Over the years of working with numerous companies, the single biggest challenge that I have come up against is the reality that most businesses are built around a collection of email in-boxes belonging to its team members. If I am lucky, those in-boxes have folders and labels attached to them, but this is rarely the case. The problem is that a collection of in-boxes is not an open system. An open system is characterised by transparency in communication and a flat approach to team structures, which makes blame-shifting very hard to do. Closed systems, on the other hand, are not transparent and lean towards a hierarchical team structure. Closed systems are ultimately counter-productive: they slow work down; they make finding information harder than it needs to be; they make communication impersonal and difficult; they make blame-shifting easy.

Stop-Gap Measures and Real Solutions

With the arrival of social everything, business has changed to a wide open system, but people aren’t adapting at a fast enough pace. To combat this I generally organise teams around open-system productivity tools which meet specific business needs such as implementing the following:

CRM tools for managing sales Project management tools for assisting internal business projects and external client projects Collaboration tools for managing virtual teams Accounting tools for managing financial processes List tools for managing personal accountability within teams

Implementing all of these is only a stop-gap measure, though: doing so meets a specific need within the business, but by implementing systems that address specific needs, you are still creating walls because these systems don’t talk to each other. On a global scale this means that big businesses that are able to implement systems like SAP still have a competitive edge over a smaller, more agile business because SAP has modules and those modules talk to each other. In comes Podio and the open-system, productivity-loving nerd in me gets very excited.

A Solution

Podio is a cloud tool that can be used to manage the following areas:

Virtual office Project management CRM and Sales HR Finance Meetings Lists Software development Event management Marketing Product development Customer management

Podio is built around a basic workspace that is highly customisable to suit your team and business. This tool has made it very easy for businesses to select workspaces that are already set up and built around specific types of businesses: for example, there are workspaces specifically for HR teams, or development teams. Podio is highly customisable because of  its own app marketplace, where you can either install or build your own apps that meet specific needs within your business. This app marketplace is arranged in two ways:

Around business clusters such as law, fashion, travel, healthcare etc. Around functional business requirements such as HR, IT, marketing, finance, legal, and the like.

Why Open Systems Are Important For The Future:

Open productivity tools such as Podio, which allow for transparent business communication and workflow across the entire organisation, are important because the cloud and new media technologies mean greater competition with faster disruption. This in turn means that every small business owner needs to have their systems talking to each other to ensure a competitive edge in all respects. Tools that do not allow for this cross-pollination between business functions will eventually die. If finance doesn’t know what development is doing, and development doesn’t know what editorial is doing, you have an unhealthy ecosystem. It really is that simple.

The Implications

The implications of a productivity tool like Podio are far-reaching and numerous, but the most important implication is what will happen to the individual in the workforce: gone are the days where single-domain knowledge was enough to remain competitive in one’s career. We are now in the age where strategic thinking/planning is something that every person will need to learn, and quickly. Every individual in the workplace will need to know the basics about all business functions to be able to function and work collectively in open-system productivity tools like Podio. If marketing can see what finance is doing and development and editorial are working closely together, then marketing and finance need to understand each other, and development and editorial should be singing off the same hymn sheet. I look forward to introducing Podio to my team and to my clients. Here’s to an open system world that looks very different to the in-box world we have gotten ourselves so used to. I look forward to thinking outside this box. Featured photo credit:  Hard working on documents business woman via Shutterstock