There are many ways to improve the speed and efficiency in which your business operates, and one of the best ways is to have the tools and software you need to get the jobs done right the first time. The following applications have been chosen not just for speed but also accuracy and usefulness; they are presented in no particular order, as the needs of your business will obviously be different from the needs of others.
Photo by Gustavo Da Cunha Pimenta
Trello
Whether you have a large team or just a handful of people, it is important that everyone knows where they fit in the big picture and has an idea of how their work will be integrated. Trello is a free project management application that allows everyone to see at a glance what is happening in each department and comment on individual projects. It can be helpful to prevent overlap by allowing everyone to work separately while still maintaining a sense of the overall vision.
PDF to Excel Converter
One of the keys to furthering your business is understanding the data. You need to be able to search and sort through all of that information to cut costs and improve on the operation as a whole, but how can you do that if your data is stuck inside PDF files or other images such as JPG and PNG?
Fortunately there is now a fast, easy, and accurate tool to convert these formats to Excel, which you can purchase at CogniView or just take a 14 day trial of it first to see if it’s what you need. There are three different versions available, each with different amounts of options, and you can also get very cheap yearly support deals there to help you and your employees adapt to the new software.
MailChimp
Email has always been a very popular method of communicating online, and it is also a great marketing tool if used correctly. Keep in touch with your existing customers by gathering their email addresses and letting them know when you have new products, services, or special deals by using MailChimp. This is a free service, with optional paid upgrades, that allows you to promote through email in an ethical and legal way by only mailing people who want to hear from you.
Draw.io
A free browser-based alternative to Microsoft Visio, which is perfect if the Office packages you have installed on your work computers did not come with it included. You can now draw many types of charts, mind maps, diagrams, and wireframes using free templates right from your regular browser.
When you are finished you can save your work to Google Drive, Dropbox, and other services, make a copy on your hard drive, or just save it in the browser and give out the link to let others view it. The service is completely free and confidential, so your work will not be made available to the public. Take a look at Draw.io to see if it will be useful for your business.
You may not need all of these tools today, but they are good to keep in mind in case something comes up in the future. There are so many great tools available now that can make your business so much more efficient than you may have ever thought, so it is highly recommended to stay on top of any new developments that can save time and money.
