Collaboration and transparency have always been the cornerstones of teamwork. These are all the more essential now, after the pandemic brought about the work-from-anywhere norm and employees were no longer in the same physical space. How do you ensure that your team members are not working in silos, have a shared understanding of project status, do not miss deadlines, do not duplicate work, and have access to the assets that matter the most? To maintain the morale and productivity of the members, team leads need to have a cohesive workflow, build trust and collaborate using tech.

Martech (marketing technology) tools and processes can allow distributed teams to collaborate and communicate seamlessly with each other. Here are some you can look at:

Digital Asset Management

Digital Asset Management (DAM) software amplifies the benefits of creative assets such as videos, documents, images, and other media by offering a shared repository to store and organize them. For instance, Content Box by Scatter, a personalized DAM system, helps brands organize their valuable assets such as branding guidelines, stock photos, videos, offline creatives, raw design files, awards, etc. Content Box not only contains the assets in a shared location but also offers features such as permission-based access for team members, smart AI/ML-based search, reporting, and visibility. The benefit of using a DAM include better collaboration, contextual search, visibility, and transparency.

Workflow Management Systems

Workflow Management Systems (WMS) helps streamline routine operational processes by improving collaboration, automating repetitive tasks, scheduling reminders, notifications and offering an overall picture of the workflow with dashboard gadgets. But not every WMS is right for you. If you are a marketing or content-driven organization, then a tool like Scatter WMS is more aligned to your requirements. Along with a built-in calendar, plagiarism checker, SEO optimization, and content ideation tools, Scatter WMS offers a bird’s eye view of all content and marketing updates in its dashboard overview.  

While choosing a WMS, here is what you need to keep in mind:

• Process optimization
• SaaS-based platform
• Easy reporting and enhanced visibility
• Customizable notifications
• Role-based access
• Responsive or mobile-friendly interface
  

Messaging and video conferencing apps 

A great way to declutter your inbox, and still retain clarity and communication around crucial tasks, projects, and deadlines, is to use messaging apps and video conferencing tools. 2020 was the banner year for video calling apps such as Zoom. Alternatives such as Microsoft Teams, Skype, GoToMeeting, Google Meet, and Cisco Webex are just as popular. What defines a great video conferencing app is the presence of collaborative features such as:

• Screen sharing
• Scheduling
• Recording
• Annotation
• Live chat
• Whiteboarding
• Scalability (for company-wide events)

Project and issue tracking apps

“Did you see my email?” “Have you reviewed the content?” “What is the status of this ticket?”

If the above sounds too familiar, you would likely benefit from issue tracking and project management tools. These are designed to keep track of specific tasks, issues and project items by organizing them in a hierarchical or Kanban type structure, creating reports, and sending notifications when a task falls in a team member’s bucket. Tools such as Asana, Trello, and Jira are quite popular for agile, collaborative teams that need to map project dependencies, omnichannel support milestones, organize and automate task scheduling and integrate other tools for higher visibility.

Technology exists to simplify our lives, make work more efficient, intuitive and collaborative so that we can truly stay on top of our game and focus on our core tasks. Today, the Martech landscape boasts more than 5000 tools, famously called the ‘Martech 5000’. Leveraging these lets you streamline your work and enhance your team’s productivity and efficiency.

Contributors: Rajitha Menon, Preeti Mishra, and Swapnil Adsul