Need to cut IT costs? How to do it without impacting productivity

Budgets and resources are shrinking — but that’s nothing new to you. These days, you might be getting asked to justify your IT spending or told you need to cut back some way, somehow. Problem is, you know your employees are using a variety of apps and channels to communicate with one another.

So, how do you make your dollars go further without adding more complexity to your workflows? Start by consolidating your communications.

Cutting back doesn't necessarily mean you'll need to communicate less. There’s a way to make smart choices — ones that still help you save money without sacrificing the ability to scale. If you’re worried that you have too many applications in your system, that just means you need to find a multi-purpose app, one that provides the best of both worlds.

A good place to start: chat applications. With the right kind of chat app, you can bring all your workflows into one place and connect to all the other ways you communicate in a given workday. A few things to look for when identifying the right chat app: 

The right integrations: Want to quickly kick over an important document to a team member? Looking to access a powerful third-party app without losing your place? Find a chat solution that integrates with popular, commonly-used applications. Document-sharing integrations, for example, are a must these days since that’s how many of us work on projects together and collaborate on important assets. Relevant chat app integrations help you simplify workflows and save time.

The ability to take notes, store docs, and stay organized: Why have separate note-taking and storage applications when you can have everything saved in one place? Advanced chat apps should offer you the ability to take notes, send and store important documents, and save, pin, and reply to important messages within the same interface. Keep a look out for the ability to set reminders and schedule message sends — those will come in handy when you need to stay organized while communicating on the go or in different time zones. 

Quick access to other types of collaboration: Sometimes you need to move from chat to phone or a video meeting to further elaborate or demonstrate something. Find a chat app that keeps you speedy and productive by letting you switch between communications solutions all within the same application. Additional perks: the ability to start a meeting right within a group channel, share a digital whiteboard with a certain group, and have meeting chats saved directly within your persistent chat app.

The phone has been a cornerstone of work environments for decades. But that doesn’t mean it's becoming irrelevant; quite the opposite, actually. VoIP communications are essential in today’s flexible world of work. They help you communicate on the go, from a device of your choosing, with colleagues and customers alike. And the right VoIP phone provider can help you do all of that and then some. 

In fact, some phone solutions mean you can actually cut down on the amount of devices and applications you use. All it takes is finding the right one — here’s what we recommend looking for: 

Consistent communication, without excess devices: World-class VoIP communications can work on desktop, mobile, and tablet devices. This doesn’t ignore the fact that hardwired phones are still relevant, but it gives you the choice to communicate on the device of your choosing without revealing your personal number. That way, you’re not married to a certain location or have to own different devices for work and personal calls. All you need is the ability to access the cloud-based phone app. 

The ability to text or elevate to video: Today’s phone solutions need to be built for a collaboration-centric world — which means the ability to easily connect to video solutions. Find a VoIP solution that jumps right into video, so you can oscillate between the two in the same place. You should also be able to send SMS text messages from your phone solution so that written and verbal messages all come from the same source. 

Analytics and quality dashboards: When you’re trying to get to the bottom of something, having scattered analytics dashboards can only add to the headache. Trim back on additional analytics solutions by adopting a phone solution that comes with an intuitive dashboard. You should be able to proactively monitor and troubleshoot call quality issues and network issues, so you can solve problems quickly and effectively. 

Our final recommendation: consolidate your chat app and phone solution by using one platform that offers both. 

Our advanced chat app, Zoom Team Chat, provides instant, organized communication, while Zoom Phone brings voice communications into the collaboration age. Leveraging both means you can collaborate across modalities in a snap and unlock new levels of productivity. 

Both solutions come as part of our Zoom Workplace offering, which combines chat, phone, meetings, whiteboard, and more into one seamless platform. By consolidating workplace communication in one place with Zoom Workplace, you can get the time and money back that you need to future-proof your business. Scale without sacrifice, reimagine your workday, and do more with less. 

To learn more about how you can consolidate your communications with Zoom, check out our latest Hear from a Peer webinar.