No matter how large or how small your company may be, efficiency and communication are keys to your success.  Communication with clients, customers, and staff requires email, document and file sharing, and the ability to send instant messages either to an individual or within a private group chat.  Cloud computing options, including services such as Google Apps from Google.com, are software solutions that offer applications, platforms, and infrastructure to support your business in everyday tasks.  Since Google offers web-based solutions, no memory-sapping software installation is necessary.

Search and email solutions

Google has climbed to the top of the heap as the industry leader in search engine technology by making it possible to search not only from their homepage, but to embed a search bar into a website as well.  The option of embedding the Google search bar into your company’s website is just one of the services Google offers.

Email is one of the most common tools for communicating with customers, but free email services look unprofessional and the communications sent via these services may even be sorted into a “spam” folder before they reach a customer.  Worse, the company can easily lose control of an email account if a disgruntled staff member leaves or tries to sabotage the company by changing the password to remove access to the account.  It is nearly impossible to consistently format email addresses for each staff member using free services.

Using Gmail, multiple staff members can use a control panel which allows their email to be sent with a customized “from” address; for example, “HumanServices@YourDomain.com”, giving smaller companies the professional polish of a larger corporation and ensuring the availability of the address.  The domain administrator retains total control, and the ability to manage and create accounts for staff.

File sharing and real-time communications

File sharing is another complicated but necessary component of running a company, whether you are sharing documents with clients or files with members of your staff.  Perhaps you are outsourcing to a freelancer and need to share copies of important files.  Whatever software you and your clients use to create documents and files needs to be compatible or file sharing becomes impossible, right?  Wrong.  Google Docs allows for file and information sharing, not only between software applications, but between laptops, PCs, mobile and phone technologies, and tablets.  Being able to share documents and files between various devices makes communication much more convenient.

With an increasingly global marketplace, companies no longer rely on staff concentrated in geo-specific locations.  For companies that rely on overseas consultants and staff, the ability to communicate via “chat” is essential to effective communication.  Google Talk offers a solution.  For appointments, schedules and deadlines, Google Calendar is an effective tool that keeps everyone up to date.

In today’s fast-paced marketplace, communication and information sharing are critical to business success.  Although outsourcing and using freelancers is increasingly common as businesses work to save money, different software applications may not recognize documents or files created by other software.  Companies can’t afford to be hindered by software compatibility issues.  With cloud sharing software such as Google Apps, compatibility issues are a thing of the past.