Productivity Enhancement Tools in the Cloud

Small Businesses Need Efficiency

• SMBs today are faced with limited budgets, small teams and LOTS of work to do

• Ever find yourself asking “How can I ever get enough done each day to be effective here at my job?”

• Fortunately, many cloud applications have been developed to help you become more productive on a daily basis

Is the Cloud Disruptive?

• Moving to any new application can be a disruptive process– Finding applications that have a winning benefit to

counteract the disruption is key

• If you find the right tools, they can transform your company

Google Apps

• The first office productivity tool is Google Apps– Free web-based tool which

over 3 million businesses to date are using

• Applications include:– Gmail– Docs– Calendar– Contacts– Sites– Chat– Picture sharing (Picasa)

• All apps are stored on the web– No internal storage costs– Excellent online

collaboration tools– Access from any device,

anywhere, at any time

Salesforce.com

• Salesforce.com is a leading CRM tool based on the web – Allows businesses to lower

costs and drive up business benefits

• Recently released Salesforce Chatter– Internal social network to

create a relationship-based experience similar to Facebook

Zoho

• Zoho is another CRM tool which offers a suite of collaboration, productivity and business applications including:– Chat– Docs– Mail– Meetings– Invoices– Marketplace– Reports– Calendar

• Based completely on the web – requires nothing but a browser

QuickBooks Online Edition

• QuickBooks Online allows you to easily create invoices, pay bills and track expenses

• Manage expenses efficiently with

zero storage space required

• Use same security standards as leading banks, so you don’t need to worry about your financial data getting leaked

Evernote

• Evernote is a web-based tool where you can virtually save your ideas– Access it via a mobile device, tablet

or computer– Real-time syncing

• Evernote is especially desirable for bloggers, copywriters and even music artists

Google Apps Marketplace

• Inside the marketplace is a slew of applications, many of which are productivity-focused

• Visit their productivity section where there are 20 apps, including TripIT

MindMeister

• MindMeister is a brainstorming app that acts as an open collaborative mind mapping tool – Can be shared within a team or organization

• Simultaneously work on mind maps with friends and colleagues virtually– See their ideas as they are recorded

• Great tool for teams that work virtually and need to plan strategies, content and workflow ideas, etc.

Protect Your Productivity

• While your data is generally safe from being lost on the web, you cannot ever be too safe

• Having a backup copy of all this data is always a good idea– Don’t risk losing hours worth of work due to one small

mistake

• Backupify currently supports Google Apps backup and plans to backup many of these apps in the future