2009 December 05 | The Business Success Blog

Collaboration Technology – Productivity Software & Platforms

December 5, 2009 by Frank Goley, Business Consultant

Now days you don’t need a big company, lots of funding and numerous employees, to make a profitable imprint in the market. The coming together of broadband and software innovation makes virtual productivity software and other online technology the equalizer for many small companies. Build a company around online collaboration and productivity technology and make it an integral part of your company processes, you can operate much more productively, profitably and effectively. You can work from home, manage employees virtually and have high interactivity with your customers with web / video conferencing. This all spells Competitive Advantage to me and it us how I have built my companies for the last decade.

Don’t worry if you aren’t tech savvy, I wasn’t and I have learned by doing. A lot of software is user friendly. Roll up your sleeves and use it, don’t farm it out to high priced consultants. Define your Company’s Operational needs, research available technologies and costs, and build your Business Plan’s Operational Structure around the technology. The technology will aide in producing better products and services, establishing competitive advantage, highly segment profitable markets, manage financial plans and projections, better serve customers, and often be more productive and effective than dedicated employees. Larger companies often struggle with truly integrating productivity software throughout its operations, and as a small, nimble, flexible company, you can very effectively compete in the highly competitive, ever changing, global market place.

There is so much technology can do for a company. In this Blog, I am going to concentrate on collaboration software – collaboration with employees, strategic partners, management and customers. Without this structure in place, other technology won’t be nearly as effective. There’s a ton of marketing technologies that can exponentially grow a company, provided you have an Effective Marketing Strategy. I will be writing an article for our Marketing Section on Online Marketing, so be sure to keep an eye out (sign up for our Company Alerts and we’ll let you know when it’s out).

Let’s take a look at some collaboration tools….

Socialtext and Confluence

Employees can collaborate on documents and track the changes. Costs: Socialtext is $15 / month per user and Confluence is $49 / month for 10 users.

Basecamp and Present.ly

Great for a workforce that communicates via Blackberry or other mobile devices. Costs: Basecamp runs $24 – $149 / month for unlimited users and Present.ly is priced $1 / month per user.

Concept Share and Get Sign Off

Customers can provide feedback on products or services in development. Costs: Concept Share prices at $24 – $99 / month and Get Sign Off costs $29 – $59 / Month.

Phone, email, fax, mail and in person meetings can be cumbersome, costly and time inefficient. Online collaboration tools are productive, real-time tools to run a company, its projects and interact with customers at competitive pricing as compared to infrastructure of Office Space and all the inefficiencies and costs related to typical brick and mortar companies. You will find that not having to schedule in person meetings and conference calls saves tremendous time and money. The ability for Employees, Management Teams and Customers to log in given their schedule needs and collaborate more freely, really pays off for a company’s efficiency, productivity and profitability. In fact, I think you will run a better company, implement projects and campaigns more effectively, and be much more tied in and wired to your customer and market niche needs than doing business the old way.

Reference: Inc. Magazine, June ’09, “Technology: Connecting the Dots: How to choose the Right Collaboration Software for your Company”, by Darren Dahl.

Note: Costs / Prices indicated in this blog may have changed!

Resource: For more Software reviews and articles on managing tech systems go to: www.technology.inc.com

Some more virtual productivity platforms…..

Central Desktop

Online Project Management with collaborators and customers. Online Operations tool.

Dropbox

File and Folder sharing tool as an FTP site. Drag and drop folders / files in a desktop folder which are uploaded and stored online. Can show up in collaborators remote computers. Great for sending large files without tying up Email.

Iline

Real time, face-to-face web and video conferencing. Can access files and programs from various desktops. Co-visit websites with a live browser, i.e. for a demo.

Simple Event

Host web meetings of up to 1,000 participants. Free conference-call service.

Reference: Entrepreneur Magazine, June ’09, Build your Brand Section, “Come together-Virtually” by John Jantsch.

The age has come where you can have employees, partners, management, executives, collaborators and customers spread all over the world with no brick and mortar infrastructure to support such. Online Collaboration Software provides all the structure you need, provided you plan it accordingly and effectively. Online Operations & Collaboration gives you maximum flexibility and provides a unifying connection company wide. You will find work flows to be highly streamlined, yet effective and most importantly, in real time.

Your interaction and attentiveness to customers will be significantly increased, providing a communication two-way highway. This gives your company a great opportunity to solve problems for customers while getting constant feedback on your products and services. You will be better connected to the real, changing needs of your customers, seeing market trends way in advance of your competitors. Your ability to effectively Niche Market will be greatly enhanced, using these online tools to market test ideas, strategies and processes – all for a fraction of the cost of traditional biz models.

Note: Costs / Prices indicated in this blog may have changed!

The next blog will be on Tech Tools which are cutting edge, yet affordable and useful for achieving Business Success!

We appreciate your Feedback, Comments, insights and experiences!

Date: Dec. 5, 2009

Author: ABC Business Consulting / Chief Business Consultant

Subject: Collaboration Technology – Productivity Software & Platforms

Posted in Business Productivity. Comment

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