Inkling, the leader in frontline workforce enablement, recently introduced Inkling Collaboration, a new product that combines communications, task management, and data analytics into a unified platform for retail operations. With Inkling Collaboration, retailers can achieve superior store performance by connecting the entire workforce together — putting frontline employees in touch with the people and resources they need to get work done while giving operations leaders visibility into what is happening in the field.

Traditional task management software focuses only on top-down command and compliance while enterprise social platforms promote sharing and connections, but are divorced from day-to-day operations. Inkling Collaboration allows employees to share and access information when and where they need, specifically to support in-store execution.

Users interact with the platform through a web interface and a mobile app. At headquarters, operations leaders use the web interface to communicate with all levels of the field hierarchy and gain real-time visibility into performance across store locations, which closes the loop and helps them make data-driven decisions.

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With the mobile app, store teams reduce the time they currently waste in the back office searching for information across email, text messages and the company’s intranet. They can find prioritized task lists, view relevant communications filtered for their role or store, message peers to tap into their collective knowledge and share real-time progress updates, including photos from their stores.

The product was co-developed with multiple retailers, including Vera Bradley and Warby Parker, whose teams use Inkling Collaboration to work better together and execute on projects like floor resets, visual merchandising updates, and seasonal promotions.

Early adopters of Inkling Collaboration said that they have been able to streamline store operations through quicker and seamless communication while the field is able to share best practices in real time, get answers to questions from each other, and nimbly react to the needs of the business.

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