Collaboration between various departments is essential to the smooth operation of all aspects of your business. That probably doesn’t come as a surprise to you, does it? We didn’t think so. But you’ll probably also agree that the hard part is ensuring they are actually working together.  Unfortunately, there’s no golden rule to ensure collaboration that’s perfect for every company. For some, it’s as simple as taking down dividers and doing away with cubicles, for others it’s ensuring there is a platform that enables different departments to speak to each other easily. But whatever you do, make sure that you are putting things in place for the departments concerned with corporate merchandise ordering that will enable them to communicate properly. Here are the main benefits of collaboration between departments (especially in the digital age we live in):

Goals are more achievable

Why do you focus on corporate merchandise? The answer to that is probably because it helps to create brand awareness and keep your company at the forefront of would-be customers’ minds. Making sure that your products are consistent, of a high-quality and perfect representations of your brand is hugely important. The collaboration of your team, therefore, with open lines of communication, ensures that they are at their most efficient and will help you to achieve your goal with your corporate merchandise.

If everyone is working solo, figuring out answers actually needed from other departments by themselves, you will probably land up wasting a lot of money and resources. This is not to say that these departments need to be engaged in constant conversation, but it might mean investing in a program or looking at different online platforms that could make communication easier and allows the different individuals, teams or departments to touch base when the need arises.

It allows for a little flexibility

More and more people these days are craving things such as flexi-time or the ability to work from home. Making use of collaborative technology that is accessible from a range of devices means that real-time collaboration is possible from anywhere at anytime. This allows your employees that much more flexibility and let’s be honest, gone are the days when having to speak to someone in person was the only way to work together.

This kind of flexibility is very attractive to employees these days and can actually lead to better productivity and efficiency.

Digital forms of communication appeal to the Millennials

Using different forms of digital media to get your team on the same page is not only in-line with digital trends and innovation, it will appeal to your tech-savvy or Millennial employee base. Not only that, but working together on these kinds of platforms will probably be second nature to them. And because Millennials are such a prominent part of the workforce, it’s important to try and give them the tools they prefer to use in order to collaborate.

It keeps remote employees in the loop

As we mentioned earlier, having the tools to communicate online allows you to keep everyone on top of things including the employees that work remotely or even from different cities and countries. By encouraging company-wide collaboration, it means that everyone who is a part of your company can benefit from constant communication, updates and real-time information, no matter where in the world they are.

It makes the onboarding process simpler

When new people join your team, it’s important that they can get up to speed as quickly as possible. Collaboration is one of the best ways for people to learn from colleagues and those more senior than they, and it also naturally sets up a ‘safe space’ for new employees to take on a mentor-type relationship with those they work with and ask questions as they become more comfortable, while learning the ropes. Having open lines of communication and a company geared for collaboration, especially if it’s done on a digital platform, will help newbies get up to scratch stat.

If nothing else, communication between departments like marketing and sales ensures that consistent and correct corporate merchandise gets ordered, in order to achieve your company’s goal of greater brand awareness. Another superb way of making sure your team is on the same page and communicating properly, is to open an online company store – the perfect platform to order, communicate, consolidate and track your company’s branded apparel and merchandise. If you would like more information on how an online company store can benefit your company, download our incredible guide for an online company store. Alternatively, you can get in touch with us and we can talk through your needs for your company.