What Is Enterprise-Wide Collaboration?

Enterprise-wide collaboration is the process and technology required to connect everyone within a company. It ensures that everyone, from frontline workers to executives, can share information, align on goals, and work together regardless of their location or role.

One of the main challenges for these types of systems is the sheer scale of most large companies. Enterprises with thousands of employees often have a headquarters for their business operations, along with many other separate facilities for production, engineering, and more. But just because your enterprise isn’t stationed in one place doesn’t mean you’re not one team. Enterprise-wide collaboration accounts for every location and every worker.

Our digital communication platform unites your frontline workforce with employees in the office, creating a transparent environment where knowledge transfer, productivity, teamwork can flourish. Your enterprise is much more than the sum of its parts, but you can only benefit from your employees’ collective wisdom if everyone can communicate with each other.

Key takeaways:

• Enterprise-wide collaboration is the process and technology that connect people within a company, ensuring clear communication across multiple locations. This can prevent communication silos and improve productivity.
• Effective enterprise collaboration helps workers overcome communication barriers, which leads to greater operational efficiency and faster problem-solving.
• An enterprise collaboration platform like the Walt Smart Radio System by weavix makes every worker accessible, enhancing teamwork between frontline and office employees.

Enterprise Collaboration Connects Teams Across Facilities

Right now, many enterprise communication and collaboration efforts are limited to a single location or site. Some are even restricted to certain teams or positions within the location. For enterprises with employees and teams working at many different sites, this can quickly create communication barriers in the workplace. This is a common issue many large enterprises face, and as they expand, this problem will only get worse.

Enterprise collaboration only works when it connects everybody across your entire business. The Walt Smart Radio System by weavix is the solution to improve communication and productivity at scale. Connecting everyone on your team is an important aspect of your company’s digital transformation, and it’s easier than you think.

Keep reading: Discover how smart radios support your digital transformation initiatives

How Does Collaboration Software for Enterprises Simplify Teamwork?

Collaboration software for enterprises, built directly into smart radios, simplifies teamwork with PT3 (voice, picture, and video) and access to critical information in real time. 

Analog radios don’t preserve a record of all messages shared between team members. Analog radios don’t offer AI-powered language translation and transcription, nor can they be programmed so they only operate on-site. And crucially, analog radios are extremely limited in the types of communication they permit between workers.

Analog radios only allow messages to be shared through PTT (push-to-talk) functionality. But there are many times when a picture or video would make collaboration much easier. For example, if a technician needs to repair a pump and needs advice from an engineer, they can use a smart radio to collaborate through PT3, which streamlines troubleshooting and boosts efficiency. 

Enterprise-Wide Software Solutions Allow You to Collaborate with  Outside Contractors

It’s not uncommon for facilities to have contract workers on-site for projects, turnarounds, or general maintenance. Clear and frequent communication is key whenever you invite contractors onto your worksite. And whether you have just a few contractors or thousands reporting for each shift, proper management and collaboration between them and your frontline workers is vital. 

Yet building a collaborative enterprise doesn’t happen overnight. It requires a deep understanding of your workers’ and contractors’ challenges, and a strategic investment in communication solutions to bridge those gaps. Walt makes it easy to connect everyone on the frontlines, employees and contractors alike.

How Can These Solutions Bring Your Workforce Together?

Our smart industrial radio connects your entire workforce — both frontline employees and contractors — to encourage collaboration without limits. It doesn’t matter if your frontline workers are on different sides of a facility or opposite ends of the country. And it doesn’t matter what languages they speak. With the Walt Smart Radio by weavix, enterprise-wide collaboration is most effective when it includes everyone on-site. 

And just as with any digital transformation project, careful strategic planning is essential to ensure your frontline employees and contractors adopt any new communication technologies so they can collaborate as a unified group. When you can remove communication barriers throughout your company, this will reduce costly production delays and minimize safety risks.

Keep reading: See how easy it is to implement a unified communication platform

Tear Down Silos with Enterprise Collaboration Software

Consider an environment like an airport, where multiple teams have to coordinate all their efforts to avoid costly delays where every second counts. Add noisy conditions and a workspace that covers hundreds of acres, and clear communication is critical. In situations like this, there’s no time for anyone to stop what they’re doing to get help. Everyone needs to be connected at all times. 

This is where communication orchestration becomes an essential part of your enterprise collaboration strategy. This type of orchestration is the ability to coordinate communications across siloed departments, enabling every employee and contractor with the right tools to solve problems quickly, no matter where they’re located. 

Smart radios like Walt offer complementary layers of communication orchestration:

• Multiple channels for communication, which allow different crews to share information just as easily as two workers connecting one on one.
• Each channel has PT3 capabilities, which means everyone can quickly share details on processes or challenges through multimedia messaging, so they can find solutions to pressing issues much more quickly.
• Every worker can set their preferred language on the device when they log in to their smart radio on each shift. And since every device is equipped with AI translation and AI transcription, workers can easily overcome language barriers even when jet engines are warming up nearby. Walt transcribes every message they receive into their preferred language on the screen. So if they can’t hear it, they can still read it.
• While analog radios rely on expensive FCC licenses for channels that can become unreliable at great distances, there is a better way. Walt can use either Wi-Fi or LTE networks, which means workers can communicate clearly no matter where they are.

Enterprise team collaboration with smart radios can eliminate communication silos that prevent different sites and departments from aligning on company goals. But it’s only effective if everyone can communicate with each other. 

Our global directory can connect everyone on your team within our Walt Smart Radio System —something analog radios cannot do — supporting the development and implementation of enterprise-wide strategies. This setup allows your workers to get answers fast, and managers can explore productivity analytics on their teams from any computer using our desktop app.

When you implement Walt as your two-way radio system, your team members can communicate with each other regardless of their company, location, role, or language.

How Can You Choose the Best Enterprise Collaboration Platform?

The best enterprise collaboration platform will look slightly different depending on each organization’s industry and goals.

Organizations with a diverse workforce spread out across multiple locations should consider the following characteristics when exploring enterprise collaboration solutions:

• Do your frontline workers have trouble connecting to each other if they’re too far apart? Look for platforms without range limitations.
• How many languages do your workers speak? If it’s more than 1, you might need a smart radio that offers real-time AI translation.
• Does your workforce endure hazardous conditions? Consider systems with smart industrial radios rated for Class 1 Div 2.

Whichever enterprise collaboration system you choose, there are two factors you need to remember at all times:

1. On the frontlines, safety is paramount. Any new tool must improve worker safety, or else it’s not worth it.
2. If you’re enabling your frontline workforce with a smart radio designed for enterprise collaboration, it will only improve safety if everyone has a device.

Keep reading: Explore 10 reasons to give every worker an industrial radio 

Enhance Your Enterprise Collaboration Strategy with Walt

The Walt Smart Radio System connects in-office, hybrid, or even fully remote teams as easily as frontline workers to each other. Walt integrates an enterprise collaboration app (iOS and Android mobile) and web radio console for any computer with a browser, which allows your office and field workers to work together. 

With Walt, your deskless frontline workforce can quickly get the answers they need, and in-office teams and other knowledge workers can follow or join the conversation as appropriate.

Our enterprise collaboration tools can give everyone in your company the ability to share knowledge with each other regardless of their location, role, or language. This is how Walt enhances productivity and collaboration at every level of your enterprise. 

Ready to see how enterprise-wide collaboration can benefit your organization? Schedule a demo today.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

What does enterprise-wide mean in collaboration?

Enterprise-wide means impacting every individual and function within an organization with collaborative initiatives or projects. When we consider an enterprise-wide meaning for collaboration, this indicates communication strategies which can connect everyone in a company to increase knowledge sharing and improve efficiency. 

More specifically, manufacturing, construction, and related industries may benefit from solutions like smart radios that offer enterprise-wide collaboration, which can connect frontline employees and contractors with office workers regardless of their location, role, department, or language.

What are enterprise collaboration tools?

Enterprise collaboration tools consist of software and technologies which make it easier for every employee and contractor within a company to work together towards common goals. These systems define an Internet of Workers (IoW) strategy when deployed throughout an organization. 

For example, the Walt Smart Radio System by weavix is the top enterprise-wide collaboration platform for the frontline that can reduce communication barriers, improve productivity, and reduce risks with safety solutions. 

What are the benefits of enterprise collaboration systems?

Enterprise collaboration systems help build a connected workforce for more efficient knowledge transfer and greater productivity. 

Most industries never formally document their institutional knowledge. That’s because this knowledge exists solely in the heads of thousands of workers who interact with complex machinery and diverse teams every single day. Your workers’ experience is indispensable, but once they retire or go to work for someone else, that wisdom is lost forever.

Fortunately, with the right enterprise-wide system, you can capture this knowledge to improve processes, reduce employee turnover, and encourage knowledge sharing. While many companies use analog radios for communication on the frontlines, these devices can’t preserve a record of workers’ conversations. The Walt Smart Radio System by weavix is an enterprise collaboration platform that makes knowledge transfer much simpler.

Keep reading: Understand the differences between digital and analog radio systems

Which industries can implement Walt as an enterprise collaboration solution?

The Walt Smart Radio System is an enterprise collaboration solution built for industries that values flexibility, quick decision-making, and safety. When every frontline worker has a smart radio, they can address problems immediately instead of stopping what they’re doing to find help. 

Consider the following examples from industries that boast more than 20 million deskless workers combined in the US: