Based in London, the marketing software platform Opteo has a team made up of passionate advertising professionals, developers, designers and support staff. They build software to help businesses save money and make better Google Ads decisions.
According to a 2022 study, employees spend an average of 18 hours a week in work meetings, which cost approximately £65,000 per year. It also has a significant impact on productivity.
Guillaume Devinat, the CEO of Opteo, decided to implement a new approach. “Working in a purely synchronous way—when people schedule time to work together and connect at the same time—means that meetings not only interrupt workflow, but also become very expensive for the business. It creates a sense of busyness that isn’t as pleasant, calm or productive.”
The Opteo team addressed this issue by transitioning to an asynchronous work model, which does not require all team members to be online simultaneously. They adopted Slack as their primary communication platform, allowing for more flexible and efficient collaboration.
“The number of projects we’re able to tackle at any one moment has increased significantly—two to three times more.”
For example, when someone is on a roll and making headway in their work, they can choose to catch up on everything from a channel with an easy summary tool and be aware of what is required from them to help the team.
But when someone’s input is needed immediately, the team can just hit the huddle button in Slack to start an instant audio or video conversation, bringing the feeling of working side-by-side to a virtual space that lets you collaborate and co-create live.
Devinat says, “My recommendation is to use channels for written communication day-to-day with teams so everyone has the information and context they need, and use huddles when you need a quick chat live to hash things out. Working in this way feels very connected and, in some ways, enables more focus than a fully in-person office environment.”
Devinat attributes Opteo’s significant rise in productivity to asynchronous working. He says the company cut scheduled meetings by 90%, and the number of projects the team tackles at any one moment increased by two to three times: “When you don’t have something like Slack, you’re likely limiting yourself to a certain number of projects, as it’s difficult to keep everybody on the same page.”
Opteo’s time and money spent on meetings have also been substantially reduced. “As CEO,” Devinat says, “it would be normal for me to have two to three big meetings a week with lots of people. And that’s obviously very expensive. Now it could be as little as once a month. It’s become a calmer and more pleasant place to work.”
In addition, Opteo’s use of Slack Connect, which enables different organisations’ Slack instances to be securely connected, has enabled Opteo to work in real-time with customers, from specific projects to product development.
This direct feedback from the customer has improved timeliness and efficiency, created transparency and trust across the business, and fostered a culture of one team.
Coupled with Slack Canvas, it simplifies task management for Opteo, allowing the team to effortlessly track, assign tasks, and manage projects without the sole dependency of clunky trackers. With the correct context, the live project status allows us to resolve challenges quickly.
