5 Cloud Tools You Need for Your Remote Business

Remote work is on the rise. Whether you’re a mother with a work-from-home company or an entrepreneur with a startup, remote work can benefit you. Since COVID-19, many companies have transitioned into a digital workforce. And before quarantine and shelter-in-place, remote work was already becoming a hot topic in the business landscape.

Studies have shown employees are more likely to be productive with remote work, and the cost savings can be significant for businesses of all sizes. Furthermore, employees appreciate a certain degree of autonomy; remote work has the ability to build company culture by offering independence and flexibility. One survey even found that many employees would be willing to take a salary or benefits cut to have a remote work option.

However, part of working remotely means learning to navigate the myriad of cloud applications available. The cloud makes it possible to work remotely from anywhere, and many businesses choose to use a cloud access security broker to assist with a secure migration to the cloud as they transition to part or full time remote work. But choosing the best applications is easier said than done. With that in mind, here are five applications that can help remote business operations:

Asana

Asana is a project management platform that makes it easier than ever to keep track of various projects from anywhere, check asana pricing compared to other platforms here. Each employee will have their own login. From here, you can assign tasks, deadlines, collaborate with one another, create boards for different projects, and much more. It also offers a resource management feature that allows employers to gain a better understanding of everyone’s bandwidth, which is useful when it comes to assigning work and ensuring no one is overwhelmed with their task list.

Hootsuite

Every company needs to have a social media presence, regardless of the industry. During uncertain times, it’s even more important than ever. Your organization needs a digital presence in order to succeed. Hootsuite is a tool that you can access from anywhere, and it allows you to manage several social media platforms within one simple dashboard.

Schedule posts in advance for your social channels and allow your content efforts to run on autopilot. Within Hootsuite, you can also view analytics that help you determine how your social media strategy is faring. And lastly, you’ll be able to use social listening to monitor conversations and keep track of mentions.

Time Doctor

Time Doctor is a cloud-based time tracking software that keeps track of your employees time sheets. It holds your team accountable for being online during working hours, and can be a great tool for gaining a better understanding of how long certain projects or accounts take. You can use this data to come up with finance projections in the future.

Time Doctor doesn’t have to be very invasive; employers have plenty of control over its parameters. For instance, Time Doctor keeps track of keystrokes and mouse movements, and takes a random photo during each ten minute increment. You can change the length of time between screenshots and set usage rules for different applications, like Facebook or YouTube.

Slack

Every remote team needs an effective method for communication, and Slack has become industry standard. For starters, Slack integrates with hundreds of other useful applications, like Google Drive and Asana. With these integrations, changes and updates to those third party applications can be automatically communicated.

Slack can also make it easier to foster company culture remotely. For example, a watercooler chat room encourages team members to have candid conversation unrelated to work, and you can create different rooms to suit different topics and missions.

Hubspot

Hubspot is a customer relationship management platform with free tools for business of all sizes. CRMs are important because they help you track your customers and gain a high-level overview of how your customers are interacting with your business. Within a clean dashboard, you’ll be able to view your entire sales pipeline, check out detailed reports, and keep track of various deals.