Picture this:
You’re leading a peace-keeping mission and simultaneously safeguarding your nation against the enemies. It’s a multi-state effort, that involves an active contribution of your colleagues from different departments, some working next door, and some in remote areas.

As a leader, there is a dire need for you to maintain an active collaboration and real-time data sharing with all the team members. You also need to integrate with third-party contractors who are handling other mission-critical services.

But, you don’t have the right medium to maintain that interaction. You don’t have a secure platform to deliver critical information among your team members. Your mission is hampered through phone calls and static email solutions, and eventually, the lack of tools and effective collaboration process dawns upon you.

But it’s too late, the delay has already caused a ruckus, and your opponents are already a step ahead.

Now, Let’s flip the scenario:

You’re organizing a similar mission with a war-torn nation. You need to have a collaboration with the masses. There are a thousand people who need to exchange information with each other — actively, remotely, and frequently — without having to worry about the security breaches.

And you are already prepared for that!

You have a dedicated application that supports defence collaboration services, allows an unprecedented level of communication and real-time collaboration. You have an end-to-end encrypted tool that offers solutions ranging from instant calling, messaging, video conferencing, workflow sharing, creating virtual workplaces, managing action-logs, exchanging risk registers, and tracking the progress (through insights and analytics) till the very end.

Which scenario would you rather be in? The first when where you’re likely to compromise with the security of your organization and hamper the workflow.

Or
The second, where you have got complete control of real-time data sharing, anytime/anywhere productivity, and cross-agency collaboration?

The answer is so obvious. I am ashamed I even asked that question!

This brings us to a fact:

Collaboration tools are the need-of-the hour for military, defence, and security-conscious government organizations — not only because of the exciting range of features that make them do more in less but also because they are a perfect solution to data and security challenges as well.” For instance, Microsoft office for military personnel offers a variety of features to promote military collaboration in a secure environment.”

Let’s look at the role these applications can play in changing the dimension of modern collaboration among defence forces while meeting today’s security and mobility issues:

Top 5 Defence Organisation requirements that only a dedicated collaboration tool can fulfil:

I. Reliable Communication:

There’s no denying the importance of communication for the smooth running of any organization. One cannot imagine operating a business without a source of communication. It is vital for any business owner, and when it comes to military forces, it is indispensable.

Real-time communication or miscommunication between the members can make or break a mission. From the alerts carrying orders to the interaction with field personnel to audio/video link to an enemy or strategist, real-time communication can change the game for them.

Despite Communication being the most critical factors, Military force leaders and organisations find it challenging to provide their team members with an appropriate collaboration and communication services. Because of the differing characteristics and needs of these organizations, they cannot communicate with a standard industry template.

Military teams need special tools that can handle military messaging without compromising security and data sensitivity issues. Military messaging tools help information flowing within teams for electronic communication across different systems and between nations. These tools ensure messaging data is compliant with international standards and encrypted to reduce the chances of security breaches.

1. Mobility

Commanders and Leaders: Access information anytime, anyplace, and through different devices, and work from remote areas without the need for a conventional office premise.
Staff and Analysts: Seamlessly collaborate with the commanders, headquarters, and staff from the upper or lower hierarchical structure.
Infantry Soldiers: Communicate anytime, from anywhere, and exchange alerts
Administrative Staff and Field Personnel: Deliver field related communications and real-time data to mobile personnel.

2. Virtual Meetings:

Commanders and Leaders: Force leaders and commanders require constant access to real-time data/information and frequent interaction with team members to make an informed decision.
Staff and Analysts: Staffs and analysts working at different levels rely on video conferences to coordinate and engage an automated translation of responsibilities.
Infantry Soldiers: Join conferences and meetings hosted by their leaders from remote locations.
Administrative Staff and Field Personnel: Partake in role-specific training sessions, which reduces the need for instructors to travel.

II. Real-Time Collaboration to Support Mission Objectives:

The top priority for Military and Defense personnel is to support the mission objectives by staying informed and making informed decisions.

Such organizations and their associates need to grasp the situational context, understand the scenario quickly, respond rapidly, and pass the decisions to others. The situation can either be a regular conflict, threat to the nation’s safety, or a major disaster, but the approach is usually the same.

Not only do these organizations generate and analyze huge amounts of data but they also communicate speedily with experts and counterparts to aid resolution of problem or project at hand.

Equally important is the need to achieve the goals from anywhere, at any time, and through encrypted, highly-secure platforms. Here’s how a security-dedicated collaboration tool can ensure reliable collaboration across different roles and hierarchical structures of a Military organization:

3.Secure Collaboration:
Commanders and Leaders: Agencies working for Defense and Military forces do not work individually. One decision originating from Department A could affect the dimension in Department Z. With a thorough collaboration between leaders, such errors can be avoided.
Staff and Analysts: Team members working at different levels can work simultaneously on a single project, share documents, and make edit suggestions from anywhere and on any device.
Administrative Staff and Field Personnel: Have access to a role-based portal and get real-time information.

4.Finding Experts
Commanders and Leaders: Find the expert for making a rapid and quick decision, and get questions from the staff and field personnel and give an immediate answer.
Staff and Analysts: Reduce the decision-making time by reaching the experts through real-time exchange of data and media and other sensitive files.
Infantry Soldiers: Find the expert for resolving an immediate issue.
Administrative Staff and Field Personnel: Find the seniors for resolving an issue related to logistics and equipment.

III. Business Intelligence:

Insights and analytics features can enable defence and security & mission-conscious organizations to mitigate threats on time and enable a rapid decision-making protocol.

Insights generated from real-time data can enable such organizations to take up-to-the-hour actions and up-to-the-minute strategies. It also helps get an accurate view of the impending situation, understand the status and capacity of allied forces, and plan according to their exact locations.

Here’s how Microsoft office for the military, a security-dedicated collaboration tool can ensure Insights & Analytics sharing across different roles and hierarchical structures of a Military organization:

Commanders and Leaders: Create a real-time view of tactical data and share it across the command structure in a highly secure portal. Get insights into economic and political data.
Staff and Analysts: Analyse received information and share the operational, intelligence, and logistical insights to make more informed decisions.
Infantry Soldiers: Understand the strategy and be a part of the planning process.
Administrative Staff and Field Personnel: Use the dashboard for visualizing the level of supplies needed for forces, and make better and more informed logistics and purchasing decisions.

IV. Security and Compliance:

One of the most important factors to be considered while choosing a ‘Defence team collaboration application’ is data security and privacy. This is something a regular chat application cannot provide.

Robust instant messaging capabilities like DISA DCS provide security and compliance with the ability to share content, provide collaboration, and playback capabilities. Through DCS web conferencing, users can communicate securely using voice and video and have the ability to share documents, PowerPoint slides, photographs and spreadsheets in different formats. The Solution addresses security concerns unique to defence agencies within a private and dedicated cloud environment. A security-dedicated collaboration tool allows encrypted data sharing across different roles and hierarchical structures of a Military organization:

Commanders and Leaders: Make sure that sensitive and confidential data is protected over the cloud and across the devices.
Staff and Analysts: Securely receive confidential information, reports, and update it via extranet and intranet applications to help other members be better-informed and control the decisions.
Infantry Soldiers: Make secure connections with other military sources and agents or cloud resources
Administrative Staff and Field Personnel: Securely exchange field reports and their analyses to the Commanders and leaders.

V. Tech-Enabled Platform:
Defence organization is in dire need of a tech-enabled communication and collaboration platform which simplifies task management reduces cost, improves services, and simultaneously provides transparency to work across different departments and agencies.

To achieve Military missions and, maintain collaboration at sea, support defence goals in today’s fast-changing world, defence agencies and all their partners must work together, securely, and over a tech-enabled platform. Today’s high tech collaboration tools offer all of these features at a lightning speed and across multiple devices while also delivering the highest levels of security standards. Some of the features only a tech-enabled tool can provide are:

Live-Location Tracking: With live-location tracking, team leaders and members can always create up-to-the-minute strategies and take up-to-the-hour actions.

Real-Time Desktop/Screen Sharing: Faster and real-time collaboration. Defence forces can share the contents of their screen with another or multiple devices, and show colleagues or vendors presentations, media, documents, or videos on their device, without having to send any file to them. This is a lifesaver for defence and military teams because there are a lot of confidential files that cannot be sent over and only shown to the teams.

Large Storage for unhindered communication: Since the teams are massive and have a hundred of topics to communicate about, a collaboration tool offering large storage is appropriate for unhindered communication.

Crystal-Clear Audio calling and Messaging:

Technologies like AI are being included in collaboration tools to make communication easier and simpler than ever.

Confidentially Chat:

Understanding the need for privacy for an organization, software vendors are focused on providing a confidential, end-to-end encrypted platform for the confidential and data-sensitive exchange of information.

Troop Messenger provides collaboration solutions that meet military objectives:

Today various platforms offer users to communicate virtually and create a workspace for team members working remotely. On these platforms, workers/employers can chat online, prepare presentations, create documents, hold conferences, and make calls — all through one interface.

Finding a Suitable office chat application for business is easy because they are sufficient options to choose from. But when it comes to choosing communication and collaboration for a military/defence team, the toughest part is finding a tool that is dedicated to meeting military objectives i.e it meets the unique challenge of protecting critical data without compromising with a real-time defence collaboration features.

With Troop Messenger, defence forces can get both Security and Feature level Benefits.

Security-Level Benefits offered by Troop Messenger:

1. Data encryption while at rest and transit
2. Mitigation of data theft risk
3. ‘Burnout Window’ for a confidential chat
4. Multi-layered admin privileges
5. Multi-layered data security

Feature-Level Benefits offered by Troop Messenger:

1. Designed for private networks
2. Live-Location tracking
3. Multi-factor authentication access (FingerPrint and Passcode)
4. Real-time defense collaboration services
5. Surveillance features for close monitoring of communication
6. Efficient with low latency satellite communication

11 — Ways to elaborate defense scenarios with Troop Messenger (In real-time):

Troop-Messenger, as a leading defence collaboration tool is dedicated to elaborating defence communications with features tailor-made for hierarchical collaboration, critical conversations, informed investigations, and training and development.
This team communication app for defence communications has been designed considering all aspects of productivity and collaboration challenges faced by commanders, soldiers, and military organizations around the world.
Here’s how defence scenarios can be elaborated with Troop Messenger, in real-time:


1. Hierarchical communication & collaboration: Users can communicate and report to higher authorities of different cadres right within a single interface.

2. Video Conferences with desktop screen sharing: Real-time meetings with options like screen sharing and integration of third-party applications.

3. Dedicated War Rooms: React promptly and find help from experts during a sudden and major outbreak. Create a shared workspace for understanding the redefined priorities.

4. Training and Development: Train junior cadres and receive training online through chat groups, shared workspace, and conferences.

5. Informed Investigations: Real-time access to prompt decisions on all the investigations you’ve been handling.

6. Real-Time Location Tracking: Live track your troops on a mission with Troop Messenger, get to know their location and send/receive prompt updates.

7. Secure & Encrypted File Sharing: Army-Safe, highly-secured, multi-factor encrypted file sharing.

8. Designed to fit All Network Type: Troop Messenger is designed to fit network of all types, including low and medium bandwidth.

9. Compliance Benefits: Being security-conscious, TM ensures complete I. Reliable Communication: security of entire shared and stored data with its GDPR compliance.

10. Data Ownership: Admins are the owner of all data and message exchanges and responsible for managing data space with collaborative or single-point ownership.

11. Hide and Seek Features: Enable and Disable features depending on the need-of-the-minute and considering what you feel secure/insecure about.

The Future Looks Promising!

Continuously evolving technology has changed the way businesses function and interact. Collaboration tools have made enormous changes for business, and now with dedicated platforms like Troop Messenger, there’s more scope to increase military collaboration and productivity in real-time.

This change is most likely to allow military forces and defense teams to create workspaces that allow faster interactions around projects and have meaningful descriptors in a more secure way.

Troop-Messenger is dedicated to elaborating defense communications with features tailor-made for hierarchical collaboration, critical conversations, informed investigations, and training and development.

Originally published at Troop Messenger.