How modern work environments drive better business performance

Amid growing economic, social and political issues, businesses across the Middle East and Africa are under increasing pressure to innovate. Understanding that people are their most valuable assets, many companies will look to enhanced enterprise environments to gain that competitive edge.

In fact, the 2019 Deloitte Global Human Capital Trends report shows 84 percent of participating companies across the world believe they will need to rethink their workforce experience to improve productivity.

For good reason, many of these organisations will explore new technology in order to drive that heightened work experience.  

Faster, more informed decisions

Recent research shows advanced tools such as Microsoft Teams are elevating work processes and dramatically impacting the bottom line at the same time. According to a Total Economic Impact study conducted by Forrester Consulting and commissioned by Microsoft, having information and resources readily available via the Teams shared workspace allows key decision makers to reach decisions faster because they are able to confer with their peers more efficiently. In fact, using Teams, decision makers improve their time-to-decision by 17.7 percent. This results in a cost-saving of $451,273 over three years.

Teams, which is now used by more than 13 people worldwide, recently introduced four new ways to help teams work better together. This includes functionality that prioritises time-sensitive information, easily manages communication within and across teams, makes it easier for Firstline Workers to manage their schedules and receive updates, and enables IT administrators to easily deploy the Teams client and manage policies for everyone in the organisation.

Teams is just one of many such tools designed to boost employee performance. Power BI, which forms part of the Microsoft 365 stack, enables team members to visualise and analyse data with greater speed, efficiency and understanding. The platform connects people to a broad range of data through live dashboards, interactive reports and compelling visualisation that bring key data to life.

AI tools are pegged to become an invaluable resource for decision makers across the region. Around 45.5 percent of the executives that participated in Microsoft’s recent Pulse Survey, which includes respondents from the Middle East and Africa, plan to use AI to improve their decision-making over the coming year.

Unlocking people’s potential

Beyond decision-making, technology is empowering people to unlock their full potential in a wide range of different ways. AI-powered tools, for example, help employees create content of a higher quality than ever before, from impressive slides to animated 3D models and immersive mixed reality experiences.

Drawing on Microsoft 365 solutions, employees will also find it easier to work more naturally across devices and collaborate with their colleagues on the move. Outlook for iOS and Android bring e-mail, calendar, contacts and documents together in one place so that team members are more seamlessly able to share files, coordinate schedules and book meetings.

Transforming team communication

Improved collaboration has become a critical foundation of the modern workplace and companies can transform their internal communications with applications like Teams and SharePoint.

By adopting Office 365 and other productivity tools into its work environment, telecommunications and IT company, Altron, completely transformed the way its employees collaborate.

The company, which has a presence across the Middle East and Africa as well as other parts of the world, wanted to move away from the limitations of outdated technology and become more productive.

As such, it decided to adopt a cloud-first approach.

Now, new hires can get up to speed far more quickly as data is easily shared across departments. Thanks to Skype for Business, the company has also had a 40 percent e-mail reduction. What’s more, the introduction of tools like Microsoft Teams and Skype for Business have meant far more seamless cross-border collaboration.

These workplace enhancements, not only save time and money, but also enable employees to focus on tasks that require a greater degree of human ingenuity.

At the end of the day, creating a more modern enterprise environment improves processes and helps employees unlock their full potential, which ultimately enables businesses to compete more effectively.