Making The Cloud Work for You

The cloud can save businesses money in many ways – by eliminating computer hardware, providing scalability in the software, and lowering the electric bill. There is a variety of online services (with free trial periods) that can help you make your business more efficient and allow all of your employees to easily access their files and programs remotely and on their mobile devices from anywhere.

From online fax to finances, businesses have transformed from physical entities, to purely virtual operations and the cloud makes it not only possible, but efficient. Here are just a few services can help your productivity:

1. Organization

In the area of logistics, the Cloud offers a great number of solutions. You may be able to grow your business without the overhead of a personal assistant.

– GoogleCalendar: Calendar
– DropBox: Share large files, storing files, uploading documents
– Carbonite and IDrive: Offer unlimited backup plans at affordable prices and allow you to access your information from mobile devices

2. Communication

If you have a virtual workforce, cloud computing can give you the ability to meet with one or several team members at the same time through online conferencing and video chat, reducing those email chains and associated lag-time.

– Campfire: Offers private chat rooms, through which you can invite clients or employees
– GoogleDocs and ConceptShare: Share or comment on documents
– RingCentral Fax: Provides online fax services, allowing you to send faxes for free from home without a fax machine or disturbing your phone line
– GoogleVoice: Gives low rates for international calls and allots one number for all of your phones

3. Productivity

In the old days, every PC needed software loaded on it. Now, software providers let small businesses set up user groups to access remote software (from almost anywhere) and they do it on a per seat basis which allows for fast growth (or decline!).

– Microsoft 365 lets users access all the favorite Microsoft applications as well as Outlook, Sharepoint and OneNote for around $6-10/user/month.

Check out the top productivity cloud vendors for other cool cloud apps and improve your efficiencies using the cloud.

Credits:

This post is contributed by James Kim. James is a writer for Choosewhat.com, which provides product reviews and test data for business services and products. Choosewhat.com’s goal is to help small companies make informed buying decisions on business solutions that help their business.