The Small Business Company

Ok, so it’s 2011 and we still don’t have a flying car, but that doesn’t mean you should be running your business as though you’re still stuck in the dark ages. No matter what business you’re in you should consider using some of the cloud-based web apps available online. They’re easy to use, and will save you time and money.

When an earthquake hit our Christchurch office in September 2010 The Small Business Company  (TSBC) was in the process of moving its email from a locally hosted Exchange server onto Microsoft’s cloud-based email offering, Business Productivity Online Suite (BPOS). After this quake we focused on moving our core business services online as an effective disaster management strategy.

In the space of nine months we moved TSBC’s email and Content Management System (Sharepoint) to Microsoft’s BPOS. We moved our accounting to XERO and payroll to iPayroll, both online systems.

We’re using Toggl for time-tracking, SnapEngage for managing customer enquiries via our website, Microsoft Dynamics for our Customer Relationship Management system and we’re using a variety of email web apps to do various parts of our email newsletters including Campaign Monitor and Litmus.

We’ve also pushed our source code online along with a ticketing system to support our products. We can now automate deployment of our online products from here. We’re even using WordPress for this blog as a quick and effective way to get our blog up and running.

In a short space of time we’ve changed the way our business runs and for small monthly fees we’re now running a large chunk of our business online. When another earthquake struck Christchurch in June 2011 TSBC’s move to cloud-base solutions meant we were able to keep working through the disaster.

Tips

• Look for tools that do one thing really well and be wary of tools which try to offer  everything in one package – they invariably fall short somewhere.
• Keep your core-business in-house if it makes sense. Run non-critical parts online to test the water.
• Try before you buy. Most web apps offer free trials or low fees on a month-by-month basis to get you started.
• Assess your options. There are a large number of web apps available for all areas of business. Have a good look at each.

Summary

For any process you do in your business there’ll be an online web app you can utilise to help. Most are really easy to use, and reasonably priced. A large
majority of apps offer a monthly pricing plan based on usage so you can scale pricing up, or down, depending on what your needs are.

This is the future of business. It’s the modern way to run your business – Here’s a great list to get you started: 100 web apps to rule them all.