Sometimes we get so caught up in the things that are different that we forget why we’re all here.

And that’s not intended to be figurative, philosophical, metaphorical or ‘very special episode’ talk at all – it actually describes the modern world of IT, where there are many paths and personal preferences in every company — sometimes within departments — but ultimately everyone is about helping customers and doing cool work in the process.

So whether you’ve sworn loyalty to Microsoft, or would rather swear at them and prefer to hug your Mac, or even have experimented with Linux, you’re still out there looking for better solutions and new ways to make your job easier, and also improve the service you offer your co-workers or clients.

There are also some common tools that every organization can benefit from, no matter their size or types of products or services they offer.

• A centralized help desk. Perhaps you already have people who fix computers or make the stubborn printers work. But adding automated features to this process can make the whole support staff more efficient. All users on the network can email service tickets and IT members can be assigned work orders quickly. Today’s help desks can also easily connect to team members who could be in any location using mobile devices.
• A cloud. If you’re already down with the data clouds, kudos. But some businesses may still be struggling to convince higher leadership to make the switch, simply because the whole cloud concept can seem hazy (pun intended) when compared to traditional hardware. But accessing at least once cloud can help move data around easier, especially if you have a wide workforce, and also create secure backups.
• Mobile-friendly philosophy. Can a way of thinking be considered as much of a useful tool as a screwdriver? We think so, since the term can cover ways to make things easy for employees to use phones or tablets safely and securely, for customers to be able to access mobile-optimized sites via their own devices, and a mobile-friendly customer relationship management system.
• A Knowledge Base. Consider creating an online repository for everything from the status of repairs of different desktops to other local solutions to documentation of what domains you own and when need to be renewed. If your team uses open-source programs, it can also keep track of any modifications. Some Knowledge Bases are for IT team members only; some are databases that the whole company can access.
• Video conferences. Simply by inviting people to come together for virtual meetings or webinars, rather than requiring everyone to attend in person, could quickly bump the whole company’s efficiency, and trim travel time and costs. Besides group formats, users can also hold one-on-one video chats.

The above list is really only the beginning of the many common tech tools that all workforces can use. For suggestions about how to implement many of these into your organization visit Grouplink.