They haven’t completely replaced phone calls or email, but communication and collaboration apps are becoming increasingly popular. For workers today, who are in and out of the office, working on the go, with multiple team members, it’s all about convenience and ease of use. Many rely on Slack, Google Hangouts, Box, SharePoint, and other applications to communicate, share files, and collaborate on projects to get their work done in the most efficient manner possible.

For IT teams, there’s an added bonus: Collaboration apps are meant to be easier to manage than local servers. The brand responsible for the app takes care of outages or any other disruption; it ensures that communications are backed up and that the system is secured from data loss. Since the brand specializes in its tool, it will have the resources to ensure that things run smoothly and safely.