To stay competitive, businesses need to leverage any tools they can to optimize productivity. This includes what is often marketed as productivity software. Unfortunately, shopping for these tools can often lead you down the same rabbit hole, looking at the same products over and over, trying to determine which one is the best bang for your buck. Here are some pointers for finding the best productivity apps for your organization’s needs.
Productivity in Software
It might not be the most attractive solution in terms of what it can do for your organization, but productivity software is important nonetheless. Regardless of industry or business size, all organizations need certain applications to get anything done during the workday. While you could just go with your gut and take the first one that appears, we urge you to dig deeper and get the appropriate tools for your business’ specific needs.
Most productivity suites come with the basics: a word processor, a spreadsheet program, presentation software, note-taking software, and task management tools. While they might seem similar on the surface, the way that they are deployed or managed by the developer can make all of the difference, especially when determining if it’s a good match for your business.
What to Look For
Your budget and your needs will likely play a major role in which productivity apps you choose to go with. You generally know what you sign up for with any word processor, but more innovative solutions might lead to better overall productivity, which can be quite important for this decision. Here are some variables that you might want to consider.
Reliability
If your software does not work when it’s needed, it isn’t worth the investment. When considering reliability, you can take a couple of different approaches. Is it secure? Does it have the options you need, and do they work when you need them? Is the program easy to use or easy to train someone to use? Simply put, if the software causes more problems than it solves, it’s simply not the right one for you.
Interoperability
If your workers are remote and on their own devices, you will find that not everyone runs the same operating system, specifications, or other software/hardware solutions. Whatever productivity solution you implement should be able to work across all technology platforms used by your employees. This also applies to mobile devices. For example, if most of your employees use macOS, you will want to purchase software that is compatible with it; failing to do so will make it much harder (or even impossible) for your employees to do their jobs.
Accessibility
With so many employees working either entirely remotely or in a hybrid fashion, it’s important that your apps work on any device through the cloud. This is where Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) comes in. SaaS can help your business set up a cloud server for remote access to your organization’s apps. This helps your employees be productive no matter how or where they choose to work.
Collaboration Features
Employees are always trying to do more with the time they have, and when you have several of them working together on a project, collaboration features are a must. You should be able to work in the same file, share files, and stay up to date on workflows throughout the process. Many productivity suites come with these features built-in, allowing employees to work on files in real-time with minimal complications.
Does your business need a hand identifying the best productivity solutions for its needs? Voyage Technology can help. To learn more, reach out to us at 800.618.9844.
