Problem Statement
Most businesses depend on technology in their everyday tasks. From email and phone sessions to websites, there is almost not a single activity which does not involve technology. These technologies, which are now taken for granted, have bridged some great holes in business communication. As businesses grow geographically and internally, there is a necessity for more advanced means of communication.
New trends have caused some new internet-based collaboration tools and software to be implemented in the established or growing businesses. In recent years, some useful collaboration tools, that are enabling people to conduct their businesses globally, have been created. Google Docs, Skype and Drop Box are examples. Virtual teams now need the collaboration tools as well as the project’s success.
However, some of the collaboration tools have disadvantages that make virtual project teams suffer. In this paper, I will discuss the Google Docs as a one of the prominent tools for collaboration, and try to present the challenges that are faced in its implementation, and how they are overcome (Geist, 2010).
When working in a virtual team, it can be hard to have all the statistics prearranged and easily recognizable. Nonetheless, remaining prepared is an important sign of being fruitful in a virtual team.
To do this, it is essential to have a network in which each group member can log, upload, and save parts of their work, as well as the work of other members. With the use of content organization tools, statistics or documents are always at hand, and can be opened and corrected by each member of the group (Geist, 2010).
Challenges & Opportunities
Many researches have mentioned some problems and challenges of the Google Docs. For example, the features of the Google Docs are rather rudimentary and simple, which more tech savvy workers may dislike. Moreover, other programs have extra progressive features that allow the worker to completely modify their documents and databases.
Google Doc’s greatest weakness is its lack of organization and synchronous communication purposes. It is, for the most part, a database for documents. There is a lack of type-switch tools, and all oversees and improvements are lost, unless the document has been uploaded twice and one reproduction left complete.
It does offer a tool for sharing folders and documents with a chosen group of people, so there is no need to use Google Groups. Google Docs offers a prompt messaging function that can be used when many operators are reading the same paper, but the letter record is not retrievable once the window is closed.
Therefore, if workers conduct a conversation at different periods, they have no way of reading the messages exchanged before their arrival (Geist, 2010).
Business Solutions
According to the research and some of the answers provided by Radical Technology, Google Docs as a collaboration tool has several very strong features. Firstly, Google Docs is a user-friendly collaboration tool, with which many users are already acquainted. When using a worksheet as the management border, operators do not need to reinvent the helm to build a traditional one.
This protects not only growth time and possessions, but it also maintains constancy, as we only have to instruct the workers on one interface. All that, together with mobility and skills needed to manage Google Docs on multiple platforms, makes for a great collaboration tool.
Secondly, since Google Docs is cloud hosted, one does not need to obtain another database system. The statistics or data for your solutions will live in the cloud, and be easily obtainable and redundant, as long as you have an Internet connection.
This can, perhaps, remove the need for extra hardware, software, backups and control time from your support team. This can also be a separate advantage for smaller businesses that just cannot have enough money to invest in substructure or hosted solutions (Colley, 2011).
For many traditional tools, you need to develop a version of the system with logins, collections, safety and controls. Google Docs is a recognized part of your business area so you can just use the built-in account system. Furthermore, one of the greatest features of Google Docs is the comfort with which you can permit and cancel access to your papers within your team.
By using the built-in safety system, you don’t need to emphasize any growth exertion to that part of your answer anymore. In addition, you can also make company-wide or separate groups to let quicker sharing choices for teams and sections (Colley, 2011).
Lessons Learned/Business Case
One advantage of Google Docs that businesses can use is the fact that it saves a lot of money. Google Docs is completely free of charge so it does not entail any initial investment, but it can be more than useful. More importantly, it is web-based so it does not demand any hardware improvements.
In fact, it can even reduce the amount of hardware needed for doing business because it can store a lot of data online. One additional promising feature is that with the advent of such software as Google Docs, we can reduce the office space needed for running a business so the costs in this aspect will be reduced dramatically (Hartigan, 2011).
Google Docs is focused on improving collaboration. Users are able to control who is allowed to see their documents, and give other workers consent to manage them. Up to 50 users can edit a file at one period, and each user is able to see what the other users are doing at that time. Google Docs also has a chat feature within the document to let users communicate while they are collaborating.
This means that there is no need for email add-ons and multiple reproductions of papers. Instead, there is one copy of the paper that is available to every person who has permission to see and manipulate it. Google Docs also keeps a record of historical forms of a document, which means that if somebody makes an alteration you are not content with, you will be able to undo all the changes (Hartigan, 2011).
In addition, Google Docs is a form creator. Users can easily make communication forms and email them conventionally to the people who need to fill them in. When a form is constructed, it is placed on its individual webpage so the link can be given to the workers. Google Docs will then record their replies in a worksheet for the user in order to simplify conducting studies.
This option can be used very successfully for studies and surveys, for example. One just needs to produce a form by using the form creator, send it out to the people he or she wants to survey, and read the responses via the Google Docs worksheet (Hartigan, 2011).
Why do I care?
As a future business professional, I find the fact that this type of technology is being developed very interesting because it might be the solution for the challenges that business profession is facing at the moment. Firstly, due to the ongoing economic crisis in the developed world, businesses are struggling immensely to reduce costs and save money so that they could improve their position on the market.
Secondly, globalization and the lack of business space are threatening to destroy the traditional conception of a workplace. Finally, the traditional way of doing business has become really devastating for the environment so a lasting solution has to be found in that domain as well.
Tools like Google Docs are offering at least partial solution to all those challenges. Google Docs offers a possibility of working on a single project from various locations all over the world. This can help not only to save office space and make the business global, but it can also save a lot of money since the office space is becoming more and more expensive.
Furthermore, as we saw above the fact that it is no longer necessary to store and backup all the information on personal computers relieves the owners of the burden to constantly provide more and more hardware equipment. For that reason, they can save a lot of money on hardware, and that way of doing business will also be easier on the environment.
Moreover, paper consumption will definitely go down dramatically once Google Docs is adopted by the majority of companies so we can hope for greener business in the future. Finally, the possibility of having many people work on a single project simultaneously will bring the concept of teamwork on the whole new level.
In addition, one advantage might also be that not having to spend 8 hours in a crowded office can result in a reduction of stress and personal conflicts, which are inevitable consequences of the way we practice business today. All of these new possibilities that Google Docs offers definitely bring us closer to the notion of an ideal working environment.
References
Colley, R. (2011). Why consider using Google Docs as a backend for custom web solutions. | Radical Technologists. Radical Technologists. Web.
Geist, D. (2010). Evaluation of Google Docs as a Collaboration Tool. Kennesaw.edu. Web.
Hartigan, C. (2011). How Google Docs can help your business. Web Design, eCommerce Website Design & Website Hosting – Zeald NZ. Web.