Why Collaboration Matters for your Business and Guide to Orangescrum Project Collaboration tool

1. Why Collaboration Matters?

2. Content 1.Why Your Business Needs SaaS Enabled Collaboration? 2.A Buyer’s Guide for Project Collaboration Tool Page – 2 Page – 6 Page – 10 3.About Orangescrum © 2011 – 2017 Orangescrum Research Lab, San Jose, California www.Blog.Orangescrum.Com 1

3. Why Your Business Needs SaaS Enabled Collaboration? Forbes has reported “73% of organizations plan on increasing collaboration, considering it vital to project success.” The operative words here being – “Collaboration” and “Vital to project success”. It becomes imperative to understand Collaboration in its true sense. Collaboration is an act of co-working to obtain a certain result or outcome. It can be anything from baking your favourite pie to a new product launch. As easy as it may sound, Collaboration has been not that easy for individuals, teams and businesses and it is nobody’s fault either. The ever-changing digital landscape, umpteen social apps, devices & platforms have spoiled us for choice. The wild digital freedom can inhibit collaboration if not used wisely. Hence the need for a simplified and SINGLE Collaboration platform where you can Get all your team members together (no matter how dispersed they are) Easily exchange and brainstorm ideas Real time review of progress Ensure everyone understands the same thing. Understanding = True Project Requirements! Everyone does exactly what is required I have just highlighted the tip of the iceberg. The benefits of having a SaaS platform are highly strategic and manifold. © 2011 – 2017 Orangescrum Research Lab, San Jose, California www.Blog.Orangescrum.Com 2

4. One they come in all sizes and can support individual business owners, freelancers, contractors, start-ups to large business enterprises. Second they offer a huge decrease in the total cost of ownership of such a platform coupled with increased go to market agility. Third and the most important of all – faster and improved Collaboration. But How? SaaS project management tools offer varied avenues of collaboration and Orangescrum in particular offers – An Organized & Mobile driven “61% of businesses leading the pack in terms of cloud deployment said that SaaS products offer them increased collaboration, both internally and externally – IBM Center for Applied workspace Task Management Time Tracking Gantt Charts and Kanban Boards – to see the BIGGER picture. Document Sharing Resource Management Insights” Informative Dashboards In-app Chat Activity Feeds and many more All of these enable real time partnering among teams. Hassle free communication keeps the team motivated and energized to do more in less time. This translates into more time for activities that are closer to the team’s heart both personal (helping the Wife in the kitchen) and professional. Collaboration is not a buzzword but an essential life-hack to survive constant competitor onslaught. Self-motivated and happy teams are highly productive which means more revenue for businesses. © 2011 – 2017 Orangescrum Research Lab, San Jose, California www.Blog.Orangescrum.Com 3

5. The best aspect of a SaaS collaboration and project management platform like Orangescrum is it adapts to your company culture and the teams need and is as scalable as you want it to be. Orangescrum is a true collaboration masterpiece, where Marketing teams, Project Managers, Scrum Masters, Product Managers, Digital Marketers, and Sales Teams collaborate effortlessly…. © 2011 – 2017 Orangescrum Research Lab, San Jose, California www.Blog.Orangescrum.Com 4

6. And why is that? For reasons as simple as – WE all want to share and we all want to be heard. WE DO NOT want choc-a-block full mailbox when we come to work every morning. WE want to be able to communicate and get answers, feedback and approvals instantly. WE DO NOT want to chase people for the same thing repetitively and let along be nagged by others. WE want to focus on our core business strengths. WE want to achievemore in less time. WE want a healthy work-life balance and last but not the least WE want a STRESSFREE work atmosphere and life. SO? Can you think of any more reasons as why Collaboration is that important in our lives today? Do you still have your reservations for not enabling SaaS based collaboration for your business? Unlimited Projects Unlimited Tasks Send Invoices Try it Free © 2011 – 2017 Orangescrum Research Lab, San Jose, California www.Blog.Orangescrum.Com 5

7. It’s difficult to organize and manage projects or share information, when you have employees spread over different locations. In the free global market, an increasing number of companies, small businesses or large enterprises, are using collaborative software tools to be more efficient, productive, and competitive. Using collaboration software is the way to go to stay at the Top in your field, which offers solution to streamlining your top business processes. This makes organizing workloads as well as team collaboration faster and more efficient compared to accessing tools scattered either across the web, personal computers, or the company’s network. Good collaboration software solutions also help integrate productivity apps into your workflows. This article traverses through a decision making framework for selecting software as well as a list of criteria to help the business owner navigate through the myriad choices available today. A Buyer’s Guide for Project Collaboration Tool With the right collaboration tools…You could be getting 20-25% more out of your knowledge workers (Source: McKinsey Global Institute) © 2011 – 2017 Orangescrum Research Lab, San Jose, California www.Blog.Orangescrum.Com 6

8. Guideline: 1-Is it cloud hosted? Being a Project manager you should be concerned on the cost of the tool which should have Low Upfront cost. It should also be Accessible anywhere, anytime via internet. Just shun buying a server and hiring IT staff to manage the tool. A simple easy to manage tool is what you require. It should not be limited to company intranet which will limit the functionality of the software. 2- Scope of Free Trial Most vendors allow free trial of their product which lends you firsthand experience before buying and evaluating the tool. You have the opportunity to evaluate the tool for your industry specific needs and use. The possibility of after-sale problems can also be eliminated. Besides you gain knowledge on the service of the vendor. Buying a service software means you are bonded with the vendor for a long haul who becomes partner in your growth and fixes issues in the future. It builds mutual trust which is key to success. 3- Simple and Intuitive to use You buy the product for the whole team and necessarily they aren’t IT nerds. It has to be easy, intuitive and should function with little help from the vendor. The dependencies need to be kept as minimum as possible. It has to be user friendly. Complex operations bog down the user and performance is hampered. © 2011 – 2017 Orangescrum Research Lab, San Jose, California www.Blog.Orangescrum.Com 7

9. 4-How’s the Learning curve If the software is easy to use; it saves you time and money. Be careful to choose a tool that’s simple and has low training/implementation overheads. Else, the tool adoption would be a challenge. 5- Clarity on price and product You should know how much exactly to pay including the fine prints. Discuss and ascertain price before purchase about hidden costs like extended licensing fees, additional user fee, add-on fees etc. All your takeaways should be on papers so that you never get duped. 6- How strong is the customer support? Customer service should be 24×7, or at least somebody should respond to your email within hours to minimize project delays. Stronger the customer support better the software efficacy. Unaddressed glitches will delay your adoption and impact productivity. 7- Does it have a mobile app? A mobile app can help members to collaborate on the go via their smartphones. Not having mobile app will surely affect adversely when 78% of the users access internet on their devices and stay on-line always. It allows you to be in a single workspace. © 2011 – 2017 Orangescrum Research Lab, San Jose, California www.Blog.Orangescrum.Com 8

10. 8- Are there Add-ons You can scale the software up and down to match your project’s needs. Buy if you must or limit your team’s collaboration scope, otherwise there are chances that you pay for unnecessary extra features that you don’t use. 9- How secure is your data and backup Security breach or data loss can compromise your deadlines and/or bring your business down. If the company assures on full security then you can focus on your deadline and move faster. 10- Flexibility in data sharing Data exporting functionality adds to the efficiency of the process. This feature keeps everyone in the collaborative mode in this digitized world. So why panic! Enjoy best of the things that suits and serves you best. “The use of commercially available PM software drives higher levels of portfolio performance and greater satisfaction with an organization’s project management practices.” -PriceWaterhouseCoopers Sign Up Free Now © 2011 – 2017 Orangescrum Research Lab, San Jose, California www.Blog.Orangescrum.Com 9

11. As a software development company, we know the pain of managing projects via emails. We wanted a software/tool - to manage projects more efficiently, to have quick communications and to become more productive. We tried with different project management and team collaboration tool. As our projects grew over the period, we looked for a way to help us manage projects effectively and meet our client's expectation. We could not find one tool to answer our worries. Than we decided to start building a project management tool. In less than 30 days we build our own project management tool. We gave the name as "TheOrangescrum". Because, our daily scrum meeting became easy with TheOrangescrum. Interestingly like Facebook, later on we removed the "The" from "TheOrangescrum" and renamed it to "Orangescrum". Orangescrum gives an eagle's-eye view on the productivity and progress of your projects and team In no time Orangescrum attracted small and medium businesses from an array of diverse industries, not limited just to software/consultant firm. We took the good feedbacks as appreciation and the bad feedbacks as lessons. We learned a lot over the period and trying to make it really powerful. OR Start Your Free Trial rangeScrum g+ Signup with Google © 2011 – 2017 Orangescrum Research Lab, San Jose, California www.Blog.Orangescrum.Com 10