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TELUS Business

Elevate your hybrid workplace with cloud productivity apps

Tech Trends · Aug 12, 2021

With the future of work changing at breakneck speed, the concept of productivity has been completely redefined to be more inclusive and collaborative, with employee wellbeing at the forefront.

The key is simply enabling people to work when and how they want with the tools they need to strike that balance. But which tools are best suited for your organization and how do you begin to implement the cultural shift that comes with each? Below we break down three class-leading productivity tools that offer tremendous choice and freedom for collaboration and facilitate the efficient execution of business priorities anytime from anywhere with an internet connection.


Microsoft Office 365

It almost feels unnecessary to give an introduction since Microsoft Office and its cloud successor, Microsoft 365 has become so ubiquitous. Microsoft, of course, has long been the reigning gold standard in office software for over a generation with Word, Outlook, PowerPoint and Excel changing the business world with powerful word processing, email, presentations and spreadsheets abilities. Office 365, takes everything you know and love about their long-running applications and centralizes it into a cloud-based sharing platform.

With Office 365, you’ll get all the power of your favourite Microsoft products all with the added ability to view, share, create, change, communicate and build with multiple collaborators in one place. Microsoft OneDrive keeps all your files - and the files of all your colleagues - in one, easy-to-access portal.

The world’s most widely adopted collaboration tool is Microsoft Teams with more than 115 million daily active users globally (there were only around 20 million pre-pandemic). Microsoft Teams can effectively provide a foundation layer or single application window, allowing users to manage their day-to-day functions and seamlessly transition into other applications or systems through integrations. Using the application in this way can improve user and organizational efficiency and productivity .


Google Workspace

It’s cliche, yet accurate, to say Google has been a game-changer in so many ways, but they can easily claim undeniable successes in transforming collaborative work applications and bringing them to the masses. The Google Workspace suite truly reflects the changing nature of productivity. An enterprise version of their popular productivity applications, Google Workspace aims to bring all your collaboration and productivity needs into one, easy-to-use product.

TELUS deployed Google Workspace a number of years ago. It’s flexibility was crucial in supporting our Work Styles™ program allowing us to quickly switch our roughly 60,000+ person workforce to remote work practically overnight.

Collaboration is at the heart of Google Workspace. It’s a place for shared interests, projects, planning, and group work, with simplicity, ease of use, and helpful features like seamless sharing, intelligent permissions, and real-time editing built in. And it’s quite intuitive.Google Workspace allows you to use your company’s domain name through Gmail which becomes your core identity. Say goodbye to clogged inboxes and lost attachments. With Google Workplace everything works together. Everything from sharing and making changes to documents via Google Docs, Google sheets and Google slides to hosting meetings on Google Meet to storing and organizing via Google Drive where everything lives.

The fact that Google Workspace is a single collaborative solution also means less time juggling other platforms, lowering the risk of information and context loss when switching between applications.


Cisco Webex

You’re far more likely to achieve success in business if you focus on one thing and do it very, very well. That’s the story of Webex. What started as an online video conferencing program in 1995, Cisco Webex has blossomed into the industry leader in teleconferencing with over 113 million meeting attendees per month.

If you need an enterprise grade video conferencing experience, Webex is your go-to. From the big features, like industry-leading security or the ability to host over 1000+ members in a single meeting, to the little things like AI supported background noise detection that will automatically scrub out the dog barking or snack packaging crinkling from the feed, Cisco Webex does business collaboration like no one else.

Of course, Cisco Webex isn’t just for meetings, it’s just as useful for remote employee training or customer service calls. You can even host large virtual events with up to 100,000 attendees and reach more corners of the world. And since many modern workplaces will have a mix of different vendors across their collaboration and extended productivity portfolios, Cisco Webex Video Integration for Microsoft Teams is available.


What to look for in a technology partner

Productivity application solutions offer a host of benefits for end users and enterprises as a whole. Ensuring that a business chooses the right collaboration solution and technology provider can make the experience a seamless, successful transition to hybrid work.

Reputation and capability – Providers with well-established industry reputations, expertise and relevant capability – in terms of network or capacity – should be considered preferential with their reassuring track record and industry recommendations.

Reliability and resilience – Look for solutions and providers that offer the highest SLA standards and availability to ensure their solutions are always working.

Product portfolio – Tech providers offering a wide range of technology systems including; Mobility, SD-WAN, Cybersecurity, Wi-Fi and LAN that complement the primary collaboration application, will offer a better holistic service.

Integration capability – Ensuring that a technology provider offers systems that can integrate with your business’ key applications is vital. Established, tested integrations provide a seamless connection between your key systems, improving efficiency and giving you an integrated experience.

Migration management – Planning migrations is vital to the success of any projects.A trusted specialist can be used to handle a complex migration, leaving internal staff free to focus on their core business.

Support – Ensure you are well supported with premium support services from your trusted provider such as 24/7 availability and technical knowledge.

So no matter where this summer takes you and your team, make sure to enable your business to keep running in a seamless and flexible way using cloud collaboration while on Canada’s largest, fastest network with TELUS.

Learn more about Microsoft 365, Google Workspace and Cisco Webex all delivered by TELUS and get your business ready for flexible, hybrid work with our setup, support and migration services, ensuring an effortless transition.

Authored by:
TELUS Business
TELUS Business