Technology has changed the productivity landscape forever. And businesses that do not take advantage of technological advances to ensure efficiency are businesses that are bound to get left behind sooner rather than later. For the most part, these businesses are reluctant to take the plunge because of the cost of implementing these productivity tools. Good thing there are available online tools that are either free or low-cost for these businesses to look into.
1. Bitrix24.com
CRMs and intranets are widely being utilized nowadays. But business sense states that efficiency and cost effectiveness go hand in hand, which may not always be the case with other companies that offer solutions to corporate concerns.
Absolutely free for small businesses (defined as maximum of 12 staff members), Bitrix24.com is a transparent collaboration and communications solution that combines a number of work applications in one platform – social intranet, real-time streaming, project management, file and document sharing, CRM for sales and transactions, calendar and activity planning, and many more. Also, Bitrix24 is SaaS-based, meaning, there’s no need for installation and the application can be accessed anywhere, whether via a smartphone or a browser. For companies with more than 12 people, an upgrade to unlimited users is available at $99 monthly.
Statistics indicate that nine of ten new websites are likely to be forgotten by first-time visitors. That said, it’s important that a website domain, especially for an e-commerce site, is easy to remember. But with millions of domains now already registered, finding the perfect domain may pose as a challenge. Branding agencies are there to extend a helping hand, but they charge up to thousands of dollars for the help they’re willing to offer.
PickyDomains.com is a crowdsourcing platform that assists businesses and individuals with catchy, easy-to-pronounce, relevant and unique domains, names and slogans. PickyDomains has been in business since 2007 and now has over 50,000 naming contributors from diverse regions of the globe. To receive suggestions from this creative team of individuals, register with the site and become a client, pay the required upfront payment of $50 for a domain or name (or $75 for a slogan) and map out your naming guidelines. In the event none of the naming proposals you get fits into your specifications, with a click of a button, you get a refund.
3. JetRadar.com
Nowadays, air travel has become a lot cheaper, thanks to the emergence of low-cost carriers and online ticket brokers. But the very competitive landscape in the airline industry nowadays has forced a lot of airlines to confine their best deals into their own sites and/or sites they have exclusive partnerships with. This, in effect, prompts the would-be traveler to browse multiple sites to find the cheapest airfare promos.
JetRadar.com is a search engine that looks into hundreds of travel and flight sites and 700+ individual airline sites for the cheapest airfare offers, and makes the data publicly accessible in a single web address. JetRadar makes sure you get your money’s worth while saving on valuable time and energy better spent on more important undertakings.
If you’re stuck in the technology of the ’90s (MS Excel, Acess, etc.) for your back-office functions, chances are you’re missing out in the efficiency arena. In case you’re not aware, automation has revolutionized the way most businesses are done nowadays. Hence, the term business process automation, or BPA, that results in streamlining of processes, equipment, manpower and costs.
Comindware.com is a corporate collaboration and automation solution specifically targeted at workflow management, issue tracking and process administration across multiple departments within a team. It promotes efficiency in the sense that it takes full control of scattered work across spreadsheets and inboxes and reduces wasted time in status meetings that can drone on and on. With Comindware’s ConnectStep technology, automatic generation of next-step tasks is made possible. This way, employees focus on getting their tasks done while Comindware moves things along in the background. Comindware offers a 30-day trial absolutely free and huge discounts for software licenses purchased in bulk.
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