Here, Nigel Davies, CEO of Claromentis, talks about the evolution of the digital workplace, and what he’s seen in his 20+ years of building intranet software to support teams. Nigel is a regular contributor in the press on the changing and future workplace.
Q. You’ve worked in intranet software since the late Nineties. Set the scene for us back in ‘98.
CEO of Claromentis
Many will remember the intranets of old. They were largely information directories consulted when employees needed to find something specific, like the company maternity policy or a colleague’s phone number. Those who logged in might see some internal news and announcements but, with such low engagement, those often went unseen. Intranets served a purpose but, quite rightly, they’re mostly in retirement now. The word has somehow lingered in search, but it’s an anachronistic term, because digital workplaces are so much more than just ‘modern-day intranets’.
Q. What’s so good about digital workplaces then?
Think of intranets as one-way streets, and digital workplaces as gyratories. Far more complex, full of different routes, yet easy to navigate. Functionality wise, they’re incredibly powerful: you can take an online training course, locate and access files, integrate all your third party apps, manage a project to completion with your team, book time off, solve a customer issue, create workflows, comment on your CEO’s holiday photos, have a meeting with one person or 50 people, share an idea with the whole company, start a conversation about which brand of coffee to buy for the office… (I could go on for hours, probably best if I stop there!).
One of the biggest changes has been the architecture. Intranets were cumbersome beasts. Even building on existing available technology like Microsoft’s SharePoint, every intranet had to be custom made and existing IT expertise was a necessity for any business, so they had to dedicate lots of money and time to get up and running. The end result was, without exception, aesthetically hideous, and painful to use. So we created an intranet you could use out of the box, and launched Claromentis.
You need no internal expertise to build a digital workplace using our software. You simply drag and drop the components you want, they look beautiful and it just works. Any features you don’t need disappear. And as your business grows and changes, you can add powerful new functions. This has of course been enabled by the rise of software-as-a-service and secure cloud hosting. We’re constantly building new tools and making the existing suite better and even more secure and compliant. We totted it up and Claromentis has had more than 300 man years of development, so we challenge you to try and outgrow us!
Q. What feature of Claromentis gets the rave reviews?
Probably our automated workflows tool. To butcher Hotel California, you can log out any time you like, but no one who uses our workflows software ever leaves. Businesses see an immediate boost in productivity, because it automates processes and paperwork. You can use it to create workflows like appraisal forms, support help desks, expense claims, and purchase order requests, freeing people from manual, repetitive tasks. It also reduces the margins for human error.
Q. Anything new in the pipeline you can tease us with?
Something called Projects, which anyone who works in project management and oversees remote, fragmented teams will love. You’ll be able to get an instant overview of a project’s status via a centralised dashboard, which will display tasks, topics, teams, and more. You can choose different views, either lists, calendars or Kanban boards (if you’re agile like us) and see who’s working on what. That’ll help you manage workloads.
Q. How can your customers get Projects?
It’ll be added to our platform in Q1 2021, along with the rest of our tools and widgets. Our users can pick and use what they want, any time. We don’t charge extra for new features; if you’re a Claromentis customer you get access to everything. We also have a marketplace where we make things we’ve custom built for our clients available to other businesses.
Q. What’s the future for digital workplaces?
The global pandemic has changed how we work, possibly forever. Plenty of businesses have found out the hard way that their current set up – which might be email, coupled with platforms like Slack and any other file sharing or software systems they use – just aren’t cut out for supporting remote teams of more than around 25+ people. They need something far more powerful, wide-ranging, secure and compliant, they need third party app integration, they need one place to call ‘home’.
Our goal is to continue outpacing the rate of change in business, developing and iterating our tools and features so there’s nothing that can’t be achieved through the digital workplace, even if you identify as a luddite.
Claromentis is a powerful and beautiful digital workplace used by businesses, NGOs and charities the world over. Its mission is to help organisations to share information, work smarter and engage with people.
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