4 Awesome Cloud-based Applications Your Small Business Needs

4 Awesome Cloud-based Applications Your Small Business Needs

Small businesses thrive when they have the right tools at their disposal. Having the right tools means having software applications that perform well, and are easy for your team to use.

Design isn’t just how it looks – it’s how it works, too

You can’t always count on software being useful based on how it looks or what it promises to do. Great software design incorporates more than just pleasing aesthetics. It provides a solution through an easy to use, intuitive interface that creates a seamless experience for your team.

Here are 4 awesome, intuitive cloud based applications that will help you and your team be more productive:

1. Workflow management and collaboration with Asana

Keeping your team organized and on track in today’s world requires digital collaboration tools. Asana is one of the best task management tools for teams, and it’s free when you have 15 or fewer team members. The Premium version is just $9.99 per member, per month. They also offer an enterprise package with even more features and customizable options.

Asana provides many unique features, including the ability to turn conversations into actionable tasks. For example, let’s say your team is having a conversation about how to find a replacement for the marketing specialist who just left. When someone suggests posting an ad at the local internet café, you can immediately add a task within the conversation that assigns that duty to someone. Unlike other project management software, you don’t have to click out of the conversation and go find the task section to assign a task. You can also search for overdue tasks to see how well deadlines are being met, and adjust how you assign tasks accordingly.

2. Video conferencing with ClickMeeting

When part of your team works in the office, and the other part works remotely around the world, video conferencing is a great way for everyone to connect in a more personal way. It’s also the best way to host webinars.

You’ve probably tried free video conferencing software or smartphone apps, only to be disappointed with the call quality. That’s to be expected. It takes high quality resources to run a video conferencing platform, so this is one piece of software you shouldn’t hesitate to pay for.

ClickMeeting offers three packages for webinars. The first package is $25 per month for up to 25 attendees. The second package is $35 per month for up to 50 attendees, and the third package starts at $165 per month and supports between 500 and 5,000 attendees.

3. Encrypted file sharing, real-time chat, and digital asset management with Amium

When your team needs to collaborate together on files, you need software that will keep track of everyone’s changes and provide a way to communicate quickly and easily. Amium is a real-time chat and file sync platform that makes collaboration easy and keeps everything in one place.

With Amium, your team can collaborate with clients on large projects while tracking file version history and sharing a large number of digital assets. Documents can also be previewed without being downloaded so you can quickly see what’s being shared. Amium also keeps track of the discussion your team has around each file, making it easier to track client requests and other collaborative ideas.

Amium offers a free plan, which allows you to create two projects and store seven days of file version history with up to 2GB of storage. You can create unlimited collaborations, unlimited chat rooms, use unlimited app integrations, and integrate with Microsoft Office online.

The paid version is just $9 per month, per user and provides unlimited projects, unlimited file version history, and up to 100GB of storage.

4. Ecommerce with Shopify

There’s no reason you should have to pay for a custom ecommerce website and then pay someone to maintain it when you can use Shopify.

Shopify makes creating your ecommerce store affordable and easy to setup and maintain yourself. It’s a hosted solution, so you don’t need to buy hosting and figure out how to set it up. Your shop will look professional, and Shopify will even handle processing payments for you.

All hosted Shopify plans all allow unlimited products and file storage. Shopify LITE costs $9 per month and is specifically designed for Facebook and posting products to your own website or blog. Their hosted plans cost $29 per month, $79 per month, and $299 per month and offer a variety of different features including better reporting, more staff accounts, and a lower payment processing fee for advanced plans.