Home /Case Studies / Making a Better Business with the Best Digital Investments: Google Jamboard
Running a successful business seems to be both easier and more challenging in this digital age. Technological advances enable companies to do more than ever before. As the workplace continuously evolves, however, organizations must learn to adapt to new ways of working.
With companies facing new challenges in the wake of digitalization, Google continues to provide solutions to help organizations succeed in a digitalized workspace. One of many ways Google is changing the way companies do business is through its interactive whiteboard: the Jamboard. Built as part of the G Suite meeting room solution, Jamboard addresses real pain points in the digital workplace to improve business and productivity.
According to The Opinium Workplace Productivity and Communications Technology Report by Mitel, inefficient communication and collaboration costs more than £4 million annually to UK businesses. That is the equivalent of £8,000 per person every year. Imagine spending all that wasted time and energy on something more productive.
Financial institutions such as Dow Jones benefit from using the Jamboard for creative teamwork:
“Jamboard breaks down barriers to interactive, visual collaboration across teams everywhere. It is the perfect anchor for a meeting and encourages impromptu, productive sessions. We can easily add any content to the Jamboard to capture great ideas from everyone. We immediately saw the benefits.”
When distributed teams encounter fewer interruptions and are given more creative freedom, they innovate and perform better.[i] Adding visuals - such as graphs, drawings and pdfs - to a brainstorming session further paves the way for teamwork and creativity.
Digital marketing company, Instrument, attests that Jamboard has completely changed their team’s approach to brainstorming. Instrument Senior Strategist Avi Couillard explains that the Jamboard saves her team time by allowing members to visualize concepts and sketch them on the Jamboard during the digital meeting:
“It used to be one person with bad handwriting, translating whiteboard notes into a spreadsheet,” Couillard. “Jamboard helps us focus more on the ideas, and less on translating or assigning creative direction to different teams.”
“Combining text with images lets everyone in the meeting understand an idea better and faster, making our meetings far more efficient. We no longer have the problem of running out of room, or having to waste papers. Jamboard gives our ideas as much space as we need. We spend less time organizing our ideas, and more time creating great work for our clients.”
Thanks to the Jamboard’s intuitive and integrated features, employees no longer need to waste precious time photographing whiteboards. All jam sessions are automatically saved to Google Drive and can be opened to continue where the team left off. Thanks to this and other benefits, such as the board’s approachable design, businesses agree that making the Jamboard an integral part of the process speeds up understanding, communication and ultimately the execution of different goals and strategies.
A Forbes report predicts that around 50% of the workforce will soon be remote. This holds true not only for contractors and freelancers, but even for full-time remote employees. As remote working becomes more widely accepted, the biggest challenge for businesses will be to provide an environment conducive for teamwork that makes it possible for remote teams to work as if they were located in the same office.[iii]
The Jamboard’s virtual meeting space truly shines in the remote collaboration world. A perfect example of this is how award-winning architecture firm PATH uses the Jamboard to collaborate with distributed team members:
“Our goal at PATH is to pair technology with our process in innovative ways. Jamboard provides us a better way to collaborate and explore more ideas within the same amount of time.”
More efficient collaboration also opens up new doors to more opportunities. For German IT and cloud computing company Zero One Infinity or Zoi TechCon GmbH, this means opening more global offices with confidence that they will net a positive return on investment.
“With both our Stuttgart and Berlin offices using the Jamboard on a daily basis, we’ve realized that we can have offices in various locations far apart but the team can still work as one. This has truly made communication much more direct and our workflow more efficient.” says Managing Director Benjamin Hermann.
In preparation for a more global workforce, companies are looking for faster, more effective ways to collaborate that ensure valuable opinions do not get lost in communication. This digital whiteboard has proven itself in multiple instances to meet these technological demands. It provides a means of effective, direct communication that changes how employees collaborate, so less time is spent on explaining and more is spent on executing.
The Jamboard is a collaborative solution that virtually transports remote employees into the meeting room. In addition to making sure everyone’s voice is heard, the Jamboard goes one step further and actually enhances the traditional meeting experience by allowing participants to conceptualize more ideas in less time, leading to the best possible decisions for your company.
Today’s staff have an overwhelming desire for C-Suite level management to take on the task of leading the company through a digital transformation rather than relegating this work to IT departments.
This is not to say that IT managers are not involved in this process. On the contrary, IT leaders face the challenge of satisfying the needs of a younger workforce that expects businesses to provide tools and technologies that will help them maximize their potential. These tools must be intuitive and reliable.
For the music streaming service Spotify, enhancing the work environment includes providing employees with collaborative tools that are both useful and fun:
“Google Jamboard is so engaging and intuitive that following whiteboarding and note-sharing, the team can't help but use it for creative pastime.”
Zoi’s Benjamin Hermann adds that the Jamboard’s workflow compatibility encouraged seamless integration:
“Our customers were able to ‘jam’ without registering for an account and it fitted perfectly with the company’s new digital business approach. The Jamboard has become such an important part of the company’s infrastructure and workflow that it will be a tool for success.”
Tested and approved, global companies agree that the Jamboard is so intuitive and approachable in its design that it slides easily into the work flow of any environment. Ultimately, it is an IT manager’s dream as it requires little to no setup and therefore will not deduct time from other important tasks, like waiting to see who cannot find the power button.
In addition to high praise from IT staff, employees love it as a collaborative tool that allows them to use drawings, pdfs, pictures and any other tools available on G Suite for brainstorming, strategy planning and, as employees at Spotify learned, a creative pastime to break up different projects during the day.
Companies, like those mentioned in this article, agree that adding Jamboard to their workplace is an instant success with a positive return on investment. Its well-designed UI saves time, money and naturally engages employees in creative collaboration.
Investing in the right tools and technologies can be the difference between excellence and mediocrity. Ultimately, introducing the Jamboard to the workplace might just be one of the best decisions you will make for your business.
Reference:
[i] https://www.raconteur.net/sponsored/counting-the-cost-of-inefficient-communication
[iii] https://www.forbes.com/sites/samantharadocchia/2018/07/31/50-of-the-us-workforce-will-soon-be-remote-heres-how-founders-can-manage-flexible-working-styles/#3fc2fef55767
