Nowadays, using a digital application to manage internal corporate communication is no longer an alternative, but a priority. One of the most used tools is Slack, but an alternative could come from the gaming world: can Discord be a valid alternative for corporate communication?
Within a team, communication is one of the factors that most influences success. In any context, the best performing groups are those capable of communicating in a rapid and structured way, coordinating on actions to be done and objectives to be achieved. The lockdown period that has characterized the past few months has made the whole world reflect on how important it is to adapt quickly to changes , highlighting the need to get closer and closer to asynchronous and online modes of interaction . As if that weren’t enough, coordination it gets more and more complicated as the company grows, even if you share the same office. E-mails are sent, messages are exchanged on Telegram or WhatsApp and planning and brainstorming sessions are held on Google Meet, Google Hangouts or Zoom.
In short, communication becomes disordered and difficult to keep under control, especially when the projects are numerous, complex and involve multiple areas. How can this problem be addressed? Well, the answer is quite simple: using a tool that collects all corporate communication in a single platform .
Numerous team communication tools are available on the current market, all sharing the same purpose: to increase business productivity by making it easier for members to compare and simplify the flow of information. Having said that, it is not easy to find an application that is the perfect synthesis of advantages and disadvantages.
The identification of a corporate collaboration tool capable of adapting as a support to smart working , but also useful for effectively organizing work, is strictly connected to the specific needs of the business and to the functions and integrations that the whole team needs.
Many tools, both online and offline, are born with the clear purpose of solving business needs in a rather efficient way. The curious thing, however, is to see how tools, born for a completely different purpose, after years on the market take an unexpected turn, approaching the business world and adapting to disparate needs and not contemplated in the initial phase by the creators.
This is the case of the Discord app , born essentially for gaming and which has now found great acclaim as a team communication tool . This platform was created to help gamers connect, but as it grew, more and more people used it to talk about common interests, creating real communities. It was therefore foreseeable that at some point this tool would be shaped and converted by users also to perform other types of functions, transversal to that originally conceived by its creators.
Slack and the world of gaming
But let’s go in order. In the panorama of messaging and corporate coordination platforms, Slack occupies a primary and relevant position. Active since 2014, this tool was implemented by the core team of Flicker, a photo sharing app, with the aim of coordinating the development of a videogame: Glitch. So Slack, just like Discord, it can be said that it sees its origins in the context of gaming, even if the application is different. The latter, however, did not obtain the hoped-for success, thus leading the work team to rethink the business model and focus entirely on the internal organizational chat. To date, Slack’s fame is enormous: not only does it have more than 3,000,000 users, but it is used by some of the most relevant companies in the world, including eBay, Airbnb and LinkedIn.
So why is Slack so loved?
First of all for its customizable, user-friendly and intuitive interface . Learning to use it is a rather simple undertaking even for those who are not particularly digital addicts. In addition, on Slack you can create conversations with certain team members, divide communication channels into various groups and subgroups based on specific individuals or themes, and receive instant notifications. But the real strong point is another: the integration with external tools . The connection with the main applications aimed at exchanging data and with other tools used in coordinated work allows to improve the work experience increasing the interaction between different services, consolidating and organizing the ever growing flow of data produced by the company.
Google Drive, Dropbox, HubSpot, Box and GitHub are just some of the apps that can be integrated with Slack.
Another aspect to consider is the cost . The price variable is by far one of the most relevant when choosing to use a platform rather than a competitor. Like the vast majority of digital applications, in addition to the paid plans Slack has a free version, however, the latter has several (and in our opinion significant) limitations. The integrations allowed with third party services are a maximum of 10, the messages stored in the log do not exceed 10,000, the storage space for each member is only 5GB and video calls and voice messages are reserved for only two users. If you want to overcome these restrictions, the price starts from 6.25 € per month for each user.
Discord vs Slack: why the former is a viable alternative
We admit it: we’ve been true Slack fans too. We used it to communicate with the developers who collaborate with us remotely , to organize projects and divide the information flow according to the company areas. Yet, during the lockdown we realized some considerable limitations . The lack of voice messages, the increasingly frequent loss of potentially important information and the inability to start a group video call immediately from a chat have led us to search the market for a tool capable of better responding to the needs of our business .
As soon as the search for alternatives began, we came across Discord, a chat platform designed to connect gamer teams, allowing them to get to know each other, coordinate and communicate during online gaming sessions. Although it was born with the aim of responding to a very specific need, today it represents a meeting space for communities of all kinds, from comic book enthusiasts to music band fans.
But is Discord suitable for managing the entire flow of corporate information? Or rather, is there anyone who uses it as a team communication tool? The answer is yes.
In fact, the factor that immediately caught our attention is the wide range of features already offered in its free version. Unlike Slack, your message history is unlimited and your storage doesn’t run out. But the most interesting element is the ability to easily implement a voice conversation or a group video call (up to a maximum of 8 people only with the free plan) without the support of an external service, in our case Google. Meet.
As for the user interface, although the latter is less customizable than Slack’s, Discord presents a remarkable and equally effective UX.
Although apparently these platforms may seem very similar, on a structural level they have a substantial difference: while Slack requires a different login for each single workspace, Discord is organized according to servers , which can in turn be ordered in smaller channels related to topics or specific projects. For example, if a user is part of several virtual workspaces, with Discord he can access each of these from a single interface , without having to do further login or authentication.
As the owner of a private server, a determining factor in our choice to switch from Slack to Discord is the management of permissions. Every day we interface with customers, external developers and service providers and most of the time managing the communication flow becomes a real job for us. Thanks to the intelligent system of permissions offered by Discord, we have created ad hoc channels to facilitate the exchange of information with subjects outside the company, making communication even more immediate without running the risk of giving access to chats or confidential company materials.
Compared to Slack, however, Discord boasts significantly fewer integrations. This restriction is strictly linked to the purposes for which it was created: since it is intended purely for non-institutionalized groups, an immediate connection with a work web app has not been imagined.
The benefits of using Discord
The first benefit that emerged from using Discord concerns the effective role management system. Compared to Slack, the permissions are more powerful and customizable: not only is giving access to the workspace to other people (external or internal to the company) easier, but both the visible channels and the actions granted to them are more controllable from the server owner.
Another aspect that should not be underestimated is the ease with which communities are created and managed . One of the first channels we created within the BitBoss server was the one for the developers we work with. This is not only to make communications related to the projects we manage with them more immediate, but also to share tips, tools and best practices regarding the world of web development and programming languages. Another great value of the platform is the ease with which the communities can be accessed. Thanks to the open servers registered on the platform, we have taken part in different channels of the ecosystem of which our business is part. Some examples? The different communities of the world Laravel, Vue.js and Statamic.
For some time now in BitBoss we have been adopting Discord as a means of corporate communication and especially to communicate with the freelance developers who collaborate with us on the various projects in progress. We found in the application more speed and lightness or greater ease in coordinating projects and interacting with customers and suppliers, but through virtual aperitifs and coffees we rediscovered the pleasure of a chat (not just work) with the whole team .
