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CORE COMMUNICATIONS According to Gartner, 70 percent of teams will primarily use work- stream collaboration tools to com- plete work by 2022. ConsiderationsWhen Making Pitches There’s no doubt that col- laboration applications are in high demand for their ability to boost productivity and teamwork. Yet, there are some important factors to consider when pitching them to businesses. They are not always an easy sell. The first thing to keep in mind is that we are still in a transitory stage with COVID-19. Companies are analyzing the results of their work from home experiments and optimizing their strategies accord- ingly. Many companies were forced to quickly implement collaboration tools when transitioning to remote environments in March, and some are unhappy with their performance, reliability and security after months of use. Companies in this situation may be looking to make upgrades, while others may be hesitant to make changes to their workflows to avoid disrupting end users any fur- ther. Attitudes and opinions will vary from company to company. COVID-19 has also created a radical shift in workplace culture, and not all decision makers are pleased about the concessions that they have been forced to make for the sake of business continuity. For example, video chat usage skyrock- eted during the pandemic, with Zoom jumping from roughly 5 million global downloads in February to 26.9 mil- lion in March. Now, we are hearing stories of “video call fatigue” among workers. In addition, many end users are still using insecure platforms to exchange sensitive information, put- ting their companies at risk. Only time will tell whether tech- nologies such as video conferencing and instant messaging will sustain such heavy usage, or whether they will wane in popularity once workers start returning to offices. We antici- pate that some conservative compa- nies will try and revert to traditional communications methods when the pandemic ends — a move, of course, that could also backfire. Companies need to be very careful about try- ing to restrain workers and enforce rigid policies after COVID-19, or they could face turnover. Another cultural issue that com- panies are now dealing with is longer workdays, resulting from lax remote rules and new technologies. Accord- ing to one study from Microsoft, peo- ple are working four more hours per week on average, and spending 10 percent more time in meetings. And instant messaging has increased by 52 percent between the hours of 6 p.m. and midnight. On one hand, a culture built around continuous communication and after-hours collaboration can be enticing. For example, startup teams, software engineers and small Are You Making 40%? Hosted PBX Video Conferencing 40% Residuals $19.99 A Seat With 35+ Features No Customer Contracts Required Video Conferencing Platform New Yealink or many other options Sales Engineer Quote to Deployment 100% Channel 100% Of The Time Always Connected 877-314-4080 GetPTC.com 26 CHANNEL VISION | July - August, 2020