5 Essential Cloud Applications for small business

If you are a startup or a small firm looking to seek the benefits of cloud based applications then read on. The fear of unknown is always there, but the benefits provided by today’s cloud based applications cannot be put down. The following list of must have applications is based on my experience of starting up Injoos and how we leveraged these applications to cut down cost and increase productivity (See “New Way to work” Video)

Business Email: You still cannot do away with the email yet. Using the new social applications you may stop sending emails altogether to your team members, but then you have external customers and vendors to communicate with. Why Google email (Google Apps)? It is the best email provider and can be configured to your business domain and most importantly is Free (The basic version is more than sufficient for a small team). It is based in the cloud and can be configured to any email reader like outlook, Apple Mail or Thunderbird.

Read the Blog “How to configure google email for my business”.

Team Collaboration Application: This is the second must have application and it combines all the tools you need to keep working with your team. Online File store, Blogs, Wikis, Web Conferencing, Micro Blogs, Calendaring, etc;, all in under one umbrella. Think of this as a social intranet for your small business living in the cloud. No more hassles of file access when you travel. Mostly importantly easily capture all your team knowledge in one place. Believe me you will need it! There are no leaders in this space and you can try out Injoos which provides the most comprehensive solution.

CRM: I am not so much of a fan of CRM apps, but if your business already is using one then look at switching to a SAAS provider. SalesForce.com is a leader in this space with Zoho the closest challenger.

Project Management: Again I believe in simple task tracking which we do with Injoos, but if you have to produce detailed Project plans and Gantt charts then Basecamp is what you should be looking at.

Internet Telephone: There is no need to spend on expensive dollars calling your colleagues and customers especially if it is a international call. With Skype you can have a online telephonic chat or video chat depending on your bandwidth. Alternate to Skype is Google Talk and Yahoo Messenger, but I feel Skype has the best voice clarity.

Here is nice video which simplifies the cloud jargons