Why IT Managers end up using multiple messaging platforms
How many times have you been navigating around your screen and realized you’ve got two messaging apps open? We’re all guilty of it. Then you close them both and go back to, oh wait, another messaging platform. With so much choice in the messaging market, it’s easy to end up with multiple messaging platforms. It’s a bad habit to let yourself get into. And as an IT Manager, it means a whole lot more work than necessary.
We see shadow messaging in nearly every business we talk to, so the good news is you’re not alone. The even better news is that we’ve worked out why IT Managers end up using multiple messaging platforms and we have a remedy for that very problem. Let’s dive into it.
Choice
Leading collaboration players like Slack, Cisco Webex Teams and Micosoft Teams offer tremendous value and productivity gains. This makes them hard for the IT Manager to ignore. If everybody else is moving to a leader in this industry, maybe you need to so that your company doesn’t fall behind.
You also have the obvious choice. Your Unified Communications provider. Top Unified Communications players like Avaya, Mitel and Ring Central all have their own messaging platforms built in or bolted onto their core communications tools. And it always seems easier to ask for more of the same than shop for something new.
These are without digging into personal messaging app usage like WhatsApp and SMS. Dean Bubley, Founder of Disruptive Analysis, posted on LinkedIn about this exact topic. He questioned why messaging apps can’t be blended together to achieve “messaging diversity”.
“There’s WhatsApp, WeChat, FB Messenger, iMessage, SnapChat, Slack, Skype, SMS and 100 others. Why can’t they be blended together?”
We then see the emergence of new companies sneaking into this space. The enterprise messaging market has exploded. With 80% of employee app time spent in group messaging, it’s no wonder we have new contenders like Twist and Flock.
Demand and Transparency
55% of business owners think they are very transparent but only 18% of employees agree. With new employees and seasoned pros likely to differ in what they like to use, managing demand is a key element of ending up with multiple messaging platforms.
“We’re striving to better understand not only how people work together, but how they want to work together”.
Slack’s recent Trust, Tools, and Teamwork study showed us 91% of workers want to feel closer to their work colleagues, while nearly 85% of workers want to feel more connected with their remote colleagues. It is almost impossible to keep everyone happy. But, with 91% of worker not feeling close enough to their colleagues, there a lot of improvement to be made.
The remedy to this stat is not to go out and buy whatever they want. But, it has been used as mitigation. Generally, you’d think that if we give user X what he wants and user Y what she wants, then everybody is wins, right? The reality is that you end up with multiple messaging platforms and both parties dip in and out of them. In this situation, no one can rely on a common method of communication where decisions are made, so ultimately everyone loses.
Migrating away from old apps is hard
Migrating away from anything is hard. Let’s be honest, we’d rather not do it. Sometimes, you have no choice. In the case where your company has merged with another, there’s a decision to be made. Ultimately, you have to do something with one set of messaging users. But, let’s flip it. Migrating to something new is exciting, and relatively easy. How easy is it to setup a Slack account, a Microsoft Teams account or a Cisco Webex Teams account? A few clicks here, upload a semi-professional selfie and you’re away. We’ve covered the challenges of moving from one collaboration platform to another and there are many, many things to consider before you take the plunge.
- How can you be sure a colleague who primarily uses Cisco Webex Teams will be able to message a colleague who primarily uses Microsoft Teams?
- Does each user have an an account provisioned on both apps, or only one of them?
- If each employee has a login for both chat apps, will they need to actively use and monitor both on both desktop and mobile?
- If not, do employees generally know which app to use to get the fastest response from any given colleague?
It’s enough to put you off.
The Remedy
IT Managers are going to end up using multiple messaging platforms. Due to the choice, demand and pain of migration, it’s going to take a lot to resolve this one. There may be no clear way to stop this from happening, but there is a way of making it work. When multiple messaging platforms exist in your organization, M.io will provide the messaging interoperability you strive for.
M.io is simple to set up:
- Sync all the chat apps your teams use by creating your M.io Hub (and read more about channel syncing here)
- Add all teams, spaces & channels
- Team members in your M.io Hub can immediately chat in DMs or groups with members on other platforms
- File sharing, threaded messages, reactions and the ability to edit and delete messages are all supported
- New channels or spaces an employee is invited to will be synced in the primary chat platform they prefer to use
If you are interested in exploring these options, we are here to discuss. To learn how M.io can sync multiple messaging platforms, schedule a demo with our team.
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