with customers, partners, and suppliers. The whole experience will become more digital but also more human.

I have no doubt that the rise in Collaborative Applications will lead to a fundamental change in the way people and business work. People will be better informed, better connected and better organised. Everyone will enjoy faster, easier communications and better service.

We’re just at the beginning of a substantial shift towards a more people centric way of working. We’re already doing some amazing work with our customers to help them embrace this new way of working, developing specific industry and functional apps using the latest Microsoft Collaborative controls solutions to make it even more efficient. But there is so much more that can be done.

Take a look for yourself. I can’t stress enough how much collaborative apps can do for your people and for your business!

Don’t mistake Collaborative apps for just another tech phrase in an endless line of tech marketing output. AS I said at the start, This is going to be Really big as the benefits for your company are huge!