The Business Web – How We Use the Web for Business

I thought this post might be useful to some of the small business owners out there who might not be necessarily be up to date on the latest office automation technology. My goal is to find essential business software/services (whether it’s software or Saas) and try to find the best deals possible without sacrificing too much on feature and functionality. I’ll start with a list of what I feel every small business office needs and feel free to comment on my selections. I will summarize each and then provide a link to a more expanded post. This list, not ordered by importance, is work in progress so I will be expanding this over time.

1. CRM Software – I think in this day and age having a CRM system is important. This is the system where you will keep track of all your business contacts, deals, activities, sales, and other so called “front office” information.
2. Project Management – I run a company with a distributed workforce all over the US as well as overseas. Having a project management solution that is easy to use and one that people will actually use is hard to find. I think this is a no brainer as this is the only way to track activities.
3. Email Marketing – We rely quite heavily on email marketing to our prospects and customers. Not having a good solution here can be deadly to your business.
4. Online Collaboration / Desktop Sharing – This is the tool that helps you share your desktop with others. For example, this is useful if you are going thru your finances with your accountant and need to quickly share what’s on your screen.
5. Online Backup – This is a service that backs up all your important files to a server accessible on the Internet. I had a couple of hard drives fail and I think a back up service provide is most likely more reliable than any hard drive (raid or not) can provide.
6. Office Productivity Suit – This is synonymous to Microsoft Office. However, unless you need the more advanced features that Microsoft Office offers. There certainly are less expensive alternatives.
7. Anti-Virus Software – It’s critical that you protect your computer systems. Again, free Anti-virus software is available for this job.
8. PDF Writer/Converter – These days, everyone needs to output their word doc or xls spreadsheet to PDF. Fortunately, there are many free tools out there that will do this.

We will discuss these areas in the weeks as phobulous comes up for air and I have more time to evaluate our options for each.

Filed under: Business Service, Business Software