IT Industry Blog | NorthRiver IT

Cloud-Based Collaboration: Pros, Cons, & Use Cases

Written by Chaz Hager | Apr 8, 2022 1:23:00 PM

Business workflows have evolved from whiteboard meetings to spreadsheets and emails. However, as business operations become more distributed, you might find that emails and other traditional tools alone can no longer meet your organization's demands

Be it writing code or publishing articles, collaboration across multiple facets of the business is required. That’s where cloud-based collaborative solutions help. Let’s understand what it means.

What is Cloud Collaboration?

Cloud collaboration refers to employees working together on a project wherein they can easily work on documents, code, etc in real-time. In cloud collaboration, team members have access to the always-updated version of required files hosted in the cloud.  Thus, Cloud-based collaboration solutions help organizations enable team members to work on projects simultaneously with shared access to resources in real-time.

Cloud collaboration solutions eliminate the hassle of storing multiple versions of the same documents only to merge the feedback of all team members and create the final draft. Instead, cloud-based collaboration solutions empower team members to view and edit the files simultaneously in real-time. The changes are saved and synced ensuring each colleague has access to the updated version of the project.

Pros & Cons of Cloud Collaboration

 

Pros

Organized workflow and improved communication 

Cloud collaboration solutions streamline the workflow as it enables tasks to be seamlessly shared among employees across different time zones. 

With cloud collaboration, project managers no longer need to waste time communicating decisions to associated team members. Push an update in the collaborative workspace and everyone receives real-time notifications no matter where they live.

Increased participation

Collecting team feedback on projects is an essential part of the project for it to become successful. Cloud collaboration allows team members to easily and instantly share their views via comments, chat, or video/audio call.

Seamless file sharing

Email attachments have become redundant these days as most email providers support file sharing up to a few megabytes. Cloud-based collaboration solutions enable team members to share and store large documents as well as audio and video files with ease. It also saves employees from losing data due to fat finger mistakes or other data failure events as cloud storage supports automatic backup.

Always up-to-date 

In a collaborative workspace, you don't need to wait for anyone to send you the 'latest version' of the documents. Team members can simultaneously work together on files that are always up-to-date by default. The ability to set up custom permission levels for different team members makes it easier to share files across different teams, departments, or accounts.