Technology, Tips

6 Types of Productivity Tools Your Enterprise Can’t Go Without

Your enterprise uses countless types of solutions on a daily basis, but how many of them are actually designed to increase productivity and improve operations? There is so much out there that it can be difficult to gauge how effective solutions will be before you actually implement them. That being said, some are more valuable than others, so finding exactly what your enterprise will benefit from most doesn’t have to be a gamble.

Here are six categories of productivity tools that your enterprise can benefit from, and a couple examples of each.

Mobile Office

Mobile office solutions for the enterprise are exceptionally important particularly because of the movement toward more flexible work environments. These types of solutions typically allow access to cloud-based applications that allow employees to share data, communicate with each other, and collaborate on projects. On another note, Voice over Internet Protocol telephony is a major help for employees and business owners who are constantly on the move.

Examples: Some of the most notable examples of a mobile office include productivity suites such as Microsoft Office 365 and Google’s G-Suite. Others include more focused cloud-based applications designed to perform more specific functions. Basically any application that helps your enterprise emulate the office setting while out of the office is a great investment.

Improving Workflow

Some of the most valuable enterprise productivity solutions are designed to improve workflow within your organization. These include solutions that streamline operations and potentially even automate specific instances, cutting down on work that needs to be done and allowing your employees to focus their efforts on more important tasks.

Examples: A great example of this is outsourcing part of or all of your enterprise’s IT dependency to a service provider. Consider how much time can be saved by not struggling with IT maintenance and management; even if you have an internal IT department, you can significantly reduce the workload of your technicians by allowing a service provider to assist them. In general, outsourcing is a powerful solution that not enough organizations take advantage of.

Unified Communications

Communication is important for enterprises, especially for organizations that have a sprawling network filled to the brim with users. If left to their own devices, users might use various unapproved modes of communication for work purposes, such as personal cell phone numbers, email accounts, or even social media. Therefore, unified communications is crucial, as it helps your organization achieve a certain sense of professionalism that otherwise might be lost. Plus, if you want control over your accounts, you need to make sure that they are centralized within your organization.

Examples: Any service that offers a combination of email, instant messaging, and telephony can be considered a unified communications solution. Consult this infographic for a number of solutions designed with unified communications in mind.

Project Management

Project management becomes much more difficult the larger your enterprise grows. On one hand, it’s great that you have so much help to get a project done, but on the other, the more people that work on a project, the more challenging and convoluted it can be to finish. A good project management software can let your project managers create tasks and assign workflow to specific resources, who can document their progress in the form of notes and time entries.

Examples: It’s difficult to suggest specific project management solutions for your enterprise, as the needs of each organization are going to be different. PCMag has compiled a list of project management software, along with their features, that might be able to help you figure out what your best option is. Of course, you could also reach out to Iron Edge Group, too.

Resource Planning

Enterprise resource planning software, or ERPs, are designed to take a look at basic back-end operations and automate them to improve operational efficiency. While they can be used by smaller organizations, they are meant for use with larger enterprises, as managing this application is a big responsibility best handled by a dedicated IT department. While ERPs might vary in use, the common goal is to make the collection and sharing of data more manageable as a whole with an improved flow.

Examples: ERPs are used for a plethora of business functions, with one of the most efficient ones being the implementation of patches and security updates. A remote management and maintenance solution is a great way to update all of your endpoints remotely from one central location without updating each of them locally. Other examples of how resource planning can be implemented include managing the payroll, keeping track of inventory, improving the accuracy of financial data, and so much more.

Business Intelligence

Collecting information is one of the key ways that enterprises can improve operations, and business intelligence solutions are designed to help you streamline the way your organization does so. This type of intelligent data gathering is also beneficial for finding flaws in your own internal operations, such as how much time is being lost due to inefficiencies in the way you manage technology and other resources.

Examples: Some great examples of business intelligence tools are those that allow your organization to collect data through various methods, including data mining, reporting, and analytical analysis. Furthermore, business intelligence can potentially look into the future using predictive data to potentially notice trends before they even happen. At IronEdge we are leveraging Microsoft’s PowerBI and Azure to compile our data and present it in a truly amazing way both internally and with our clients.

In a world where business technology continues to grow more difficult to manage, you’ll need all of the help you can get to successfully keep your enterprise running smoothly. Do you already take advantage of some of these services? If so, which are the most valuable?

IronEdge is here to give your business the strategic edge it needs. Talk with one of our experts today as we navigate you through the top tools that will benefit for your organization.

 

Andrew Moore

Andrew Moore has a history of building great operational systems. He has worked in the IT arena for over 17 years and has been instrumental in the successful building of several businesses into multi-million dollar companies. Andrew’s fusion of process development, data analysis and mentoring talented employees has provided the foundation for building strong and profitable organizations.