Digital summit explores links between good collaboration and organisational growth

Mar 17, 23

Office workers could be being less productive in the workplace, due to something called “commfusion”.

This was just one of the many revelations at the recent The Future-Ready Digital Collaboration Summit hosted by Ideagen.

The virtual summit addressed digital collaboration in the workplace with a focus on working effectively and securely across teams, partners, clients and stakeholders now and into the future as organisations grow and evolve.

With an underlying focus on impact, innovation and security the summit featured industry experts from AstraZeneca, Atkins and Sussex Strategy Group as well as thought leaders from LGC Academy, Think Productive and SECTARA.

Grace Marshall, Author and Productivity Ninja from Think Productive shared how recent studies have demonstrated just one single interruption can actually result in over 20 minutes of lost productivity: “There are so many different channels of communication available to us that sometimes it creates what we call ‘commfusion’.

“We’re digitally overloaded. There needs to be some setting of boundaries and rules to create clarity around communications. There are also some great tools … things like shared project spaces shared document management systems all of those collaboration tools can reduce the amount of communications we have flying around by email or instant messaging.”

Sophie Bailes, Director of Digital Transformation at AstraZeneca, Patrick Gajos, Director & General Counsel at Sussex Strategy Group and Martin Geach, Technical Director – Digital at Atkins opened the summit focussing on the importance of good collaboration to business growth.

Sophie revealed: “Being able to shift into a virtual environment has saved on waste and helped speed up our processes.” It has helped leaders in the pharma giant “make quicker and better-informed decisions” and “reduces re-work and failure later”.

In Silos vs Compliance: The need for a single source of truth, Lauren Graden, Document Control Specialist and Founder at LGC Academy discussed how organisations can benefit from having one single and complete view over all of its business data and information – while also warning of the risks of failing to do so.

Julian Talbot, Chief Technology Officer at SECTARA looked at risk, privacy and security – and why regulated businesses must consider enterprise-grade security, privileged access management and having secure processes to manage information. With businesses relying so heavily on technology, the potential for security breaches and data loss is a significant concern.

For anyone who may have missed this insightful summit it’s available catch up on here.