Restructuring Your Business in the Cloud

Today’s guest post is from Zoe Maldonado. Zoe is a freelance writer and blogger for TechBreach who enjoys writing about all things mobile and electronic and spending time with her very active twin boys.

5 Must Try Web Applications for Your Small Business

Many businesses are finding the value in switching to cloud technology for many of their business tasks. If you’re considering moving some of your business functions into the cloud, there are a number of different applications that you could utilize successfully.

While there are many available options when it comes to online tools for business, I prefer the tools discussed below because of my familiarity and experience with them. However, you will need to decide which tools resonate with your organization and business structure.

What Does “The Cloud” Mean

Cloud computing is Internet based computing platform, where resources, software and information are shared with computers and other devices on-demand over a private or public network like the internet. This shift from traditional software models has steadily been gaining momentum over the last 10 years. With Cloud computing, many headaches are eliminated because the management of hardware and software becomes the responsibility of an experienced third-party vendor. Since the infrastructure is shared, it works much like a utility in that upgrades are automatic and scaling is easy as pie so you only pay for the resources you use.

QuickBooks Online

QuickBooks business accounting software is one of the best cloud applications for accounting and billing purposes. Every business has to keep track of their accounting, and QuickBooks is pretty much the undisputed leader in that category. This particular application is held entirely in the cloud, which allows you to access your information from any internet enabled computer, smartphone, or tablet from anywhere.

Google Apps

Google Apps is another nice set of cloud tools for business. They make it easier for your employees to be productive. With Google Apps you can collaborate on projects and communicate easily with one another. For example, if someone is working on a document and they need to share it with someone else, that other person can access it instantly online and make any necessary changes to it. This is a lot easier than having to attach files to emails and send them back and forth.

Zoho CRM

Zoho CRM is one of the premier customer relationship management platforms out there. It has a lot of features that make it easy to keep track of interactions with customers. It has a Web form that allows you to capture leads from your website and integrate them into your CRM database. Then when you make contact with a customer, you can keep track of your notes, emails, and calls so that it’s easy to determine what part of the sales cycle they are in.

Google Analytics

If you have a business website, it’s always important to keep track of it as well as you can. This requires you to view the web traffic that your site generates on a regular basis. With Google Analytics, you can do exactly that. Google Analytics gives you an easy-to-use format to work with. You can run all kinds of reports and even create your own reports to look at the information that you want to keep track of. You can see who is coming to your site, how long they’re staying there, and what pages they’re visiting along the way. It really helps you see how well you’re doing with your website and capturing sales or contact information.

Dropbox

Dropbox is a cloud-based service that lets you securely share documents across your network from anywhere you have an internet connection. Business documents such as financials, client files, notes, documents, spreadsheets, ideas, meeting notes, and more can be accessed, edited, and shared with your clients, team members, contractors and anyone involved on a project. Just drag and drop any file into Dropbox with a few clicks! You’ll never be left without an important document or spreadsheet again.

Got an idea or blog post you would like to share with my readers? Drop me an email and let’s talk.

image used under CC by Joanna Lee Osborn

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