Keep Track Of Your Resources with Project Management Tools

When you start a new project, you need to allocate money, supplies, and personnel to the task and then keep track of progress and the budget as you go along. Most people assume that only large projects, such as building a bridge or developing a new product, require project management, but even small, one-man projects need to be tracked. Any task that does not fall into the regular day-to-day operations of a business should be regarded as an individual project. You may think that applying project management strictures to the activities of your small business wastes time and money, but don’t worry. There are a number of project management tools available on the market to help entrepreneurs and their teams successfully plan and track activities.

When you start a project, you need to define each of the tasks required to get through the work and order these jobs. You will find that some tasks depend on the completion, or partial completion, of other tasks, and at that point, planning the project on paper can become complicated. Wrike is a comprehensive project management tool that enables you to plan your tasks, allocate funds and team members to each, and organize a schedule.

The ability to keep track of the interdependency of tasks and adjust start and end times in the face of unexpected circumstances are some of the main benefits of using a project management tool. You assemble your team in the Wrike environment and then log communications with them. Wrike integrates with a range of third-party utilities, including Word, Gmail, and Google Drive, so you can keep using the programs with which you are already familiar.

One important aspect of teamwork is that everyone is singing from the same hymn sheet. These days, projects often involve team members who are on the move or telecommuting. Making sure all important documents are circulated to all members when they are updated can become a nightmare without a project management tool.

Huddle is centered on a document store that is saved on the cloud, so remote team members can access the same version of a file even if your office computer is down for maintenance. Some have concerns about the security of documents stored and accessed remotely, but the strength of Huddle’s security is illustrated by its customer list, which includes NASA, the US Department of Homeland Security, and the UK’s Ministry of Justice.

Thrive Solo is specifically designed for the independent consultant or freelancer. The user of this project management tool is likely to be an outsourced project team member who needs to keep track of his or her own time and goals to bill the hiring company. This is a very stylish tool that produces productivity reports and business documents, such as invoices. Style does not substitute for substance with this project management tool, however, and you may find that you end up relying on Thrive Solo for your entire business management, not just for projects.

Evernote is a document management system. You can collect notes, plans, and designs; store them together; and then access them remotely from a mobile device. As shared documentation is a central feature of any project involving a team, it is possible to use Evernote as a project management tool. To implement this strategy, you would need to sign up for the Evernote Business package, which costs US $10 per user per month.

You would think that a product called “Flowdock” is centered on flow charts. However, this project management tool focuses on collaboration. It is a chat system, such as MSN Messenger or Skype. The purpose of Flowdock is to enable a scattered team to communicate by messaging a group or an individual. The style and syntax of Flowdock is a lot like Twitter, and it is particularly designed to facilitate access from smartphones. The second main feature of the tool is a central document store.

Like Flowdock, Redbooth is a collaboration tool, and it emphasizes communication services. It is based on a chat system and central document store. You can choose to have the system hosted or installed on your own company server. If you already have cloud storage with systems such as Google Drive or Dropbox, you can integrate these into your Redbooth project management tool. Redbooth can also integrate with Evernote.

Probably the most comprehensive project management tool on this list, activeCollab contains extensive project planning and scheduling features that are usually found only in the most expensive, big-business packages. Like all project management tools, the system includes a central document store. However, activeCollab is not as friendly as Flowdock or Redbooth for instant communication. This system relies on email rather than chat for the collaboration functions of project management.

In terms of document and analysis generation, activeCollab could be considered a team version of Thrive Solo because it generates time sheets, invoices, and budget reports with ease. It stands to reason, then, that activeCollab should be the most expensive project management tool on this list. In fact, the cloud-based version is half the price of Wrike, and the self-hosted version requires a one-time fee of US $499, which is not excessive, given all the package’s features.

Your choice of project management tool will depend on the size of the project you are undertaking and the size of your enterprise. If you are a sole trader and you just want to keep track of all related documents for a project, then the single-user version of Evernote is probably the best option for you—it’s free. To kick things up a notch, the independent consultant might want to invest in the slick presentation and comprehensive time tracking of Thrive Solo. A team manager who just wants to keep in touch with the contributors to the project would be more interested in Flowdock or Redbooth.

To maximize the advantages of a project management tool, you should focus on Wrike and activeCollab. Modern life is complicated, and business these days is cutthroat. A project management tool will help you keep track of your work and keep costs and deadlines under control.

Customer relationship management, or CRM, is the process of centralizing customer data so that it can be shared among sales, after-sales, and customer support departments. All the big corporations invest millions in CRM systems, which gives them a marketing edge. However, the emergence of smaller, cheaper online CRM systems means that small businesses can now compete on a level playing field and offer the same type of customer tracking that benefits the big boys. You do not have to be a web-based business to use these systems. This review will highlight a range of CRM tools currently available on the web.

HubSpot is a producer of digital marketing software. Its products mainly focus on website design and search engine optimization. It has recently been working on its Sales Platform, which includes a CRM tool. The first part of the Sales Platform at HubSpot is called Sidekick, which is an email contact management tool. You can get many CRM features just by using Sidekick, because it includes the ability to make notes in the email contact entry for each customer. The Sidekick analysis reports also track what emails went to which customers and what the customer’s response was to each email. HubSpot is now adding on a CRM package that will integrate with Sidekick, although it isn’t available yet. You can sign up to get HubSpot CRM on its release, and if you are already a Sidekick user, you will get access to the CRM tool ahead of the general public.

Salesforce Sales Cloud is focused on supporting sales opportunities. The main feature of the system is a mobile app that allows a sales team to coordinate its efforts at responding to leads while out in the field. The CRM tool embedded in the Sales Cloud is a customer contact database. The product is a little light on tools for customer services and marketing functions normally associated with CRM systems. It does, however, integrate social media signals into its presentation to the sales team.

Zoho CRM, like Salesforce Sales Cloud, is more focused on lead conversion than customer support. Also, like Salesforce Sales Cloud, the Zoho CRM tool extends to a mobile app to support a sales team on the move. If you are interested only in CRM to support your sales team, which would probably be more in the realm of B2B sales, Zoho CRM might be the perfect solution for your needs.

Infusionsoft’s package covers time scheduling and appointments for sales staff and a central contact database. There is also a billing mechanism and a shopping cart and payment-processing function for online businesses included with the CRM tool. The Infusionsoft system includes integrated email functions that enable a sales campaign to be carried out over a series of emails. These campaigns can be tailored to contact groups, and the system gathers responses to these mail shots. You can grade leads in the customer profile module, generate quotes and orders, and email them out. Like Salesforce Sales Cloud and Zoho CRM, Infusionsoft is accessible from smartphones.

Hatchbuck stresses its simplicity and ease of use. It has many fewer features than do CRM tools such as Salesforce Sales Cloud, but it is cheaper. The system is centered on a sales and marketing analysis tool, and it integrates with email to enable email campaigns. The CRM focus of the system is a contact database that includes a panel to record contact with the customer. This product offers no whizzy mobile access.

NetSuite produces a range of business software, including entity resource planning (ERP) systems, which track financial data through an organization. It also produces a CRM tool called NetSuite CRM +. NetSuite’s profile is similar to big software houses such as Oracle and SAP that produce CRM systems for multinationals as add-ons to their ERP systems. The NetSuite system has all the bells and whistles of a big business system, so if you are just starting out as a small business, you may find this option a little over-comprehensive. A small business on the verge of breaking through to middle size would probably benefit most from a boost to employee productivity from this package. A one-man band or a mom-and-pop business probably wouldn’t have enough hands or hours in the day to fully exploit all the features of this CRM tool.

Infor is very similar to NetSuite in that the company produces ERP systems and other corporate software with which its CRM tool can interact. The company offers a series of modules to build up a tailored CRM package, so you need to read through all the options on the company’s CRM page.

LeadMaster is a software consultancy that specializes in CRM systems. The company offers to produce a customized CRM tool for your enterprise, which is the path usually taken by big corporations. If you are a very small business, you may find this option too costly to consider.

Small businesses range from sole traders to relatively large organizations with many employees and assets. Whether you have a sales force, a marketing team, an accounts department, or a website will dictate which of the above solutions is the right CRM tool for you.

 

Find the right small business tools to boost your profits

Big businesses have IT budgets that enable them to blow their competition out of the water. As a small business with little to no money to spare, you may think that the productivity benefits of top-notch software are out of your reach. However, you have a surprise in store. Read through this list of small business tools to discover that there are plenty of IT packages suited to small businesses and many of them are free.

If you have a website for your business, you may be wondering why it isn’t bringing you all the business success you read about other small businesses enjoying. Businesses that get their webpages on the first page of search engine results are more likely to win customers, because most search engine users rarely look beyond the first page of results. Google is the most widely used search engine in the world, so tuning your site to rank highly on that search engine will get you noticed by your target market. The secret to the success for any website hoping to get on page one lies in modifying the characteristics of the site, and you can get an analysis of your webpages for free by signing up for Google Analytics. Your competitors may already be using the small business tools provided by Google Analytics, so sign up, and get back in the race.

An email campaign is a great way to convert interested visitors to your site into buyers. You can build customer loyalty by sending regular newsletters by email to highlight special offers and events at your company. All the big businesses use email campaigns to improve their sales, and small businesses can harness this technique at little to no cost. MailChimp is a free email management system that enables you to include graphics and special fonts in your emails. These email-related small business tools help you manage your mailing lists and sequence your sales campaigns. The service includes paid high-volume versions, but the free version gives sufficient capacity for any small business.

Skype is an online telephone company that also offers video calling and chat messaging. You can sign up for free and then print your Skype username on your business stationery. If you keep Skype running on your computer in your store or office, potential customers can contact you for free. If you subscribe, you can make calls to landlines and cell phones, and you can even buy a Skype handset, so the process of making a Skype call is the same as any regular call.

Jira is an online project management environment. It is organized as a collection of small business tools that enable you to pull together a disparate or peripatetic team. You can assign tasks, set deadlines, and hold your project documents in a central store. There is a subscription fee for the tool, but you can also have a go with the free version.

This package of small business tools is mainly designed to help you keep all your research notes for a project in one place. You can also derive presentations from the data you gather or the designs you create in Evernote. This tool would be especially useful for a sole consultant or for artisans such as furniture makers, shop fitters, plumbers, and electricians.

LastPass is a simple small business tool to keep track of your passwords. You download the program onto your computer, and it logs your usernames and passwords as you go about your daily business. The program maintains a vault of this information and autofills login details when you return to the sites for which it has recorded details. You can use the paid version to generate passwords and enforce security on shared documents that have to be accessed by a team.

Big businesses use Enterprise Resource Planning to tie their invoicing, bill payments, and expenditures into their bookkeeping system. FreshBooks provides small business tools that cover the invoicing and expenses part of that same concept at a fraction of the cost. You can tie the program into QuickBooks to close the loop and feed your invoicing and expense reports directly into your accounts.

Like FreshBooks, Expensify provides small business tools that cover the process of logging expenses. Expensify doesn’t have the invoicing capabilities of FreshBooks, but it has something that every consultant and freelancer would love—a receipt scanning tool. Anyone who has had a job that includes the payment of expenses knows what a pain it is keeping track of all those little bits of paper. With Expensify, you can scan the receipt the minute you get it.

If you have a website for your business, you probably have a “Contact Us” page, and you may even have a Web form where customers can enter a message. Get Satisfaction takes customer contact functions one stage further. You set up a community page, which is a little bit like a Facebook profile, but on your own website. Through this, you can allow customers of your products to give each other tips, and you can also put your customer service team on the system to answer questions raised by potential and seasoned buyers. This concept helps sales conversion and encourages repeat business.

Any small business sometimes needs to do background checks on employees and associates. Intelius is an online people finder, but the website also includes a number of small business tools. You can do background checks on potential employees to see whether they have a criminal record or whether they have created trouble with customers at their previous place of employment. The company also offers identity theft protection, which can help protect your customers’ details and prevent fraudsters from damaging your business.