In recent years, traditional business models in terms of infrastructure and management have been disrupted greatly by the rapid development of the Software-as-a-Service (Saas) industry.
But with literally hundreds of choices available for nearly every function from HR to Accounting, all offering the ability to streamline processes several fold through cost savings, flexibility and the benefits of scalability as your company grows – choosing the right cloud platforms for your company can often be a daunting task.
While no means exhaustive, in no particular order we’ve put together some of the best and most popular cloud platforms across six crucial business functions.
With no one single platform being a one-size-fits-all solution, start from our recommendations as you explore options for your company – and find the cloud platform with the features and functionalities most ideal for your business!
Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
With traditional enterprise systems often notoriously clunky and costly, companies are increasingly moving towards cloud platforms for their CRM systems – with the scalability, mobility and integration offered being key considerations. Here’s three of the most popular solutions available in the market today.
SugarCRM
- Summary: Easy to user interface, powerful customization. Evolved from popular open-source roots
- Price: From $35/month per user (several plans available)
- Trial: 7 days (no credit card required)
- Key Features: Sales management, analytics, integrations
insightly
- Summary: Small-business focused. Strong integration with Google products and social platforms
- Price: From $7/month per user (scalable plans)
- Trial: 14 days (no credit card required)
- Key Features: Order management, invoicing, payments, analytics, mobile apps
Salesforce
- Summary: Popular long-standing offering. Wide-ranging functionalities available, scalable according to need and size of company. Strong integrations
- Price: From $39/month (several plans available)
- Trial: 14 days (no credit card required)
- Key Features: Order management, invoicing, shipping, payments, mobile app
Human Resources
Does your HR department currently store everything in bulky physical files? Do your employees have to access several different platforms for HR matters such as applying leave or filling out time-sheets? These online Human Resources Information System (HRIS) platforms will change all that for you.
BambooHR
- Summary: Comprehensive, robust and user-friendly. Integration with various other related HR platforms
- Price: From $69/month for up to 10 employees (dependent on number of employees)
- Trial: Seven days (no credit card required)
- Key Features: Applicant tracking, custom dashboards, time management, mobile app
TribeHR
- Summary: Differentiates itself through its ‘social HR’ platform. Recently bought over by industry giant NetSuite
- Price: From $5 per employee
- Trial: 30 days (no credit card required)
- Key Features: Applicant tracking, social-media inspired profiles, talent management suite, mobile app
CakeHR
- Summary: No frills, easy-to-use online HR platform offering key functionality centered around streamlined employee time/leave management
- Price: From $23/month for up to 15 employees (dependent on number of employees)
- Trial: 30 days (no credit card required)
- Key Features: Employee self-service, shared company calendar, shared documents
Accounting
Leave those pesky spreadsheets behind. These popular cloud-based platforms will greatly streamline the accounting your company does – both for your finance team as well as your external accountants.
Xero
- Summary: SMEs-focused, comprehensive suite of functionalities, strong integrations
- Price: Typically from $30/month (various plans available)
- Trial: 30 days (no credit card required)
- Key Features: Multi-currency, online payments, bank feeds, automatic invoicing, mobile apps
Kashoo
- Summary: Intuitive user interface, streamlined work flow
- Price: From $20/month (various plans available)
- Trial: 30 days (no credit card required)
- Key Features: Multi-currency, expenses, automatic invoicing, mobile apps
Freshbooks
- Summary: Targeted at SMEs, recently introduced an automatic reviewing and feedback system
- Price: From $19.95/month (various plans available)
- Trial: Forever (no credit card required) *limited functionality
- Key Features: Multi-currency, online payments, expenses, automatic invoicing, mobile apps
Social Media Management
Everybody’s always hoping for that one ‘viral’ hit for their company. And in today’s competitive market, sensitively managing your company’s online brand and presence to better stand out from the crowd is a definite must. These tools will go a long way to helping you manage it.
Buffer for Business
- Summary: Business version of the popular platform, with a focus on analytics and team collaboration
- Price: From $50/month for five users (several plans available)
- Trial: 7 days (no credit card required)
- Key Features: Wide publishing support, analytics (exportable), team management, RSS support, integrations
HootSuite PRO
- Summary: Powerful platform with support for a wide range of social networks
- Price: From $8.99/month for the first user (plans increase by user)
- Trial: 30 days (credit card required)
- Key Features: Wide publishing support, analytics (scalable in levels and cost), team management, RSS support, integrations
Oktopost
- Summary: B2B-oriented social media management, with a focus on managing content and measurement of your company’s social media marketing
- Price: From $49/month for one user (several plans available)
- Trial: 30 days (no credit card required)
- Key Features: Content management, tracking of clicks/conversions/comments/likes, strong analytics suite, integrations
Help Desk
Customer service and support is a crucial element of any business, regardless of industry. These online help desk platforms will provide seamless integrations across numerous support channels, allowing you to provide the best customer experience possible to help you maintain and grow your user base.
Freshdesk
- Summary: Great balance between ease-of-use and powerful functionalities. Seamless set-up
- Price: From $16/month per agent (several plans available)
- Trial: Forever (no credit card required) *limited functionality
- Key Features: Multi-channel support, multi-language/timezone, automations, knowledge base, integrations, mobile apps
Desk.com
- Summary: Intuitive user interface, advanced feature set and strong customer service. Known formerly as Assistly, bought over by Salesforce in 2011.
- Price: From $30/month per agent typically (several plans available)
- Trial: 14 days (no credit card required)
- Key Features: Wide publishing support, analytics (scalable in levels and cost), team management, RSS support, integrations
Zendesk
- Summary: Established player with a comprehensive feature suite. Wide range of addons and integrations
- Price: From $59/month per agent typically (several plans available)
- Trial: 30 days (no credit card required)
- Key Features: Agent collision, multi-language, automations, knowledge base, integrations, mobile apps
Inventory Management
Are you in the retail industry, and have considerable assets or inventory to manage on hand? Perhaps you might be on traditional on-premise enterprise software, or even spreadsheets? Consider these cloud-based platforms to help you manage your inventory with ease, with agile real-time updates for a better overview of your assets.
Stitch Labs
- Summary: Smooth user interface, strong integrations with a focus on e-Commerce platforms
- Price: From $45/month (several plans available)
- Trial: 14 days (no credit card required)
- Key Features: Order management, invoicing, payments, analytics, mobile apps
TradeGecko
- Summary: Intuitive user experience, strong feature set and support for integrations. Ideal for wholesalers, with a private B2B marketplace offering
- Price: From $39/month (several plans available)
- Trial: 21 days (no credit card required)
- Key Features: Multi-currency, multi-warehouse, invoicing, order management, private B2B marketplace, analytics, mobile apps
Lettuce
- Summary: User friendly interface with support for shipping and payment integrations. Recently bought over by software giant Intuit
- Price: From $39/month (several plans available)
- Trial: 14 days (no credit card required)
- Key Features: Order management, invoicing, shipping, payments, mobile app
Here’s the best part – most if not all the cloud software above are scalable/customizable as your business grows, meaning you only pay for as much functionality at each stage along the way.
All the recommendations above offer free trial periods, so give them a try and figure out what works best for your business today.
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