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Five Free Tools that improve my Productivity and Performance Everyday – Happy in the Now

Five Free Tools that improve my Productivity and Performance Everyday – Happy in the Now

by | Jun 10, 2021 | Blogging, Business, Business Operations, Life, Managing Yourself, Performance, Productivity

One of the greatest and simplest tools for learning more and growing is doing more – said Washington Irving.  And doing more with less of everything (time and resources) just makes this journey more interesting. Delve into the online world for any area – be it collaboration, time management, social media – and there are so amazing tools available that can help improve your business productivity as an organization or as an individual. After a few trial and error cycles, there are a few tools/apps that I have come to depend on extensively over the last year, after I went solo, which go a long way in helping me save time and organize my work-life better. I have meant to write this post for some time now as a “thank you” to all the smart creators who not only build great products but also give access and support for basic versions in the “freemium” model. I would also love to get your inputs on the tools that you have found useful and cannot do without on a day-to-day basis.

Here are my five favorite desk-top tools that increase my productivity, reduce stress and are fun and easy to use:

Productivity Tool #1: Evernote – this is my virtual notebook, I carry it with me across the four or five devices that I do my work on every day.  I use it just like I would a notebook – to-do lists, meeting minutes, blog ideas, thoughts that need further thought…. I use the web clipper extension to save articles, pdfs, audio while browsing to come back to later. I have created different notebooks in Evernote to organize my data into research, to-dos, posts from my favorite writers (have one for Seth Godin for example). Using Ifttt, I have also created a menu that allows my tweets to be archived into my Evernote through Buffer – sounds complicated but took me 3-4 clicks to get that in place. As Evernote team proclaims, it really does help me remember everything, capture anything, access anywhere and find things fast!

Need more reasons why you need Evernote? Read http://lifehacker.com/5964285/whats-all-the-fuss-about-evernote-why-do-people-use-it?

Productivity Tool #2: Buffer – I am fairly active on Twitter and people ask me where I find the time to tweet all the time there. My secret is Buffer – it allows me to store my tweets and schedule them to be tweeted at different times of the day. So for one hour daily, I browse, read and then buffer my “finds” and thoughts of the day through their Chrome extension and voila – I am all set for the day. I have used buffer over the past year and they have made the product better and better and now offer some nifty analytical stats to help grow my online brand and influence. I remember I had some questions in the beginning (October 2011) and wrote them a mail – and Leo Widrich, the co-founder responded with a detailed explanation within an hour. And they still do that even now – they wowed me through their support and I remain a loyal user and benefit from buffer every day.  They also allow buffering for Facebook, LinkedIn etc and for multiple accounts.

Think Buffer is not for you? Here are some nifty secret hacks and lesser known ways to use Buffer from the team: http://blog.bufferapp.com/top-hidden-buffer-hacks-features-social-sharing?

Productivity Tool #3: Dropbox – I remember the days when you needed ftp to upload and download files to share –  sheer torture. Compare that to what Dropbox offers – it truly is Sharing simplified. Multiple clients, multiple devices, multiple locations, multiple file types – no problem, everything in sync. My files are always available for me (and secure). I have created different folders for clients where I am not on their enterprise network and given them access. A boon for remote workers like me, it helps me to share my work with my customers in a secure way (Dropbox has a great security system). I also use this for my business outsourcing and cloud backup for all my documents in one place – a legal folder, a finance folder, a travel folder and a collaterals folder.

There is a lot that you can do with Dropbox – http://lifehacker.com/5933884/top-10-clever-uses-for-dropbox

Productivity Tool #4: Skype  – At CeBIT, Microsoft COO Kevin Turner revealed that 33% of the world’s voice calls happen on Skype now. Skype is a favorite not just for the money I save for international client calls but for its free screen sharing feature. It allows me to walk through proposals and presentations for my clients, collaborate and work on documents together or hold team review sessions. Group sharing is not free but it is total value for money if you need to work with teams across multiple locations. I can always be available for my clients and team through Skype messaging on all my devices. I also use Microsoft OCS/Lync for screen sharing but have found Skype voice and video quality superior.

More tips on getting the best out of Skype here: http://www.businessproductivity.com/how-to-save-money-using-skype/

Productivity Tool #5: Google Chrome – I am still undecided whether Google is a productivity saver or killer for me. Every time I get into Google, I lose track of time – and sink into the Google ocean. But I don’t dare provoke the Google gods (after all, I owe the growing popularity of this blog to them) so I got to list them here. Google Chrome has changed the way I browse – I find it far more superior to Internet Explorer. The reason I list this as a tool that improves my productivity (apart from the simplicity and speed) is because of its easy sync-ability (I can carry my browser with my customizations across devices), extensions (like Buffer and Evernote) and apps (go search google chrome productivity apps – there are tons and you could fall in love with a couple).

There are lots more that you can do with Google:  10 great Google tools you need in your business workflow – http://www.continu-it.com/google-productivity-tools-small-business/

Bonus Productivity Tool:  Wordpress.com of course – it is that simple and easy that even I could become a blogger.

Anything you can do needs to be done, so pick up the tool of your choice and get started ~ Ben Linder

Have you used these tools? Have you used them any differently? Which desktop tools do you use every day to improve your productivity? I would love to hear back and learn from you

Pic Courtesy : http://www.flickr.com/photos/markop/1441643371/

Business Operations Performance Challenges – Five Barriers to Operational Excellence

Business Operations Performance Challenges – Five Barriers to Operational Excellence

by | Mar 8, 2021 | Business, Business Operations, Leadership, Management, Performance, Productivity

~A company can seize extra-ordinary opportunities only if it is very good at the ordinary operations. – Marcel Telles~

Top-line (Revenue) and bottom-line (Profit) growth are the two priorities that consistently show up in all reports on 2012 business trends. So, how do you ensure that your profits are growing while staying focused on achieving revenue growth? This is where excellence in Business Operations  becomes critical. Operational Excellence is a philosophy of leadership, teamwork and problem solving resulting in continuous improvement throughout the organization by focusing on the needs of the customer, empowering employees, and optimizing existing activities in the process (From Wiki). When people, processes and systems in a business are operating at 100% efficiency and productivity, excellence becomes a given and business goals and priorities no longer remain a wish-list.

In an ideal world, this should be an easy to achieve state – after all why would anyone not want their organization to succeed or why would systems and process not work at 100% efficiency?   I have written about how Business Operations can drive strategy to implementation in earlier posts. Today’s post is focused on the barriers within the organization that limit companies from achieving operational excellence:

Barrier # 1 – Organizational Silos (or Lack of Collaboration): Continuous improvement can only occur and be sustainable if there is a well-coordinated exercise that combines discrete steps into a combined effort. This is very difficult to do if each function in an organization acts independently and does not take into account how and where other functions can contribute to their improvement plans. Duplicate efforts, battles for credit and “left hand does not know what right hand is doing” scenarios become common-place leading to confusion and counterproductive results. If only everyone could sit together and collaborate to build and act on one plan that has a common goal and clear accountability for the steps necessary to achieve that, operational strategies would be so much easier to execute.

Barrier # 2 – Lack of Granular Information: As Sir Arthur C, Clarke said, it is vital to remember that information — in the sense of raw data — is not knowledge, that knowledge is not wisdom, and that wisdom is not foresight. But information is the first essential step to all of these. Financial systems crunch revenues and costs into categories that work well for financial reporting but are not granular enough for effective operations management. Not knowing what you don’t know is a big barrier to do any kind of realistic performance management. Multiple data sources and non-transparency in the sharing of information lead to conflicting information and thus to incorrect planning.  A year-long data and knowledge management strategy is a must for the successful creation of any plan that depends on trends and analysis.

“Few, if any, forces in human affairs are as powerful as shared vision. – Peter Senge”

Barrier #3 – Not enough Senior Management Commitment and Buy –In: This is one area that needs the full support of senior management in terms of consistency in direction setting and the will to enforce the much needed discipline. The functions are usually not well-aligned to the overall business goals – for example, sales runs after revenue growth and does not care about profitable growth, finance pushes for bottom-line  at the cost of top line improvement, delivery gives meeting milestones priority over costs. The message from the powers above on the business priorities needs to be loud and clear and consistent throughout the organization to create a culture where responsibility for performance is pervasive, accountable, and aligned.

Barrier #4 – Poor Planning for Success: Flawed processes for the basic building blocks of planning, budgeting and forecasting throws the entire year out of balance. Too often, these processes are executed in a top-down manner with no tying-in of the strategic goals to the execution steps. People lose focus and direction when they can’t envisage exactly how they are contributing to the high level goals. Whether it be an annual or a quarterly exercise, clear guidelines for planning and execution of the plans goes a long way to ensure that you retain sufficient control over where and how operations needs to focus on during the period to meet the business goals.

Barrier #5 – Outdated Systems and Technology: Legacy performance management systems and spreadsheet-based processes bog down managers in endless detail and eat up large amounts of their time trying to shuffle between systems and sheets and integrate the output of multiple systems. They spend 80% of time getting the systems to work for them and 20% of time on actually executing on the information (Pareto at work again). This is a huge pain point, and one that champions of business performance management (BPM) initiatives often target first. Getting your technology updated to best support your business objectives is a good investment and worth every penny in the long run – as it frees up your resources to spend more time on analysis and execution.

That said, these barriers are not ones that cannot be overcome with a little bit of focus and a lot of effort. With the right tools in place supported by smart people, realistic planning, and the desire to catalyze positive change across the organization, it is indeed possible to make significant improvements to accelerate the journey towards operational excellence.

I would love to hear back from you on your experiences with performance initiatives? What worked and what did not? What were the barriers that you faced in implementing operational strategies?

Why is Feedback Important?

Why is Feedback Important?

by | Jul 13, 2017 | Business Operations, Communication, Management, Performance

The world that we inhabit today, is characterized most frequently by the relationship between consumers and service providers. The reason being, a majority of our actions are defined by either consumption or provision of services. We could be at the receiving end or at the end of delivery, whether directly or indirectly. Regardless, it is a present continuous action. Starting from the Ubers we ride in, to the food we eat at restaurants, to the ever so frequently used online shopping and delivery services, or even the work that we do at our respective workplaces every day – there is one common thread binding all of this, which is the action of providing and receiving services.If services are such a crucial part of our everyday lives, why then do we take the one mechanism in place which ensures its smooth and efficient delivery for granted? Namely, feedback.

Its importance cannot be stressed enough. One might dismiss the importance of feedback by saying, “what’s the use, I am not going to be taken seriously”. Or, “oh it doesn’t matter, (s)he doesn’t really know what they’re speaking about”, if we’re receiving feedback.

However that is no longer the case. Why? Because of the stiff competition between the service providers of the same services. The one thing that sets them apart is how valuable they consider feedback and incorporate the same into their services. Which is why feedback in the world of services today is very relevant and important. And when we say services, we don’t just mean the large-scale services, we mean just any kind of service – even the kind that you deliver every day at work.

What are some other ways in which feedback is crucial? Have a look –

  1. You get a sense of direction and purpose

    It is only with appropriate feedback or constructive criticism that you realize how much progress you’re making in what you’re doing. Proper, articulate feedback helps you understand how far you’ve come, and how much further you see yourself going. You realize what’s working and what’s not, and it spurs you to think of ways to take yourself closer to what you envision as your purpose.

  2. It inhibits stagnation

    Without constructive criticism and feedback, it is easy to develop a sense of complacency. You keep doing things in a fixed manner without knowing if you’re really moving closer to your objective and goals. While you may not necessarily get worse at what you’re doing, it won’t be possible to get any better either. Having a system of feedback and incorporating the same into your work gets rid of the otherwise inevitable stagnation.

  3. It fosters growth and evolution

    With feedback, you understand which direction you need to push harder in. It also makes you realize if you need to change your approach and adapt to new environments. That is exactly how you learn and evolve as individuals and not surprisingly, even as businesses/ services. It helps you realize if the work that you’re doing is adding value in any way, and if it isn’t how do you change your game plan to evolve.

  4. A sense of fulfillment

    Feedback doesn’t necessarily have to be just negative. It can also be positive. In fact, every time you appreciate a particular service, let them know why you liked it. Remember that you would feel valued as well, if someone told you that you were doing a good job. It goes without saying that getting positive feedback for your work is a very motivating and fulfilling feeling. It cements your sense of purpose and gives you confidence to forge ahead in the direction you have imagined.

The process of giving and receiving feedback is not easy, and is a matter of responsibility at both ends of the spectrum.

Very often, we are quick to deliver feedback in what one may call “absolute” terms, without really considering our thoughts carefully. Karen Naumann in her article on why feedback is important makes a very valid point when she speaks about how it is important to be “professional” and “kind” while delivering feedback –

“So, before we give someone feedback, we really need to check our own motives and current mood whether we feel stressed, annoyed, jealous, afraid, or simply have antipathy towards the other person. And then it is on us to really look at the performance of the other person professionally and kindly, with the goal of helping them unlock their greatest potential.

On the flip side however, that’s also exactly why giving and receiving feedback is not easy for any of us, whether it is positive or “negative” nature. It really does require a great amount of one of our most difficult lifelong tasks called self-reflection, as well as humbleness and openness to different opinions and thoughts on the giver’s and receiver’s end.”

What is your opinion on how important feedback is? How are the processes of giving and receiving feedback different? Want the world of work to be able to learn through your experience? Let us know about your thoughts right here!

Top Recruitment Quotes on How Recruiting Drives Business Success

Top Recruitment Quotes on How Recruiting Drives Business Success

by | Jan 18, 2016 | Business, Business Operations, Career, Recruitment, Startups, World of Work

The foundation of every organization is based on the nature of people that are hired to run it. We believe that most people don’t realise how important the job of a recruiter is and the value that a good recruiter brings to the table. Most recruiters themselves, lost in the busyness of day to day battles for finding the best talent on time for their companies, do tend to forget how much business depends on their success and how important what they do is to the business strategy. For all those who think being a candidate is tough, spend a day in the shoes of a recruiter and you’ll know how much pressure the person interviewing you might be in, and what it is like under the supposedly calm exterior of a recruiter.

We thought it would be a great idea to reinforce the importance of recruiting and recruiters in your minds by taking the help of some very smart and wise people over time whose words still ring true in the World of Work. Here are the top recruitment quotes that we believe best reflect the strategic importance of recruiting and why it is a business-critical function:

  1. “If you pick the right people and give them the opportunity to spread their wings and put compensation as a carrier behind it, you almost don’t have to manage them.” Jack Welch

  1. “Some people can do one thing magnificently, like Michelangelo, and others make things like semiconductors or build 747 airplanes — that type of work requires legions of people. In order to do things well, that can’t be done by one person, you must find extraordinary people.” Steve Jobs

  1. “Since we do not take a man on his past history, we do not refuse him because of his past history. I never met a man who was thoroughly bad. There is always some good in him if he gets a chance.” Henry Ford

  1. “For no matter what we achieve, if we don’t spend the vast majority of our time with people we love and respect, we cannot possibly have a great life. But if we spend the vast majority of our time with people we love and respect – people we really enjoy being on the bus with and who will never disappoint us – then we will almost certainly have a great life, no matter where the bus goes. The people we interviewed from the good-to-great companies clearly loved what they did, largely because they loved who they did it with.” Jim Collins

  1. If you think hiring professionals is expensive, try hiring amateurs.” Anonymous

  1. “If you pay peanuts, you get monkeys.” Chinese Proverb

  1. “If you can hire people whose passion intersects with the job, they won’t require any supervision at all. They will manage themselves better than anyone could ever manage them. Their fire comes from within, not from without. Their motivation is internal, not external.” Stephen Covey

  1. “Somebody once said that in looking for people to hire, you look for three qualities: integrity, intelligence, and energy. And if you don’t have the first, the other two will kill you. You think about it; it’s true. If you hire somebody without [integrity], you really want them to be dumb and lazy.” Warren Buffet

  1. “Never hire someone who knows less than you do about what he’s hired to do.” Malcolm Forbes

  1. “When hiring key employees, there are only two qualities to look for: judgement and taste. Almost everything else can be bought by the yard.” John W Gardner

  1. “You can have the best strategy and the best building in the world, but if you don’t have the hearts and minds of the people who work with you, none of it comes to life.” Renee West

  1. “I hire people brighter than me and then I get out of their way.” Lee Iacocca

  1. “You can’t teach employees to smile. They have to smile before you hire them.” Arte Nathan

  1. “If each of us hires people who are smaller than we are, we shall become a company of dwarfs. But if each of us hires people who are bigger than we are, we shall become a company of giants.” David Ogilvy

  1. “If you hire only those people you understand, the company will never get people better than you are. Always remember that you often find outstanding people among those you don’t particularly like.” Soichiro Honda

Recruitment is both an art and a science. And for all those who are in the recruitment profession, be very proud of what you do – you change people’s lives, you help build companies, and you keep the country’s economy running.  What can be a higher calling than this ? And for all those who are not into recruitment, we hope that this post will help increase your respect for recruiters and appreciate their work more. We encourage you to go thank a recruiter today 🙂

Which is your favorite among the top recruitment quotes of all time? We would love to hear from you! Write to us or comment below.

Entrepreneurship is not Easy – Five lessons from my journey so far

Entrepreneurship is not Easy – Five lessons from my journey so far

by | May 19, 2014 | Business, Business Operations, Life, Performance

No, I am not complaining. To live a life of my choosing and to do work that I love is a blessing indeed and I thank my stars every day for this. An adventure it is, but it is not all fun and games. And the next time one of my ex-colleagues from the corporate world tells me that I am living THE life and I have it all easy and set – be warned, I might just punch you. I was prepared for the hard work, the dedication and the perseverance that is needed to build something valuable from scratch – that’s the easy part. The hard part has been some of the experiences in the past two years since I moved from being an employee to a  micropreneur to an entrepreneur – some known, some forgotten, some unique, some learnt – but all experiences that have taught me some tough lessons. Lessons that I hope will help me grow and become more successful as an entrepreneur.

Today’s post is a summary of some of the jottings in my diary in the past year since I launched a full-fledged business – jottings that helped me understand, clarify internally and get clarity to take decisions. As I look back, some of the jottings assume special significance and I believe are worth sharing. So here are the big five lessons from my diary on entrepreneurship in the past year:

Entrepreneurship Lesson #1: A “NO” is not Personal – and I can’t move ahead if I don’t learn to recognise and accept all the nos quickly. I have reached out far and wide in my contacts to get more business. And of course, there are more nos than yeses.  And while I am really thankful for the yeses that got me started, it took me some time to accept that a no from my circle of contacts is not a personal rejection. Given all the nos, now I have this background track of a door opening and closing (with various levels of sound effects) playing in my mind whenever I make the pitch. There is the direct “bang” NO – brutal but efficient in the long run. There is the “creaking” half-hearted no – I will see what I can do (no), Call me next month (no), let’s wait for my budgets to be clear (no). And there is the deadly “total silence” no – no response at all to emails, calls, etc. I am a great believer in the power of sales funnel conversion stats – my belief in myself can be shaken but not my belief in the infallibility of numbers and metrics. It took me some time but now I have learnt to be happy with a no. The quicker I finish my quota of nos, the faster I can reach the yeses in wait for me.

Entrepreneurship Lesson #2: Every Hire is not a Great hire – With all my experience in hiring and managing people, this is one mistake that hit me hard. I have been very careful in building my initial team – this is the team that after all will determine what the company culture will be. The team that will walk the talk of the mission, vision and values and set examples for the rest to follow. It hurt when I realised that even after careful screening, I had hired someone who did not fit in with the core culture of my company. It hurt more when “sitting down” and having a discussion with the team member did not work. I had to take rapid action to let the person go. And that is the lesson – that even after being very careful, there will still be people who may be great performers but are not “right” for the organization. Hire slow and fire fast – strong words but very important ones for a startup.

Entrepreneurship Lesson #3: Every Customer is not a Great customer – And there will be times when I need to let a customer go. I have to let go of the temptation to add customers indiscriminately (and especially at the time when I can count all my customers on fingers of my hands). Being small and starting up, I needed to be careful about where I am directing efforts towards. And my fingers were burnt badly when I spent a lot of time and money working to satisfy a customer who though was known to me in my earlier life, I was not very comfortable taking on. There was a conflict in values when I initially assessed the opportunity and I should have listened to my gut feel/instincts that this conflict cannot be ignored and things will not work out. After a lot of back and forth and heartburn – it didn’t. Lesson learnt – I would rather stay small than compromise on what I need my business to stand for.

Entrepreneurship Lesson #4: Cash on Invoice is not Cash in the Bank – Can’t believe it even now, that I with all my revenue and cash flow management experience was sliding into this trap of false security. But I was – serves me right for building castles in the air and nearly building a few on the ground based on all the $$$ that I had raised invoices for. One big bill paid and my castles fell apart. And common sense came back. I now plan my costs and investments only based on the cash in the bank. Being self-funded, this is quite tricky but absolutely necessary for my peace of mind and my company’s financial well-being. That’s another thing about entrepreneurship – money balance in bank is the last thing on my mind before I go to sleep every night. Money was never a priority for me when I was in a job – never thought I would see this day or night 🙂

Entrepreneurship Lesson #5: Expect the Unexpected – I made an excellent business plan in December and had to throw out more than 50% of the planning on customers, revenue streams and sources by February end. Solid depression for a week (how could my planning have been so flawed? Who was I kidding? Is it time to wind up even before it starts properly?)  And then another revenue stream opened up. A customer was served up to me on a plate by a connection who I did not expect it from (thank you so much A). And I was back in the running :). Lesson learnt – things change. And things change rapidly. Have a Plan B (and C) in place. Be flexible and go with the flow. A plan is great but if the real world throws up some opportunities or challenges, be ready to grab them or fight them. And to prepare for change I now expect it and experiment with change by shaking things up and around a little bit more often in my business.

I have a long way to go yet and a lot to do. But if success is measured in terms of personal growth and experiences gathered, my first year as an entrepreneur has been quite successful. I am happy in the now and my team is happy in the now too 🙂 – what else could I ask for? Right – more money in the bank would be a good ask too, but I will get there.

Intrapreneurs, entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs-in-the-making – what do you think? Any advice for me – anything I should know now before I burn my fingers? Help me by sharing your thoughts and wisdom with me.

Pic courtesy – Flying_Solo_by_Chocoreaper

Five Ways the Cloud can rev up Operational Excellence for your Startup or Small Business

Five Ways the Cloud can rev up Operational Excellence for your Startup or Small Business

by | Mar 31, 2014 | Business, Business Operations, Management, Performance, Productivity

For the past year, I have been experimenting quite successfully in running my business through the cloud. I am no techie and this was not a planned model initially. However, I was clear that I needed to enable a flexible working environment for my team and ensure that my capital expenditure stays as close to zero as possible in the early stages. I had tried out tools like Box, Dropbox, Evernote and Skype for my personal use and loved the flexibility and ease-of-use they provided. So, it was a natural leap for me to integrate them into my business as well. And now that the business is growing, I went to my go-to-person for all things technical for advice on an IT plan and investments needed (I still don’t own a single server and that “felt” kind of uncomfortable when I remembered the huge server rooms at the businesses I have worked in). Turns out that I have actually been doing it right and have been part of a trend that is the new normal 🙂 . After I finished my feel-good pat-my-own-back session, I requested Shashwat, my go-to person, techie geek turned cloud solutions SME to write down what he told me in the form of a blog post so that I can share this with everyone. Here is his take on how cloud computing is not just for the biggies but is also a boon for startups and small businesses.

Cloud Computing for Small Business and StartUps

Software as a service (SaaS) has been around since the 60s, when IBM and other mainframe providers introduced the concept of time-shared computing. ISVs would host their code on remote servers providing functionality to enterprises on a subscription basis. With the advent of the internet and its increased adoption in the 90s, it gave way to a more efficient and ever-present way of computing, popularly known as cloud computing.

With higher internet speeds at reduced costs, cloud computing can be a boon for your start-up. Here’s why –

1)   Productivity on the go – Productivity has been revolutionized with the arrival of personal devices. The information worker has gone desk-less and enterprise IT has been consumerized. With the Bring-your-own-device culture gaining popularity in major conglomerates, it only makes sense for startups enable their workforce with such power. With cloud storage and cloud apps, the information worker can be more agile and help the startup be nimble. There are multiple platforms/vendors to choose from, to suit your organizational needs. From software development to basic word processing, all workloads can be hosted in the cloud. And with unlimited storage options, all you projects/files are omnipresent – all the time.

2)   Reduced capital and operational costs – The world’s best companies started in a garage, and not with a lot of money. Investing in a resilient IT infrastructure might not be an option available to every aspiring startup. The costs of deploying and maintaining an IT backbone, could be an expensive deal even for a small startup. For many, investing the money to the business would make more sense. The cloud helps you run your IT, without having to worry about maintaining or upgrading it – You will always have the latest and greatest. Thick clients are a thing of the past now, thus helping you reduce the need for expensive end user computing. Effectively, all you need is a browser J

3)   À la carte Computing – Efficient use of IT hardware is always a concern for enterprises. You don’t want to under-size the environment to save cost and run into performance issues, OR invest a lot of money to buy real beefy hardware and have them sit underutilized. With fast growing organizations, scalability becomes a constant issue and a drain on your finances. Enter – CLOUD – you use what you pay for, you pay for what you use. The user-feature based licensing model, helps companies to pick and choose what they want to use, without having to worry about hardware costs. Scalability??? Not a problem, you can scale your user base on the fly with a few clicks of the mouse.

 4)   Boosted Collaboration – Audio/video conferencing, file sharing and web apps – 90% of my workday is spent on these workloads. With teams becoming more virtual now, geo locations cannot be a hindrance to productivity. Efficient use of the cloud tools ensures that people collaborate successfully. You never have to email a single project file back and forth. Multiple people can consume and work on the same data from different locations simultaneously. Business intelligence and reporting has been simplified to a few clicks.

 5)   Increased continuity of service – “The cloud is always on” – You can get to it from anywhere, anytime. Businesses spend a lot of money to ensure that their systems are resilient and highly available, increasing the overall complexity of the environment, with constantly increasing operational costs. A subscription based model eliminates the need for a business to plan for unplanned service interruptions. You pay a one-time subscription fee, the vendor takes care of everything else. Many cloud vendors out there also offer financially backed service level agreements for mission critical workloads, so you can concentrate on your business worry free.

So, there you go – Cloud solutions enable you to concentrate on your business and run IT, quite practically with a credit card. 🙂

Cloud Tools/Solutions for your reference:

Cloud storage:

Onedrive for business – https://onedrive.live.com/about/en-us/business/

Box.Net for business – https://www.box.com/business/

Google drive – https://drive.google.com/ob?usp=web_ww_intro

Business email and productivity:

Microsoft Office 365 for small business – http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/business/compare-office-365-for-business-plans-FX102918419.aspx?tab=1

Google apps for business – http://www.google.com/enterprise/apps/business/

Unified collaboration:

Skype for business – http://www.skype.com/en/business/

Microsoft Lync online – http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/lync/meeting-software-compare-lync-plans-FX103842081.aspx

Google hangout – http://www.google.com/+/learnmore/hangouts/

Social for the enterprise:

Yammer – www.yammer.com

Chatter – https://www.salesforce.com/chatter/overview/

Today’s post is by Shashwat Mohapatra. Sash is a Client Success Manager and has about 10 years’ experience working as a trusted advisor with large Fortune 500 enterprise organizations in various business verticals around the globe, focused on helping enterprise customers consistently improve IT health, drive successful projects and migration deployments.

Did you find this post useful? How have you used cloud for your business? We would love to hear back and learn from you.