If you run a small business and you are looking for a great IT strategy, you may want to consider using Google Apps. Google Apps enables you to integrate your website/domain for setting up your users email, Google Docs, Google Calendar, and even a corporate intranet site. Millions of small businesses use Google Apps! You do need to own your domain to implement Google Apps.
The free Google Apps account includes 10 user accounts with over 7 GIG email storage and 1GIG storage for Google Docs. If you want to migrate from Microsoft Exchange to Google Apps, you do need a Google Apps Business or Education account.
Click here (official Google site) to compare Google Apps (free account) to Google Apps Business account.
You can personalize your Google Apps with your own logo, and you can create a corporate intranet site that is setup for members of your domain. Google offers several intranet sites to choose from, and there are some really great calendar app scripts from other Google Apps users. You can basically setup a project management site without forking over $50.00/month/user with other cloud services. The easiest way for your users to enter your Google Apps account is through the intranet site that you setup for your users – for example something like http://office.mycompany.com.
This is the Login page to my Google Sites intranet.
Login to Google Apps account
Here are some screenshots of my Google Apps account
More Apps Menu
Insightly CRM Projects
Insightly CRM is a Customer Relationship Management software (free up to 4 users) that is seamlessly integrated with Google Apps. Your users can share a common contacts list, create projects, track opportunities, leads and proposals. Insightly CRM has a simple design that is easy to use and your organization can manage your customer interactions with minimum effort. You can link your Google Docs files to Insightly!
Insightly CRM has a paid plan that is very affordable. The free plan will stay in place for up to four users. They really are huge supporters of small business.
Click here for Insightly pricing plan. See http://insight.ly company website for more information. I am very impressed with this application!!
Conclusion
With a Google Apps account you can easily communicate and improve productivity with your team, and you get the reliability of Google’s infrastructure. There is an abundance of productivity software in the Google Apps market place, and a lot of them are free to use. From a CRM (Customer Relationship Management) to an ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning). I really like the real time collaboration of Google Docs. Once you start collaborating with your team on Google Docs, you’ll be hooked! The original content for this post was created on Google Docs!
For questions, email me at jcunningham@spc-intranet.com, or if you need help implementing Google Apps drop me a line or schedule a meeting!
