How to Choose Your Collaborative Platform

Unified communication, smoother teamwork, better employee experience… Whether you're a company, institution, or non-profit, putting a collaborative platform in place offers numerous advantages for your teams. But with so many solutions on the market, choosing the right one can feel overwhelming. Here are the three essential steps to choosing the right collaborative platform for you.

PS: to save time, you can also check out this handy methodology guide 👇

1. Define your needs

Before starting your benchmarking process, take the time to think through your needs by asking yourself the following questions:

• What should this solution deliver for you? Do you mainly need a solution that lets you:
  • simplify remote teamwork,
  • reduce internal emails,
  • speed up and streamline communication within and across teams,
  • better improve internal communication,
  • centralise your resources to make them easier to access,
  • encourage mutual support and information sharing,
  • manage projects effectively,
  • unite and engage your employees,
  • etc.

Read also: How to define the main use cases for your collaborative platform?

• Who is the platform for? Do you want to invite all of your employees, or only certain departments or teams? Is it aimed at both white-collar staff (in the office) and frontline workers (in the field)?

• What core features do you need? And which ones are more optional? For example:
  • the chat, groups and video conferencing, to speed up and simplify day-to-day communication,
  • the shared calendar, to schedule meetings and events,
  • the drive, to securely store and share files,
  • the document co-editing, to collaborate on files in real time,
  • the newsfeed and the home page, to showcase your news,
  • the integrations, to stay automatically updated on new events,
  • the checklists, to assign tasks to team members and track their progress,
  • etc.

• What are your constraints? In other words, which elements do you absolutely need, and which will be non-negotiable when choosing your collaborative platform? For example, are you required to choose a collaborative platform that…
  • …is highly secure, GDPR-compliant, and stores its data in France,
  • …integrates with your existing tools (email, CRM, project management tool, etc.),
  • …can be adopted quickly by your users,
  • …can be used on all types of devices (computer, tablet, mobile), both on site and remotely,
  • …is available in multiple languages,
  • …offers personalised onboarding support,
  • …is accessible to all of your employees, including those without a professional email address
  • …

2. Identify and compare platforms that meet your needs

Once you've defined your requirements, start identifying the collaborative platforms that best fit the needs you've outlined. You can compare them on:

• price,
• the user experience,
• ease of deployment and use,
• the features (does it include what you need?),
• commitments in terms of security and data hosting (for example, is the vendor subject to the Cloud Act*?),
• quality and responsiveness of customer service and user support,
• the user reviews (on platforms like G2, Capterra, Appvizer, or by asking vendors directly for customer references).

Looking for an all-in-one collaborative platform that is easy to use and hosts its data in France? Look no further: Talkspirit is THE solution you need! 100% made in France, our platform brings together all the communication and collaboration features you need: chat, groups, video conferencing, drive, online office suite, project management, shared calendar, newsfeed, home portal, library, etc. All without compromising on the platform's ergonomics and intuitiveness.

Book your demo now to see it in action:

Book a Talkspirit demo

Want to explore more options? Check out our ranking of the best collaborative platforms, which you can also watch in the video below:

3. Test your collaborative platform

Have you made your choice? Or are you still deciding between two options?

Either way, remember to request a demo and test the collaborative platform(s) that seem to best match your criteria. Many vendors, including Talkspirit, offer a free trial period, so don't hesitate!

Request a Talkspirit demo

Start a free trial

This lets you assess for yourself how easy the platform is to use and explore its various features, to check that it truly meets your expectations. If you can, try to include a few employees in this testing phase so they can share their views on the solution. After all, who better than your future users to help you choose your collaborative platform?

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You now have everything you need to choose the collaborative platform that best fits your needs. To make things easier, we've compiled all the best practices from this article into our methodology guide “8 key tips for choosing the right collaborative platform”, which you can access below:

Access the Methodology Guide

In this methodology guide, you'll find: the 8 steps to choosing a collaborative platform, the key elements for defining your needs, and the deciding criteria for comparing the best solutions on the market.

Download

*Cloud Act: a US federal law on personal data surveillance, enacted in 2018, that compels American service providers to hand over all stored data to federal authorities upon request, regardless of where the servers are located (including in the EU) (Source: Wikipedia)

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Author: Emmanuelle Abensur