Most small business owners will quickly discover that their biggest challenges do not necessarily include coming up with new and innovative ideas, finding terrific clients, or hiring staff. Instead, everything seems to come down to finding a way to fix the pervading lack of time that underscores every aspect of running a business. Companies and entrepreneurs all struggle with efficiency when trying to make their businesses run as smoothly as possible.
Sometimes, you can begin to win the battle for time by simply changing the way that you think about your processes. For instance, do you know how to manage your priorities properly? Are you aware of your strengths and weaknesses? Deciding on the things most critical to your business success will help to give you a concept of what you should be focusing most on.
Of course, if you’re the kind of person who likes to check out what technology has to offer when a problem presents itself, there are various solutions available on the market today that could help to revitalize your business strategy. The following tools and software are just some of the useful things that you could examine on your road to incredible business efficiency:
- Google Docs
The Google Docs tool can integrate directly with your Gmail account, allowing you to share, create, and store valuable documents online. The basic toolset for Google docs includes spreadsheet management, a word processing application, presentations, databases, and more. It’s very similar to the functionality you would experience by installing Microsoft word, however, the value has been integrated with online availability and storage. When you’re dealing with particularly big files, Google Docs can be a wonderful tool to share files between team members.
Another amazing aspect associated with Google Docs is the fact that it’s possible to enable real-time opportunities for collaboration. If you’re in a conference call and discussing changes that could be made to a file, then you can adapt those changes in real-time, watching every change as and when it is made.
- Corporate Expense Management Software
Corporate expense management software encompasses the systems that are deployed by a business in paying, processing, and auditing staff-initiated expenses. Some of these costs may include things like expenses that are incurred through business travel, or meeting with clients. Expense management systems will often include the procedures and policies associated with governing such spending, as well as the types of services and technologies utilized in analyzing and processing the data associated with such costs.
Often times, businesses find that the implementation of such software can create huge savings in their companies. Indeed, a survey discovered that those businesses adopting expense management software could reduce the cost of processing a report by as much as 79%.
- Dropbox
Just a few years ago, tools like Dropbox were completely unheard of. However, today, they have become tools of core productivity for virtual teams and mobile entrepreneurs. Dropbox allows you to sync and store files online and share them with members of your team within a matter of moments. The documents that you keep in your Dropbox software can be shared with anyone you want, simply by sending an URL or invitation.
With Dropbox, it’s also possible to back up your files and access them remotely from wherever you like, even if you lose your laptop, or have to leave your computer behind on a business trip. When you’re out of the office or on vacation, and suddenly you need to access a document, Dropbox could be invaluable.
- Password Management
There are few things more frustrating and time-consuming in business than when you forget your password. As everyone should know by now, it isn’t safe to simply use the same password for everything you do, and many systems will set different parameters for passwords in the first place – making it difficult to attempt to remember them all.
Keeping a file that contains all of your username and password combinations can be another threat to your digital identity, particularly if you lose your laptop, or your system is somehow hacked. A piece of valuable password management software can assist in making it easier for you to track your various passwords.
There are various options available on the market today, but the two criteria that you should keep in mind when making your choice include: how simple it is to use, and how secure your software will be.
