Item: monday.com
Rating: 8
Author: Shelly Rescansky

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We use monday.com across two departments at the moment: Marketing and Business Development. Marketing originally brought it on to create a project management platform for open team transparency of workload and creating a repository of completed assets for reporting. We have become more comfortable with the abilities and are working on creating a marketing project request system, and implementing that across the firm to streamline processes, automate workflows and thus, increase work efficiencies. We see great potential for this product across our other operational functions and continue to share that value proposition to other departments. The capabilities make this easy for any company in any industry and is customizable without the complexities of typical customizable tools.

Pros and Cons

Surveys and Forms via the "Forms" function: Creating surveys (anonymous or not) and forms (with or without required fields) for data collection that automatically organizes the inputs in columns that are easy to export to excel.
Automations: You can build in reminders, via text or email, to individuals at any frequency. You can literally build out an entire workflow through automations. While it may take some thought and a little time on the forefront, the efficiencies it builds in over time is quickly made up.
File housing / control: There's a "file" capability that allows you to attach a file to a line item, which helps with the most recent file housed in one place where the current status or updated date column can be notated alongside it. Again, truly customizable to your business need.
Communication: There are many ways to openly communicate and "ping" but you can also build in automated reminders that are customized messages based on the specific project/need. So it's not your typical canned "monday.com reminder, click here for more," it's "-- Kelly needs your feedback on by EOD today. Please update status to "reviewed" when completed." Little things like this go a LONG way when you're targeting a specific audience for a precise need.

File management. They have a files column, which is GREAT, but it'd be great to see upload date of each file and be able to change the file name in monday.com for optimal version control.
Adobe Product integration is limited to FinalCutPro and Illustrator, I believe? It would be ideal for them to roll it out to the entire suite, but I presume that's on the horizon.
The lack of customer / client support at the onset was disappointing. Because we were a five-person team testing the product (makes sense why they didn't assign an account manager to us), it took us a full year to learn the tool in order to value prop it to the firm. We were continually directed to videos and general orientations that often didn't meet our operational need. That being said, there are A LOT of resources ranging from videos to blogs to support the majority of the needs/asks, so we figured it out.
I believe my inabilities are based on the subscription I have so I unfortunately can't complain about monday.com here. They are one of the few organizations I have noticed that know who to partner with and how, and stay on top of how to amplify their product to the next level to stay competitive with the market needs, which is insanely impressive considering its industry-agnostic nature.

Return on Investment

Increased efficiencies (time savings).
Created a functional "hub," centralizing our department's projects.
Reduced administrative burden.

Usability

It allows a "developer-level" customization with an elementary-level user experience. This product truly identifies with its end user/audience to create an inviting platform that's not super intimidating but produces a "wow-level" output.

Support Rating

I'm giving it a 9/10 because I didn't feel this when we bought into the product January 2020. I'm not sure if this is a newer business practice, but it really makes a HUGE difference because I now have a "go to" account representative who is incredible. His name is Nikolas "Niko" Paleologus, and is extremely knowledgable about the product, excited about finding ways to make it work EVEN BETTER than it does already (which is quickly elevating my interest in investing more in higher level memberships and pushing this product to the firm), and is always accessible and willing to help. He gets a 10/10, but the onset of our account in January 2020 lacked that/him, and for that reason, I'm dinging by one point (and literally built out customer supporting being one of the few cons of the product when value propping it to my colleagues - glad I can update that "con" to now be a "pro").

Reliability & Availability

Exceptional performance. Functional features. The product is always building and growing and seems to be receptive to feedback to drive actionable change for optimal user experience. The column options are more than sufficient for our needs. The variety of column offerings really amplify our individualized monday.com experience.

Key Insights

Do you think monday.com delivers good value for the price?

Yes

Are you happy with monday.com's feature set?

Yes

Did monday.com live up to sales and marketing promises?

Yes

Did implementation of monday.com go as expected?

Would you buy monday.com again?

Yes

Likelihood to Recommend

It's a one stop shop kinda product that bridges multiple product offerings and is very user friendly. I don't see any business operation functionally being able to say "this cannot help any need of mine." This is perfect for people who are organization freaks that benefit from efficient processes and seamless workflows. If you thrive on inefficiencies and low production, this isn't for you. It certainly supports/prompts optimal production.

10/10 would recommend monday.com -- Here's why...

Overall Satisfaction with monday.com