Speed and efficiency are necessary ingredients in running a business. You need tools that will help you fast track your operations effectively, sort out your internal structure, keep up with the demands of your clientele, compete well in your industry, and protect your venture from possible threats.
Advanced technology in this smartphone age has an enormous selection of applications that can bring your business up-to-speed and efficiently like a well-oiled machine. It has made offices go paperless and enable remote transactions to happen in real time. There is a software for every aspect of your business that can systematise your processes and aid you to cut on time, effort and resources. The basic ones are office suite, security suite and e-mail service.
What are the various areas in your venture where you can use software to help you manage your business? If you have a limited budget, there are free software but may not have the full capacity you need. Otherwise, you can invest in software that can best serve your business requirements. You can look into these few examples and explore other resources available out there.
Accounting, budget and invoicing
Keeping tabs of your income and expenses is one of the trickiest parts of a business. You can be on top of your cash flow when you have the proper financial system in place where you can accurately record your numbers and generate reports.
Examples: Xero, Quickbooks, Wave, Freshbooks, Sage 50c, Zoho
Backup and Recovery
Data and information are vital to your venture. Thus, there is a need to protect them to avoid losing them entirely. Choose the most suitable software that has the capacity that can match your company’s requirements.
Examples: CloudBerry, EaseUS, Nakivo, Wondershare, Carbonite
Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
Acquiring, engaging and retaining clients, whether it’s a B2B or B2C company, are necessary to generate sales and profit.
Examples: Zoho, Salesforce, HubSpot, Bitrix24, Pipedrive
Database
Organising your client list, business contacts, and other information is a good way to record and keep information. Find a software where you can easily draw out the kind of report you need, such as the demographics of your customers or spending habits.
Examples: Microsoft Access, Oracle Database Cloud Service, TeamDesk, MySQL, SAP Sybase ASE, Microsoft SQL Server
E-commerce
The rise of online transactions has become a common reality nowadays. E-commerce has made things faster and easier for customers without them having to leave their homes or offices.
Examples: Shopify, BigCommerce, Wix, Weebly, Volusion
E-mail marketing
E-mail still generates a huge return on investment (ROI) and an effective way of engaging customers. But if you have a huge list and need to send e-mails regularly, a marketing tool that can do that in a single click is most helpful. Thankfully, there are now sophisticated applications that can do that.
Examples: MailChimp, Constant Contact, ActiveCampaign, SendinBlue
File storage and document sharing
Organisations turn to cloud storage as a business solution for storing and sharing huge files. With file storage and document sharing software, it is efficient to operate if you have offices or team members working in various locations.
Examples: Google Drive, Dropbox, Sharefile, Apple iCloud, SharePoint, Slack, Samepage
Project Management
Implementing and overseeing a project can be a tedious process. But you can ease your worries if you have software that can easily track the project, allow team collaboration, minimise errors and generate reports.
Examples: Slack, Bitrix24, Samepage, Confluence, Wrike, Trello, Zoho Projects
Task Manager
When you are overseeing a team, it is good to manage their tasks and deliverables through software that can help organise the workflow.
Examples: Monday.com, Wrike, Evernote, Smartsheet, Asana, Quire
Time tracking
Professionals, freelancers, contractors and companies with work-from-home staff rely on time tracking software to charge bill hours or monitor workload and output.
Examples: Hubstaff, Time Doctor, Tsheets, Bitrix24, Zoho People, Timely
Thanks to technology, it is easy to connect and work with your team regardless of time and distance. Software applications can keep you on the same page and reduce mistakes. If you have a good command of every aspect of your business, you can determine the software that can best fit your needs and help you cut on time and budget. Find one that can perform two or more functions to make it economical, timesaving and proficient for your organisation.