• Home
  • Business Shop

    Your Reading List & recommendations

    • Your Reading List
    • Recommended For You
    • Home
    • Business Shop
    • Show all
    • Growth
    • Public sector
    • Safe & secure
    • Start-ups
    • Tech advice
    • Work smarter

    Apr 4th, 2016

    Public sector

    Collaboration: Using apps to digitally go the distance

    | Apr 4th, 2016

    By Helen Roberts, Principal Bid Manager, Telefónica UK

    At O2, and especially within the Bid Contract and Commercial team, we embrace flexible working. Our team is spread across the UK and be found working in various offices or from our own homes. Although I love the freedom, sometimes you can feel like you’re the last to know what’s going on.  Our digital communications initiative was born to tackle this issue.

    The objective

    We wanted to overcome the distance by using digital tools to improve collaboration and build relationships within our team.

    Our digital water cooler

    For brief and informal communications, a mobile app made sense for a team on the move. Business employees often make use of consumer apps and we did the same with WhatsApp. After setting ground rules around content, we launched our group. It instantly created a “digital water cooler” where we share insight, discuss news, send birthday wishes and upload photos (especially when David Cameron visited the office!). We could do this thanks to the mobile devices and connectivity we have as part of our flexible working culture.

    Finding our way with Sway

    For detailed and more formal communications, like project updates for our monthly newsletter, we started to use the Sway app as part of Office 365.  After watching a few YouTube tutorials, the team soon knew how to build a newsletter quickly and easily which can be accessed on any device, wherever they are. We know it’s secure too as we changed settings so only O2 employees can view it. Sway connected people, who might not usually work together, to start projects and share insights. We also developed the purpose of our newsletter so we can celebrate success, get to know some of our new starters and give recognition to people in the team going above and beyond.

    What’s next?

    The feedback, just from adopting some new apps, has been extremely positive. It’s completely changed how our team works together and has helped us overcome the distance. But our digital communications initiative still has room for improvement. Next, we’ll look at how we can work more closely with other departments by making better use of OneDrive, Lync and Yammer.

    For me, flexible working is great – and with the right apps it’s even better.

    If you’re in the same office 9-5, why not find out more about flexible working? Or take a look at our website to see how apps could benefit your business.

    Ready to scale up your business? Call an O2 business specialist on 0800 028 0202 or call free from your O2 mobile on 8002.

    Tags

    • apps
    • collaboration
    • flexible
    • flexible working
    • Helen Roberts
    • Share
    • Categories

    Share this article:

    Share to WhatsApp
    Copy & paste link:

    All articles

    Growth

    Public sector

    Safe & secure

    Start-ups

    Tech advice

    Work smarter

    Related articles

    Added to Reading List
    Start-ups

    Top apps for business growth

    Jul, 25th 2018
    Added to Reading List
    Public sector

    Getting more from collaboration

    Nov, 15th 2016
    Added to Reading List
    Safe & secure

    Bring your own device: five top apps

    Apr, 9th 2015
    Added to Reading List
    Tech advice

    Mobile working: Top apps from #ScaleUpSeries entrepreneurs

    Aug, 8th 2018
    Category links
    All articles
    Growth
    Public sector
    Safe & secure
    Start-ups
    Tech advice
    Work smarter
    • Show all
    • Growth
    • Public sector
    • Safe & secure
    • Start-ups
    • Tech advice
    • Work smarter
    O2 links
    About O2
    O2 Business
    Business shop
    O2 Enterprise
    Customer Support
    Contact us
    How to complain
    Follow us
    Facebook
    LinkedIn
    Twitter
    RSS Feed
    • Terms & Conditions |
    • Privacy policy |
    • Cookie policy |
    • Access for all

    © 2019 Telefónica UK Limited.

    Telefonica