The Cloud is a big investment for businesses nowadays. It has revolutionised the way that businesses can operate and communicate, and helped level the playing field when it comes to smaller businesses competing against larger competitors in their sector. Sometimes, as a small business, there can be challenges around the fact that your resources are limited. But nowadays, cloud applications are here to help small businesses succeed.
What is a Cloud App
Cloud services can be split into a few different categories. You have Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) and Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS), and then you have Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) which is the category that cloud apps fit into. A cloud app is any piece of software that has been built to be hosted and deployed from the cloud – usually, these apps are subscription based, and all of the data you create in the app remains hosted in the cloud, so you can access your account and data from any device connected to the internet.
Benefits of Cloud Apps
There are many benefits of cloud apps to consider. For one, it makes IT support for your software considerably easier. TechQuarters, an IT support provider London businesses rely on spoke to us and described how they can remotely support their customers when they experience issues with cloud apps. As the apps are hosted in the cloud, IT engineers don’t have to go onto the computer and manually access the app, they can simply do it remotely.
So, what kinds of cloud apps can businesses leverage?
- Evernote
The first cloud app to look at is Evernote. This is a long-time favourite for many people; it is a powerful note-taking app that not only lets you create notes, but attach clippings from web pages, embed videos, create to-do lists, and so much more. The app has a free version, but for the business version, it costs $12 a month.
- RescueTime
This cloud app is a great way to track the time you spend on different apps and webpages. Tracking your time in this way can be useful in order to see how productive you are being at work. There is a business version of this app, which costs $9 a month, which enables you to track time offline, as well as online, and it lets you block certain apps and sites, and it can even give you notifications when you’re spending too much time on a certain website or application.
- Basecamp
In terms of project management, you won’t find a better application than Basecamp. This cloud-based application is highly intuitive, which makes it easy for any user to pick up. It enables you to create projects and organise them effectively. You can add task lists, and invite other users to collaborate on projects you created in the app; you can track progress, attach files and links to tasks, and so much more. In terms of cloud-based project management, it really is worth it.
- QuickBooks Online
For all of a small business’ accounting needs, QuickBooks Online is ideal. This cloud-based service starts at $9.99 a month, which will allow you to create and send invoices, view your account balances, approve estimates, and even integrate your PayPal account with your QuickBooks account. If your business gets bigger and more complex, you can always upgrade to the $19.99 subscription, which will get you many more premium features (such as purchase order management, payment schedule, and more).
- Hubspot
Email automation, social media management, these are just two of the many key digital marketing practices that HubSpot can help you with. It has helped many businesses over the years – for instance, the managed IT services London businesses get from our correspondent, TechQuarters, needs to be top notch – and they themselves use HubSpot. It is one of the most trusted customer relationship management services, and has been around for a long time (so you know that it’s worth it).
