During the COVID-crisis the entire CELUM team transitioned to home office following the Austrian government’s mandate. Besides the missing lunch break chatter, we could seamlessly switch to a remote work setup as a company. While for some organizations it is less of a familiar work mode than others, we decided to share the tech stack we use daily that also allowed us to flip a switch in a matter of hour.
Without further ado, here are our heroes that enable us to stay connected and productive despite being away from the office:
Microsoft Teams for Quick Communication
How we use it: Just like the name suggests, Microsoft Teams is all about team communication. We use this tool for both private and group communication, replacing email with a faster & more efficient way to stay connected with your team members and other colleagues within the organisation. Shoot quick personal notes, update the entire team, office or the entire company, jump on a call or a video chat with your colleagues, maintain meeting minutes in notes – all this and more is possible in Teams.
Why we love it: In remote work times tools like Microsoft Teams are invaluable to stay in touch with all your team members and not only quickly discuss the daily matters, but also see the happy faces of your colleagues.
Favorite feature: Video chat backgrounds. Where are you working from today? 🙂
Outlook for Formal Communication
How we use it: While Microsoft Teams take on a big chunk of intracompany communications, email has not left the stage. We use email for more formal communication within the company such as company-wide announcements, and for communication with various stakeholders outside of CELUM. We keep in touch with our customers, partners, agencies primarily via email.
Why we love it: Outlook is a powerful and flexible email client with plenty of possibilities of organising your own inbox. Moreover, Outlook’s calendar is the primary view of all our scheduled meetings and other internal activities.
Favorite feature: Flags with follow up dates that help you structure and prioritise your email exchange.
CELUM Content for managing all files
How we use it: CELUM is the digital asset management software that keeps all our files in one central location, accessible from anywhere and on any device. CELUM Content is home to all our images, videos, designs, and documents. Literally, every department at CELUM uses the tool – from design team to HR.
Why we love it: It makes our lives so much easier. When we need a certain file – we know there is only one place we need to turn to with certainty of retrieving the latest approved version of each file we might be looking for. No content gets lost in email sequences or saved locally on someone’s laptop with no chance for others to access it. It also has a wide network of integrations that allow us to work on files directly in various applications and have the latest updates centrally saved.
Favorite feature: Sharing files securely with external stakeholders using the PIN-system.
CELUM Work for Visual Collaboration
How we use it: CELUM Work is the task and file management solution that brings all our files, people and workflows together in one collaborative environment with one aim: get work done. CELUM Work is where all our brainstorming ideas get documented, prioritized and brought to real life over a defined timeline. Modern intuitive Kanban-style boards are enhanced with powerful file management capabilities and approval processes.
Why we love it: CELUM Work helps us stay focused and organized, providing a comprehensive overview of all current projects with clear responsibilities and deadlines. There are no seat restrictions, so we can invite and collaborate with all our peers within and outside CELUM.
Favorite feature: Annotation: creating a marker directly within images/videos for a precise area of desired changes.
Hubspot for Inbound Marketing and Automation
How we use it: Hubspot serves as a marketing hub at CELUM, providing tools that help us execute various marketing activities, including, but not limited to, social media, email, social advertising, SEO, landing pages, marketing automation, analytics, and more. On the CRM side, this is where we keep records of all people who have ever expressed interest in our software and interacted with us one way or another. The contact records we keep in Hubspot range from people who simply downloaded a whitepaper to those who became our loyal customers.
Why we love it: Hubspot allows us to operate many marketing activities and measure their success in one central location: whether it be email or paid social media campaign. The possibility to create custom dashboards helps us keep an overview of our KPIs.
Favorite feature: Marketing workflows that trigger once a certain action is being taken or a certain requirement has been met. It saves us plenty of time and keeps the work flowing in the background.
Salesforce to keep track of all deals
How we use it: While Hubspot is home to many of the marketing initiatives, Salesforce is the main playground for our Sales and Business Development teams, serving as the 360 degree overview of all our customers and business opportunities. Salesforce keeps track of all our deals and their progression, including the necessary documentation and points of contact.
Why we love it: We love using Salesforce because it unites our team behind the common sales goal (Dashboards) by always showing the sales pipeline (Kanban view) and focused communication around the relevant topics (Chatter).
Favorite feature: Kanban view on sales pipeline.
GoToWebinar for…webinars 🙂
How we use it: GoToWebinar is our tool of preference for hosting webinars and other online speaking initiatives. Our usage of GoToWebinar ranges from online customer trainings to hosting our biggest event of the year, Celumium 2020, with over 300 online participants.
Why we love it: GoToWebinar offers an easy and logical webinar set-up process that does not require any programming knowledge. During the webinar, interaction with guests is made easy through chat, polls, surveys, integrated videos and even handouts.
Favorite feature: Automated reports: you do not only get the “normal” data on who attended and who missed out on the webinar, but also attendee interest level, who downloaded the recording, survey results, the Q&A and the chat protocol.
These are the 7 tools that keep our work flowing with no interruptions and have become critical to our success as an organisation in times of home office.
We hope you stay safe & healthy and find some inspiration among these tools for your own work setup.
