Facebook has taken another step into the global enterprise world with its new communications tool called Workplace. The platform is ad-free and is available only to businesses, nonprofits, and other organizations. Businesses are able to sign up as an organization and utilize the platform by paying a monthly fee per user while nonprofits and educational institutions have access to it for free. So what does this tool bring to your business and how can you benefit from it?
The greatness of Facebook
Workplace offers businesses the basic infrastructure, including the regular newsfeed, creating and sharing in Groups or via chat, and features such as Live, Reactions, Search, and Trending posts, all on a sleek grey background instead of the default blue. Workplace has been created with the goal of further breaking down geographic barriers by enabling communication with colleagues across the globe, the ability to host virtual brainstorm sessions in a Group, and broadcast presentations on Facebook Live.
Collaboration is encouraged, and with the introduction of Multi-Company Groups, your employees can work together with different organizations in a safe and secure way. A dashboard is also available with Workplace that provides analytics and identity providers making it easy for companies to integrate it with their IT systems.
A familiar face(book) disrupting the enterprise software market
When taking a look at other competitors already in this market, the main one that comes to mind is Slack. A messaging and group call service, Slack costs $8 per month per user for the standard version (higher price for the second tier) and is currently working on an enterprise version. Slack is one of the many communication tools that we at H&C Inc. utilize, as it’s an effective way to keep in contact with one another when physical proximity is an issue.
Workplace is looking to disrupt the pricing tiers currently in place in this market and is introducing a one-size-fits-all pricing system. Businesses will be charged $3 per user per month for the first 1,000 users, and between 1,001-10,000 the price per user is reduced to $2 (with $1 being charged for any MAUs after 10,000).
Facebook is already the dominant social media platform for billions of consumers on a daily basis, along with businesses and digital advertising it’s typically seen as the place to be in the digital world. What Workplace means for the business world, only time will tell, but one thing’s for sure, Facebook is coming into the enterprise software market with an already impressive CV.