Online communication is increasingly facilitating business. Thanks to the Internet, companies of all sizes can now take advantage of high-quality technology for real-time voice chat, screen sharing, video conferencing, and more. Such applications have changed the way of working, allowing colleagues from different parts of the world to collaborate and create a positive exchange, so useful for uniting any team.

For all of them, there is one key condition – reliability. To this we add convenience for the user, value for money, security and ease of management.

What are the most popular business solutions? We will share with you some key points, and in the research you will certainly find more.

Secure communication

Among the many options for company communication offered on the market, e-mail is a veteran in keeping in touch, while being perceived as official. One of the reasons it is perceived as a reliable source of information and up-to-the-second chronology is its encrypted format.

E-mail is a key element of the communication mix and in our conditions, we would add. For the team of Geletron this proves to be particularly challenging when the workplace uses both corporate and personal e-mail. In the trainings, which are a mandatory module of our overall security service we pay particular attention to working "web hygiene" in this direction.

The video conveys emotions

In a situation of isolation as a result of COVID-19, we can safely add web conferencing and business chat applications (like Zoom, Microsoft Teams), which also provide "safe isolation" and an archive of what happened. Deservedly, they have an ever-increasing share in the overall mix of communication channels.

Moreover, as social isolation emerges as a long-term trend, video conferencing has become a solution not only for business meetings but also for employee socialization. The video broadcasts not just a picture and sound in real time - it conveys emotions, spontaneity, despite the distances.

The best video conferencing services allow users to share their screens, remote and shared access to workspaces, chat via text, exchange files, communicate via whiteboards, and even broadcast conferences to large groups of passive viewers. Of course, the downsides should not be overlooked, chief among them being the risk of the connection being delayed, broken, or outright lost due to overload or unreliable data delivery.

Zoom, Teams and ...let's join

First in focus is the leading video conferencing platform during the pandemic - Zoom, which at the end of March 2020 reported 200 million people daily. Users say they use the app to work, socialize, watch classes and lectures, sing in choirs, attend church, birthdays and weddings, introduce babies, deliver the last words to dying people, bring families together for Ramadan and Easter. The free tier allows unlimited 1:1 meetings, but limits group sessions to 40 minutes and 100 participants.

Microsoft Teams, successor of Skype for Business turned out to be a preferred tool not only for work, but also for distance learning during the first pandemic wave. Its free version offers individual and group video and audio calls, shared files (2 GB per user and 10 GB per team), and more. In organizations using an enterprise version of the Office 365, Teams appears to be just another function. In this environment, administrators have access to a full set of management, security and compliance tools. Team members can share files (up to 1TB per user), schedule meetings directly from Outlook, record meetings and organize documents using the Office desktop programs and SharePoint Online. These paid plans also support online training and webinars.

For many of us, the described applications (and competing ones like BlueJeans Meetings, GoToMeeting, Zoho Meeting, Cisco WebEx, Join.Me, Google Hangouts Meet, Intermedia AnyMeeting, Slack, and more.) are a necessary evil – the technical glitches, the pixelated faces, the gruelingly long meetings with colleagues are the price we pay to prevent the spread of the pandemic. But there is another type of user, many of them elderly or disabled, whom such apps have helped to be more sociable squads.

Broken phone game

In fact, although forced by the pandemic to quickly acquire virtual communication skills, employees find themselves a bit confused by so many and varied communication options. Having redundancy is usually a good thing, but spreading tasks across multiple applications and vendors can lead to confusion for the end user in the workplace.

Therefore, instead of dealing with fragments of different communication products, many companies prefer a solution in a single package. This undoubtedly creates convenience for IT specialists in the respective company. We confirm it too.

Communication channels - a security issue

Despite the limitation of access to a number of applications from the workplace, there is a widespread trend for employees to reach for familiar applications that they are used to using at home. Of course, this reduces the degree of traceability, and after such liberties, information "leaks" are often present. In addition, sometimes employees send text messages through their personal mobile phones for business purposes, which puts the security of sensitive business communications to the test. Therefore, organizations are consciously moving towards secure communication platforms with encrypted message channels. And not only this. Investing in employee training is the basic requirement without which no security policy would be applicable.

Solutions, not a panacea

Internet content filtering in the office is a practice that supports productivity and better employee concentration on work, while also being a tool to reduce security risks. Of course, in the balance between maintaining a cozy yet secure online corporate environment, it is not possible to isolate all potentially risky sites. The good news is that with web filtering technologies IT departments can grant certain permissions on a selective basis to further reduce risk. For example, marketing departments have different needs than legal departments, which implies a different filtering policy. Those who have more network access "privileges" receive more training and have more responsibilities.

Multilayer filtering is comprehensive security strategy – flexible and dynamically changing to work effectively. It should be completely customized, not unified, to achieve your company's goals.

If you are looking for customized solutions for your business, through which you can combine a high degree of communication between employees with minimal risks to the security of company data, Contact us. We have something to offer you!