Buckle Up! The Digital Transformation Nobody Planned for

We’ve learned a lot from 2020 so far, and we’re still learning. The pandemic accelerated digital transformation for many businesses that were not prepared for it. Months later, many companies are still experiencing a painful impact from the abrupt change. . 

With the pandemic now leading into economic crises, companies are still floundering, looking for a way out. Many are still hobbling along at 60, 70 or 80 percent of their pre-pandemic productivity and unsure how to correct course. Employees are using personal cell phones to talk to clients, chatting with co-workers on Zoom and Google Hangouts or sending email attachments to collaborate. Their frustration is palpable. Executives are so concerned about their solvency, they’re not thinking about how their competitiveness is hindered by working with one arm tied behind their backs.  

Growing into Your Digital Transformation

Now that we’ve come up for air, it’s important to look at your digital transformation and make the adaptations essential to help your business thrive long term. 

Availability and Ease of Use Are Your New Prime Directive

Many businesses took communication and collaboration for granted before the pandemic. Your employees could walk over to their coworker to talk, work on projects together or hold impromptu meetings in the conference room whenever the need arose. Now, the needs are still there, but their channels are 100% digital. It means everything happens through email, instant messaging, collaboration tools, video conferencing and phone calls.  

For business continuity, it’s essential to make it as easy and seamless as possible for your workforce to connect. Give them the systems, apps and tools they need, and teach them how to use them. That may mean creating video tutorials, hosting live training sessions online and pointing out key features. 

Break Down the Walls

If your digital transformation happened haphazardly, you likely have silos of data and team members working in a vacuum. Data doesn’t get shared across departments or tools, but exists in multiple places and is difficult to locate. Bringing the information streams together is critical to smoothing out your digital transformation and improving your team’s performance. It can resolve service and delivery challenges and operational gaps and improve the speed of problem solving, simply by having your entire company on one unified communications platform that checks all the communication boxes: file sharing, instant messaging, video conferencing, CRM integration, calling and collaboration.  

Be Agile in Your Digital Transformation: Get Help from the Experts

This lesson is pretty clear: adapt or perish. We don’t yet know what additional changes we might see in how we communicate in the coming months or what new tools and resources will become available.  

There’s no need to navigate digital transformation alone. There can be a lot of complexities with, for example, mobility and BYOD (bring your own device) in terms of security and functionality. This can be a great opportunity to partner with a communications expert to determine the best unified communications strategy for your business. A custom BYOD mobility plan can enable your team to be productive from anywhere, and you can realize cost savings.

Now’s the Time to Plan for the Future

Your new normal is manageable with the right plan. Gregg Communications has weathered every storm for over 50 years. We can help you navigate your digital transformation with seamless enterprise mobility and get your team working efficiently again. Contact us today.

How to Embrace Change and Come Out a Stronger Team

The world is better when you're willing to try new things. Case in point? Pizza. We all have that friend who refuses to eat anything but thin-crust cheese pizza. On the other hand, someone who’s willing to try, let’s say, Chicago deep-dish with Italian sausage, pineapple and garlic is open to a whole new culinary world of possibilities.

Learning how to embrace change serves everyone well, whether it’s pizza toppings or how things are done in your company. Organizations that are nimble can act quickly and appropriately in the face of change. Only the most adaptable teams will weather the storm and come out stronger after the pandemic is over. 

Flex or Fail

Speaking of change, our “new normal” has come with a lot of “new” things like working from home, programs and systems, processes and dynamics. Many businesses are noticing that these new approaches are actually more efficient and productive than the old ways. It’s the dawn of the age of the remote worker.

If everyone was content with cheese pizza and no one tried new toppings, we wouldn’t have all the varieties we have today. The global pandemic may not have been our choice, but how organizations handle the ensuing shift will determine how they move forward into the future.

Those that continue to be rigid, doing business as they did before, will ultimately fail. But that’s not you, right? You are open to finding a way forward, even if it’s like no path you’ve taken before. You’re willing to try new things, new flavors, if you will, so that your company not only succeeds but also thrives in spite of the situation.

Fare Better by Being Adaptable

Pizza didn’t start out as Chicago-style deep-dish. Pizzeria Uno had to adapt it to that back in 1943. Ike Sewell was unsatisfied with the status quo of boring cheese and decided to experiment. Maybe there were failures along the way. You’ve got to be brave and try new things, sometimes missing the mark, before something better surfaces. The end result is that pizza, as we know it today, is better for it.

It looks like the days of going into the office, as we knew them, are over. This has accelerated the digital transformation of many companies and necessitated quick thinking and flexibility of employees. But how much attention have you put on what specifically needs to adapt to our new reality? Sometimes it’s just a matter of having a guiding hand to help you know how to thrive during this pandemic.

Gregg’s seasoned advisors provide expert analysis and offer recommendations based on your company’s unique needs and goals to help you pull through the pandemic as a stronger organization.

What Toppings Are You Willing to Try?

If someone never modified the first Italian pizza, we wouldn't have Chicago deep-dish pizza today. But they did. Through trial and error, chefs have perfected different, delicious styles of pizza we can all enjoy.

Fortunately, you don’t have to experiment with your own secret sauce to success. Gregg Communications Systems has already tried and tested Unified Communications solutions and is ready to advise a flexible, customizable option for your organization.

If you’re looking to change your company’s Unified Communications for the better, call (630) 706-8222, email or connect with Gregg Communications today, and we’ll guide you to the right solution for your firm’s unique needs.

4 Easy Steps to Maintaining Business Continuity

Since the COVID-19 pandemic began many businesses have been in limbo with a combination of on-site, remote and even hybrid employees. They’ve desperately patched together solutions that are good enough but really won’t hold up long-term. Can your business relate?

While we’re not out of the woods yet, one thing is clear: businesses need to learn how to manage both in-office and remote workers (as well as those who do both) for the long haul while also maintaining efficiency and productivity. 

Building a Business Continuity Plan in 4 Easy Steps

Having a business continuity plan can ensure your organization isn’t scrambling the next time things shift (and you can be sure they will).

Step 1: Evaluate What Has (and Hasn’t) Worked

In all the bumbling around to shift to a remote workforce, you’ve probably landed on some happy accidents. Maybe your team has been cohesive in collaborating through an internal messaging tool. Plan to incorporate more of that in your business continuity planning for the long-term.

You’ve likely also had some fumbles. While much of what you’ve done up until now has been trial and error, now is the time to shed any practices or tools that aren’t serving your team’s productivity. Explore other, better options.

Now is the time to focus on leaner operations, workforce planning and culture shifts, and these likely won’t look like anything you’ve seen before in your organization. Many companies are exploring the concept of a hybrid worker, one who works remotely but comes to the office as needed. This may be a good in-between for your organization.

Step 2: Develop Your Business Continuity Plan

If there’s one constant, it’s change. Having a business continuity plan gives you a path for where you need to go from here. Your business technologies going forward need to support the current and long-term needs of hybrid workers as well as those working solely remotely. Those are the solutions that will succeed. 

While it’s important to look at protecting your systems, don’t overlook the human element. Many workers were adrift when the quarantine hit because they had no experience using tools like video chat, and productivity dropped as a result. Make sure to build in training and support so all employees are empowered to give 100%, no matter where they are working.

Step 3: Be Flexible

Managing remote workers is something many leaders had no experience in until this year. They have had to roll with the punches and learn along the way. Work environments too are progressing to support the varied needs of workforces, and flexibility is key in providing the best work-life balance for employees.

Realize that what worked last month may not be the best course of action moving forward. Have a plan, certainly, but be willing to adapt as needed.

Step 4: Use Unified Communications to Bring It All Together

Now that you’ve looked at the best tools and practices for your business continuity plan, you need a unified communications system that efficiently connects your whole team, wherever they are at any given time.

Not only do unified communications streamline how your employees interact with one another and with customers, but they also ensure security. Integrating communication tools with heavy security protection means the data your organization juggles daily is safe.

Small Changes Mean Lasting Results

Some of the smoke has cleared around our current healthcare pandemic, and now is the time to take small steps like the ones above to ensure that your organization is set up for long-term success.

Call 630-706-8222, email or connect with Gregg Communications today to start building your business continuity plan and improve your organization’s long-term productivity.