Business communication used to be either in person or over the phone. Nowadays, modern companies most often use WhatsApp, Telegram and similar apps for enterprise communication. These apps are free, they offer the habitual functionality for communicating with colleagues — but this is where their benefits end. Team capabilities are limited and high-level security is not always ensured.
Not all employees exchange phone numbers, so difficulties often arise when tasks need to be handled fast. Whenever a new employee joins a large team, it is difficult for them to quickly establish reliable contacts with everyone. This causes confusion between departments. In the end, business communication becomes a mess.
These factors called for the creation of an industry-wide work communication platform at a company managing business and financial assets. We will describe below how eXpress helped systematize enterprise communication.
What were our objectives and tasks?
The purpose of the project was to implement a single secure communication platform between the company’s units, partners, and subsidiaries.
To this end we needed to address the following tasks:
- to deploy a network of enterprise servers within the local infrastructure of all units;
- to enable employee communication via all possible channels within a single application (messaging, calls, conferences);
- to ensure a high information security level.
How was the project implemented?
The enterprise platform was put in place in three stages: pilot implementation, testing, and production operation.
The team had no problems during the pilot phase, and testing was successful as well, after which it was transferred to productive operation. The complete platform deployment cycle took only about 2 months. That is fast for a project this big.
Now, the company operates a corporate messenger integrated with the package of features requisite for internal and external communication:
- classic messenger features: calls, file exchange, voice messaging;
- simple user-friendly interface adapted for desktop and mobile devices;
- built-in videoconferencing enabling users to schedule video meetings, create links to conferences, and add them to the calendar. Depending on an employee’s needs, a virtual room or instant videoconferences can be created.
A welcome addition is integration with the enterprise employee directory. This helps users to quickly search for colleagues. Users benefit from the absence of need to search for phone numbers or write in various messengers to contact colleagues. All you have to do is type in a last name, and the app will display the list of available contacts.
Special attention was paid to communication security. Data protection is ensured by secure message exchange based on a cryptographic protocol. It comprises three encryption layers, with two layers of elliptic-curve end-to-end encryption. Moreover, the built-in crypto container allows messages to be stored in encrypted form inside the app container, rather than on employees’ smartphones. This means that an employee will be unable to share the organization’s confidential information with a third party.
What’s the bottom line?
The company used to have a complex branching structure. Deploying eXpress at all businesses, partner organizations and subsidiaries at once ensured stable and secure communication within both internal and external processes.
Furthermore, we conducted a survey among the employees to see how often they use the app’s features and how communication speed has changed.
Based on their answers, employees very often use messaging, most often voice messaging and file sharing, but they tend to use videoconferencing less often. These standard features, to which we are all accustomed in public messengers, simplify the work process.
We also determined that most users (59.2%) saw a significant increase in the speed of communication, and accordingly, the speed of decision-making.
eXpress therefore became a solution that not only met the need for easy communication with a familiar interface, but also ensured a high level of communication security.
