Workplace by Facebook recently hosted its first "Transform" event for 2019, a conference designed to bring people together within the Workplace community, and show them how they can communicate, collaborate and connect more effectively with the right unifying tools.
The Transform 2019 event offered attendees a chance to learn from the Workplace by Facebook community, which now totals more than 2 million paid users around the world, offering a chance to hear from numerous companies, including Clarins UK, Telefonica and more. The conference also featured insights from Chief Workplace Officers and leaders introducing pioneering new ways of working. These spokespeople presented the impact that Workplace has already made in their companies and showcased how they anticipate that it will make a significant difference in the years to come too.
I caught up with Geoff Perfect, the Global Sales Director at Workplace by Facebook, to learn as much as I could about the outcomes of the event, and where the collaboration app is heading next.
Your Perception of the Team Collaboration Market Today?
[caption id="attachment_21973" align="alignright" width="190"]
Geoff Perfect[/caption]
The recent Transform event hosted by Workplace by Facebook allowed the company to evaluate the marketplace more carefully and consider the kind of response that audience members are having to collaboration as a new business opportunity. Geoff told me that he thinks that the collaboration space has moved out of "experimental" mode, but it hasn't reached rapid adoption just yet.
"I think we're in the education phase. Big corporations like the Starbucks and Walmart's of the world are helping the market to grow, and they're offering insights into what can be done with collaboration too. Other news like the Slack IPO is also opening people's minds to the fact that there are other ways of collaborating in the workforce today outside of the Microsoft monopoly."
Perfect noted that the Googles and the Apples of the world have proven how ventures can enter the B2B market and turn things on their heads. Collaboration tools can have the same impact, and Workplace by Facebook is just one of the solutions leading the way, with about 2 million users on the platform today. The fact that the Transform event attracted so many high-value speakers and attendees, including Managing Director of Clarins UK, Debbie Lewis, and Director of Digital Comms at Telefonica, Aitor Govenechea, is a testament to the company's growth.
What Collaboration Trends Do You See Among Large Enterprises?
Since Workplace by Facebook has such a valuable overview of the marketplace, I was keen to find out what Geoff thought about the emerging trends in collaboration among large enterprises. He told me that that the disconnected workplace seems to be a common issue for everyone these days, and that there's a whole world of workers out there beyond the internal office.




