Google Apps and Your Small Business

If you own a  small business, the cloud and Google Apps are sure to improve your daily operations.  Once you migrate to Google Apps, you can stop worrying about losing valuable time because of system failures or because you’re traveling and can’t access specific files or emails.

Google Apps is a leading cloud service provider complete with a platform tailored specifically to the needs of businesses.  Google Apps for Business works for every business from small to enterprise, but small businesses, especially, are quickly learning the benefits of this cloud computing system – particularly its collaboration and communication capabilities all at a cost that works for a small business.

With Google Apps for Business, you and your employees will receive custom email addresses (user@company.com), which give your small business the appearance of a larger one.  Along with these custom email addresses, all users gain access to the entire Google Apps suite, including Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Documents, Google Sites, Google Video, Google Groups, and Google Cloud Connect.

Gmail is Google’s email system, and it is sure to make communicating with others simple and convenient.  With Gmail, users never have to worry about deleting emails because they receive 25GB of storage which is 50 times the industry average.  Users can also save time searching for previous discussions because Gmail does it for them with a Google-powered search function.  And whether you’re communicating with others through email, IM, or video chat, you’re inbox is sure to be organized thanks to threaded emails, which group all discussions with the same topic together.

While Gmail will improve your small business’ communication, tools such as Google Docs are sure to improve your collaboration capabilities.  Google Docs allows users to create a variety of files that they can edit and store in their Google Apps accounts.  Owners of documents can share them with others, which enables multiple people to view and edit the same document in real-time, leave comments, or view revision history.  This function makes working with others easy, even when you’re not together.

Time is essential for any business, but especially a small business, and Google Apps helps businesses take advantage of time.  Google Apps operates on a 99.9% uptime guarantee, so the concern of losing valuable time to system failures is a thing of the past.  And employees can take advantage of this uptime guarantee with Google Apps’ mobile access, which allows them to log into their accounts and access all information from any location on any web-enabled device.  This feature allows employees to work seamlessly on-the-go or outside the office.

This reliable mobile access guarantees that your small business will be able to devote the necessary time to your clients.  And Google Apps will also enable to you to focus completely on your clients and the work at hand rather than pesky IT issues.  Google Apps is hosted entirely on the web browser and runs without any additional hardware or software, which significantly limits the IT demands on your small business, as well as the costs that these demands incur.

So with all the advantages that Google Apps for Business is sure to give you, can your small business really afford this service?  The answer is yes: Google Apps for Business operates at $50/user/year, priced much lower than other cloud computing services.

The enhanced communication and collaboration capabilities, paired with the time and cost saving measures of Google Apps for Business, make this platform the perfect fit for any small business.