We often hear that data is the new oil. But there is another catalyst that is critically important — speed! To outperform competitors in the marketplace you need to be able to gather, process, and use data faster than others.
But the thing about speed … everyone moves at a different velocity. How then do you — as a team — grow together fast enough? The key lies in creative uses of technology to increase the speed with which you share knowledge and collaborate.
Change the culture
The road to becoming a modern agile high-speed company requires a shift in culture that is more a survival imperative than a competitive advantage. The first step down this path will require a workforce that approaches their processes with a digital and mobile mind- and skillset. Since colleagues and teams have different skill sets and points of views, if you want to become a truly awesome organization, you have to reach across silos and connect people from different departments.
Modern technology can help us generate more ideas faster than what can easily be shared via traditional channels such as email. For instance, a great presentation for a prospective client can, in an instant, be shared with an entire workforce as an example of a best practice. And, as soon as it is shared, group feedback and comments can enhance the presentation for subsequent clients.
Technology is democratized to a degree where every company, large or small (depending on their resources) has access to the same technology to run business operations: ERP, CRM, commerce solutions, all these tools are available to everybody. Given this reality about the modern business landscape, the differentiator for success is how you use technology to your advantage.
Work on a platform that enables collaboration
So, what platform integrates with business technology, especially CRM, and allows collaboration? The answer is Quip. Quip allows you to combine documents, spreadsheets, charts, and slides into a powerful collaboration platform that can integrate with Salesforce or stand-alone. That is a mouthful (of course), but what will it mean in practice?
Quip’s benefits as a platform for collaboration
1. Quip integrates with Salesforce
Since Quip integrates with Salesforce you can get real-time bi-directional data from our CRM, so that everyone is always updated on the latest figures. Quip can also integrate with lightning pages in Salesforce, so that plans, notes, and images are always immediately available to users.
2. Quip is a platform
Since Quip is a platform you can extend its functionality by adding other apps to it. In this way, the term "document" becomes a very flexible term. A Quip document acts as a canvas of information and collaboration. Useful apps that can be added include kanban boards (see below), calendars, countdown clocks, and other project management apps.
3. Less email
How many times has this happened to you in a busy work week? Emails are sent back and forth throughout the day, so much so that you lose track of what you have or haven’t read. After a week you are looking for that one feedback email, but you no longer know exactly where it is or what it’s called. With Quip, you can keep all communications in the same document. You provide comments per customer, project, or team there. And, Quip can function as a forum or group chat, but with much more robust features.
4. Fewer project meetings
How many times have you sat through meetings that didn’t seem to accomplish much beyond the need for future meetings? Now that all the information for a project can be aggregated in one location, it is possible to limit in-office project organization meetings. Since team content and everyone’s input can be viewed in one repository, meetings can be more effective. And, all team collaboration, including context-dependent feedback and chats are recorded within the Quip document itself. This decreases the need to schedule meetings since the current status of projects is transparent to all collaborators.
5. Quip works great on mobile
In 2018, people spent an average of 5 hours a day on their phones. On average people scroll through a hundred meters of content per day and 72% of purchases start on the mobile phone. But for fast online collaboration, the mobile experience hasn’t been as flexible as the online social media or shopping experience. Quip’s mobile experience is one of the best, with the ability to share documents and see comments in an easy-to-read interface. And, @mention a team member and they’ll receive a push notification with a link back to the Quip document. Quip allows you to access digital documents via a fast mobile-friendly platform that allows for on-the-fly team updates and collaboration.
Takeaway
The power of collaboration is how it enables large groups of people the opportunity to benefit from each other’s work (almost instantaneously) to achieve a better position within the market together. With Quip, Salesforce provides an additional collaborative layer that supercharges how a company’s entire connected ecosystem can communicate and use data. Quip can be a catalyst on top of your customer experience platform that makes your organization more productive. If you are already a Salesforce customer, using Quip is a no-brainer, but it also works as a stand-alone productivity platform. If you want to know more about Quip, this trail is a great start.
