It’s difficult enough starting a business, but now more so than ever in the current climate. However, this doesn’t seem to be putting people off and we are seeing a surge of new start-ups and entrepreneurs who have hit the ground running. We don’t doubt that many small businesses are struggling and worried about the country’s weak economic outlook. The Government has introduced many initiatives to support this sector but there are things you can be doing to reduce overheads if you are a new business start-up or entrepreneur. This blog compares the software that can help you as a Start-up, Entrepreneur or any established business looking to cut costs.
This is the first in a series of three blogs where we will give you an overview of some of the great tech tools at your fingertips. Several of which are free to use for the most basic package. I mean who doesn’t like something for free, right?
Productivity Tools
There are some new kids on the block when it comes to software which incorporates email, productivity tools and services. These help companies bring their teams together in an efficient way.
Zoho Workplace is a popular choice as an alternative to G Suite and Microsoft 365. It’s geared towards small and medium-sized enterprises. One of Zoho’s features is the ability to create your own custom domain name for business emails. This will help you establish a professional impression on your customers.
Another unlikely candidate that has popped onto our radar more recently is Go Daddy, more commonly known for web hosting. The company now provides its new suite of services under email and office programs. Interestingly it has partnered with Microsoft to provide its Office 365 apps under this program. This makes it a worthy competitor for those that love Microsoft.
We are going to concentrate on the big guns for the purpose of this guide. Mainly because they are more commonly used, and the most popular software option to help most businesses.
G Suite
Whatever your business you are going to need email and something to store and prepare documents, with the addition of team collaboration. G Suite is an integration of secure, cloud-native collaboration and productivity apps. You get access to an email account and document and spreadsheet creation software. There’s also a calendar with chat facility and a cloud drive to store everything. The free package is basic but suitable to support you at the outset of your business journey. You get 30GB of free cloud-based storage and can pay to upgrade this if you need more. If you outgrow the free package there is an option to transfer to the business package. However, the paid subscription can sometimes be a little off putting for those on a tight budget. If you are interested in comparing the G Suite price options
click here.
Office 365
If, like us, you prefer Microsoft Office over Google Docs then Office 365 is a great alternative. It doesn’t have a free option like its Google counterpart however, it’s paid for plans are inexpensive compared to G Suite. It has all the popular features such as Outlook for email, and Skype for chat. The popular Word for documents and Excel for spreadsheets is a must have for any business. You can also collaborate with multiple people in real time just like Google Docs.
The best part is, that just like on G Suite, you can access your Office documents in a browser so no need to install offline apps. You also get the cloud storage facility, One Cloud, which comes with a huge 1TB of storage with the business plan. For more information on the packages
click here.
Task and Project Management
There’s numerous software options to help manage your team’s task and project management. Here we concentrate on three of the most popular choices.
Asana
Asana is designed to make it easier for teams to work together, by allowing you to manage tasks and workflows. It’s highly customisable and has tons of app integrations. Its intuitive interface makes it an attractive option to support teams of any size. The platform’s tools include task assignment, workflow management, collaborate and manage teams from any location.
What’s more, Asana is free for up to 15 users with only minor limitations compared to the paid for version.
Click up
This is one we actually use ourselves as we love its user friendliness and versatility. We prefer the user interface that Click up has compared to Asana and the mobile app version is also far superior. The multiple project views are a great feature because it allows you to toggle between views in one single click.
Click-up beats Asana hands down in terms of pricing. Its free plan is for unlimited users and offers access to all its features. If you need to upgrade for more storage, or to access different reporting options, the cost is only £3.82 per month. When you compare this to Asana’s upgrade fee of £9.49 per month you can see why Click-up is becoming the fastest growing alternative to Asana.
Trello
Trello is extremely flexible and an easy to use project management tool. It’s based on a visual card structure, which allows users to create tasks and move them between lists, showing the progression of each individual task from start to finish. Due to its ease of use, Trello is a great tool for a wide assortment of projects and situations, from trying to arrange a family holiday, to managing million-pound projects.
If you are more of a visual thinker then Trello is probably for you. It also provides an impressive free plan which incorporates so many of its key features. This often makes it unnecessary for most users to have to upgrade to the paid plan, which is priced similarly to Asana’s.
We hope you have enjoyed reading our first instalment of some of the best software options to help you as a start-up, entrepreneur or an already established business.
Look out for next week’s blog where we will be comparing some of the different invoicing software options. We’ll also be discussing those all-important time-saving tools that are available.
As always if you need any help or advice about how we can help kickstart your business please
contact us.
