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Control costs in a SOHO business using Google
Posted in: Business to Business, blog by CW on 5 August 2010
- Image via Wikipedia
It can be expensive setting up a small or home-based business. There are supplies to buy, equipment to purchase or lease and infrastructure to put into place. You could easily spend thousands of dollars on new computers, copiers and printers, a faster internet connection, desks and chairs, lighting, office supplies like pens and paper and all the other bits and pieces that are required to run a business day to day.
Once your office is ready to go there’s an often unforeseen cost that may not pop up until you log into your computer. You want to present a professional appearance to your potential customers. On the internet that means having a domain name for your business and an email address that reflects the name of your company. Business people these days are not taken seriously if their business doesn’t have at least a rudimentary website or if they have an email address that ends with “hotmail.com” or “aol.com”. Most domain registrars offer low cost packages that include a domain name, web space and email to and from that domain for a relatively modest monthly or annual fee. With any luck you’ll have a relative or employee who will be willing to put together a website for your business.
There is a no-cost alternative that might fit your needs.
Google offers a suite of applications for domain owners. Google Apps for Domains consists of a Gmail account with your domain name (i.e. Sally@sallysdecor.com), an associated Google Site (a simple website), Google calendar and Google Documents. Google Documents includes a word processor (like Microsoft Word), a presentation application (like PowerPoint), a spreadsheet composer (like Excel) and apps to create forms and drawings. Google’s apps are not as robust or fully-featured as what is offered in Microsoft Office, but they are about $400 cheaper. They are certainly capable of performing the basic tasks an average SOHO business needs to accomplish. If your business requires more features, there is a paid version of Google Apps that offers more for only $50 a year per user.
A big benefit of using Google Apps over Microsoft Office is that your information is available anywhere you go as long as you can access the internet, even on your smart phone. It’s a mobile office in the cloud. This may present a security risk if your business involves classified documents or communications. But for the majority of us it’s a solution to the problem of having to be tied to your office computer to check or send email or update customer and client information. Even if your personal computer crashes or is stolen your email and data are safely preserved on Google’s servers.
You can spend $400 plus on Office and another couple of hundred dollars for CSM (Customer Service Management) software, but why should you when there’s a free to low-cost alternative that offers benefits those expensive suites lack?
If you have a SOHO business and haven’t yet found an affordable software solution for customer contacts and your web presence, you owe it to yourself to check out Google Apps.
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