Have You Made the SaaS Switch?

When a company is young…most tasks are managed with the power of sharp minds. No one cares to structure them till the company scales to a level when the management starts realising how much time the team is wasting due to poor communication, no workflow structure or accounting issues. May it be team collaboration or the thought of using a project management tool, may it be invoicing or having a cloud based visitor management software; all this seems unworthy till the growth phase arrives!

A company’s growth isn’t just fueled by greater number of employees & customers, but also by an enabling business ecosystem to enhance employee efficiency and customer value.

Preparing a company for growth isn’t easy. Thankfully in today’s world there are some great SaaS solutions available in the market to automate daily mundane tasks to boost employee productivity. Although it isn’t advisable to deploy all such tools in one-go; implementing them in a phased out manner basis business needs can help businesses grow faster.

Come 2018, we see an altering landscape. Almost all softwares used in businesses today are hosted on the cloud and SAAS tools reign. These solutions are easy to use, need minimum training and even less troubleshooting. A recent study suggests that companies use 16 SaaS apps on an average daily. The figures are up by 33% from last year. 73% of organizations say nearly 80% of their apps will be SaaS by 2020.

Here’s a sneak peek at some of the must-have SaaS tools to save time, boost productivity and make your workplace powered with useful technology.

Collaboration:

Efficient communication is pivotal to creating commercially successful businesses today. Sharing ideas and bouncing off inputs can pay big rewards. This is an area where SaaS shines. Slack, RealtimeBoard, File sharing & Workplace by Facebook are all collaborative platforms each with their own unique set of features that can prove helpful to a business.

Project Management:

Between an idea and delivery, lies a time frame catering to product development & service planning. Preparing for a friction-less delivery needs focused and timely attention of the team onto various designated tasks. Scheduling and project management apps such as Calendly & Basecamp can be particularly of use to keep the team, clients, vendors, freelancers and other stakeholders on the same page and moving through the project completion at a steady pace.

Sales & Marketing:

This is the business critical cost and profit center for any company. Smooth management of these functions have a direct impact on the revenue which is the precise reason why most sophisticated SaaS tools are available within this segment. There are few great options for CRM and the final decision could depend on the usability of the software or the price the company is willing to spend to digitise the entire process. Most trusted options being Pipedrive & Salesforce. There are many applications specifically for integrated marketing campaigns like Hubspot, few apps targeted to video marketing like Wistia, few targeted to email marketing like MailChimp, Campaign Monitor etc. In addition Enterprise Advertising & Analytics Solutions by Google offer an integrated data driven approach to marketing campaigns.

Financial Management:

Quickbooks & FreshBooks are good choices, although they don’t all have payroll or inventory management options available. Xero & Sage are proven Payroll management softwares while Zoho is a trusted inventory management SaaS tool that also offers a good solution for invoicing

General Management:

GoToMeeting a SAAS app allows you to host an online meeting with up to 100 people, right from your desk. You can share applications in real-time and even with an ability to handover your keyboard and mouse control to other attendees. Zoom has quickly become another leader in this space, especially in the SaaS world.

Another upcoming area of facility functioning is Visitor Management. Employees are seen to waste unnecessary time in coordinating for the arrival of their visitors, sharing the office address, getting them through the reception to the designated meeting rooms. Moreover, companies waste their skilled resources in collecting the data of these visitors/ vendors/ contractors/ interview candidates via traditional log books that are A) not verifiable B) shabby looking and C) a waste of time and efforts. SaaS based Visitor Management Systems like Veris have quickly become a market favourite and are trusted by big & small organisations alike. Given the sleek looking iPads transform the office lobbies and replace the old shoddy visitor logbooks, with the benefit of it being self-serviced & mobile friendly, it has become a visitor & receptionist favourite too.

Most enterprises of India Inc are on the bus powered by SaaS and are on their journey to modernize their businesses through business app solutions, have you taken this ride to future yet?

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