Systems to Support Collaboration and Social Business

In the previous sections, we summarized the various systems and technologies used to support businesses. In this section, we will introduce systems that support collaboration and social business.

Collaboration

Most work in organizations is performed in teams. As such, collaboration and teamwork are critical in today’s workforce. Collaborations occur when two or more people or organizations work together to achieve a specific goal. Teamwork, however, is a collaborative effort to accomplish team-specific tasks to collectively achieve the team mission. Businesses are using a variety of tools and technologies to support collaboration and teamwork. For example, Penn State encourages the use of Zoom to facilitate remote collaborations and Box to share and edit documents. In another example, teams use G Suite tools to facilitate file storage, file sharing, and collaborative editing.

Social Business

Organizations enhance collaboration by embracing social business. Social business uses web-based collaborative tools, such as internal and external social networking platforms, to engage employees, customers, and suppliers. For example, Red Robin uses Yammer as an enterprise social networking tool to facilitate crowdsourcing of innovative ideas on how to improve operations and reduce costs.

Benefits of Collaboration and Social Business

Many benefits can be derived from using collaboration and social business tools. Teams benefit directly through the enhancement of the quality of collaboration and teamwork. As a result, organizations benefit from enhanced innovation, productivity, quality, and customer service. 

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