In light of today’s turbulent times, it’s go digital or go home. True enough, CNBC notes how 88% of organizations had already encouraged or required their employees to work remotely from as early as March. This has been done to ensure that people stay safe, while helping organizations keep their operations going.
However, since it was so sudden, it’s no big surprise that a lot of businesses were caught unprepared.
Fortunately, there are plenty of tools to help people successfully manage their business remotely.
Whether you’re a veteran manager or a first-time business owner, here are five tools that you’ll need to create a successful virtual workspace today.
Video Conferencing Apps
Without the luxury of face-to-face communication, video conferencing apps are your best bet. Zoom remains the more popular option, with over 200 million daily users since last March.
However, this form of communication is hardly the safest. An article from New York Magazine found that Zoom has a lot of security issues—from uninvited callers joining rooms, to hackers collecting sensitive data from your computer.
Instead, we highly recommend other, more encrypted platforms like Skype and BlueJeans to ensure the privacy of your calls.
Project Management Platforms
Email alone is not enough to keep track of all your projects. ProofHub Chief Marketing Officer Vartika Kashyap warns that emails are too isolated, so it’s easy for employees to be accidentally left out on an update. Plus, tasks can easily get lost in the clutter of one’s inbox.
If you want to be on top of all your projects, it’s best to organize them on project management kennel software like Trello and Wrike. When using them you can set tasks and deadlines before assigning them to people.
This ensures everybody is in the loop and tasks don’t get forgotten. In every description, you can include all important files, too, so everything is more systematized.
Content Management Systems
Every business produces massive amounts of data, and keeping those files organized can be a bit overwhelming. Content management systems (CMS) are used to store, access, share, and send files related to all business processes.
Having a good CMS allows you to keep all your information organized, but if you want to take things a step further, consider a cloud content management suite.
In Box’s outline of cloud-based content management systems they explain how these services give you and your team access to all your files on one server and from any connected device.
Some applications of cloud CMS include accessing inventories online, signing contracts remotely, and even disaster recovery in case any of your on-site hardware loses its data. This helps promote seamless collaboration within a remote team.
Customer Relationship Management Software
Customer relationship management (CRM) software is used to manage all your business’ relationships with existing customers and potential leads.
PCMag explains that it lets you gauge customer behavior by recording what they bought, what they paid for, and which channels they’ve interacted with your brand on.
Anyone who has access to the same CRM software has equal access to its data, making it easier to collaborate.
Your teams can then use it to more easily identify sales opportunities, record issues, and even manage marketing campaigns.
Website Performance Monitoring Tools
Businesses aren’t the only ones who are spending more time online—customers are, too.
In fact, research by Hootsuite found that 76% of users over the age of 16 have been “spending more time on mobile phones,” while they observed at least a 32% increase in computer usage in the past few months.
This implies that there’s a huge opportunity to get website visits now, and you need to be able to track your visitor metrics.
Tools like Google Analytics and Chartbeat can help you collect the data and use it to make decisions on how to improve your brand and reach a wider target market.
Operating remotely is no easy feat, but the right tools can make it more bearable. See which ones your business needs the most and incorporate those first.
Once you have more resources, then you can start introducing the others. For more news and updates, check out the other business articles on SLBuddy.
