“That’s it – we’re moving to another collaboration solution!” OK, be honest: Raise your hand if some version of the above crossed your mind in the past 9-10 months. I hear you loud and clear — you are frustrated with your collaboration provider.

For some businesses, it’s a budget issue; costs go up or you’re struggling to navigate a move from CAPEX to OPEX. For others, it’s the pace of change ― software upgrades are pushed out by the vendor, but now you have to upgrade your hardware. Something has changed with your collaboration platform that makes you unhappy. And while it is true that IT is the business of managing change and risk, that does not lessen your frustration.

I’ve been there too. I have spent most of my professional history in the role of an IT customer, so I have experienced the aggravations that come with managing and being accountable for corporate, foundational infrastructure. In my case it was the voice infrastructure.

Take a look under the hood of many companies’ collaboration environments today, and you’ll find what I call “organized chaos.” Employees are using collaboration tools to get things done, but they’re frequently toggling between different applications to message colleagues, manage calendars, share documents and initiate video meetings.

Many organizations support different collaboration tools across departments. This might make sense if, say, an engineering team benefits from a different collaboration workflow than what other business units use. However, collaboration environments are often not the result of strategic decisions, but rather an ad hoc approach when deploying technology tools.

In many cases, business units adopt a given collaboration solution simply because it’s one that employees are already familiar with. As a result, companies miss out on the benefits that come from adopting the tools that are best suited to helping them meet their business goals.

At its heart, DevOps is a methodology that enables fast, frequent delivery of value to end users. This often happens through cloud-native technologies and a realignment of tools, teams and culture.

To appreciate the benefits of DevOps, remember that traditional IT organizations work with big, bulky applications that can be fragmented among teams. This can lead to handoffs, long lead time and a lack of ownership over the final product. Testing integration may be less of a priority, which creates challenges, because by the time code gets into production it’s hard to pinpoint the source of any problem.

Here’s why I see DevOps as a much better foundation for digital transformation.

When I begin working with an organization on its collaboration efforts, I often find that the company already supports a number of tools. Some have different solutions for different functions, such as calling, messaging, file sharing and video meetings. And others run multiple platforms that essentially do the same things.

It’s sometimes necessary, of course, for organizations to adopt and support multiple collaboration solutions. But there really can be such a thing as too much when it comes to these tools. It’s not just that the cost of purchasing and supporting more solutions will naturally be higher than the cost of purchasing and supporting fewer platforms. There’s also the danger of employees becoming confused about the differences among the various tools — and, therefore, using them less (or less effectively).

An unwieldly, sprawling collaboration environment can lead to an organization paying more for less productivity. Here are some steps we take to help business and IT leaders find the right mix of collaboration tools for their organizations.

With many companies needing to support widespread, full-time remote work, the past few months have made it abundantly clear how important it is to have a highly effective collaboration environment. But many businesses have struggled to appropriately support employees with collaboration tools — and others have missed out on opportunities to optimize their solutions.

Recently, CDW expanded its Managed Collaboration Anywhere portfolio with the addition of Cisco Solution Support. This was done to address the most pressing needs of collaboration customers today. The real value here? Organizations not only receive proactive help by way of planning and optimizing their collaboration environments, but also 24/7 reactive support when they need to solve a problem immediately. CDW and Cisco partner to deliver this service across Cisco’s various Webex-powered solutions.

At CDW we solve a lot of collaboration technology problems for our customers. But we are also intense adopters ourselves. In fact, one of the reasons we are so good at addressing customers’ collaboration issues is that we have encountered many of them personally. And one of the reasons we’re so passionate about collaboration technology…