Determining productivity software needs for your company

With such a large variety of solutions to choose from, it can be extremely overwhelming for a business owner or IT manager to determine which solution would be best for their company. So, I have some steps to help determine your needs, as well as some package options.

1. What does your company do?

This may sound like a very simple question. Good, it is supposed to be. The first step is to see what business functions your company performs, and then determine what software is needed to run all aspects. For example, let's say your company manufactures plastic widgets that go into a variety of devices. Also, your company has a R&D department and has it's own sales force.

For your day-to-day activities, you need to write up memos, reports, advertising material, store documentation, create and store CAD drawings, schedule meetings, track manufacturing metrics, manage your sales territories, manage customer service, track sales metrics, manage the company finances, and perform a variety of HR functions as well. So, just find an all-inclusive suite that will handle everything, right? Well, for some companies and budgets, that may be an option, but for most, this is not cost-feasible. So, what is next?

2. What is the size of your company and how many people will need to use the computing resources?

With our enormous list of software options from above, it appears that your company's needs seem astronomic and unrealistic. Don't worry, it gets worse. So, let's say your company has a total of 200 employees. This includes office staff, manufacturing, and sales force. Do you buy an individual copy for everyone? Can you just buy a few licenses for different software and limit how many people can use the software at a time? Do you just buy a bulk of licenses? Do you develop your own software? Do you try to use open source? Or do you try and operate in the cloud?

3. Choosing what you REALLY need.

I want to say there is no simple answer here. There are cost-benefit trade-offs all over the place. For example, you can go Open Source, but you still need the IT infrastructure to support it, plus the common risk of Open Source is that there is always the change there may not be enough support, support all of the sudden stops, or bug fixes or enhancements stop coming out. In this case, your software is free, but your hardware and personnel costs will be higher.

You could doing the Microsoft Shop method, and spend a ton of money to get all Microsoft products. You still have high hardware costs, but you get discounts if your employees have Microsoft certifications, plus you get the convenience of all of the software working with each other for a seamless experience, making overall maintenance fairly low, assuming you set things up correctly in the beginning.

Another option is to hit up the cloud. You can do this with Microsoft, Google, IBM, and others. You can get online tools like SalesForce.com, Google Docs, Microsoft 365, and the list goes on. In regards to hardware, all you need is a fast, reliable, and secure Internet access, and any device that can run the websites. So, your hardware costs are almost nothing, you get anywhere access, and it's easy to setup new users. However, licensing can very expensive, and if you need steady up-time in regards to your Internet connection, then you may be spending a small fortune on redundant Internet hook-ups.

In the end, you need to understand what the company can handle. Just because a cloud solution would be best, doesn't mean it's practical. There is still a lot of fear over privacy, security, and data integrity when it comes to Cloud computing, and rightfully so. It may not be possible to convince executive management to embrace this. Therefore, you may have to go with something that is either a hybrid or a full non-cloud solution.

As a rule of thumb, most companies go with hybrid models. A good example of this is having laptops and/or desktop computers powerful enough at the office to run Windows 7, Office 2010 or later, SharePoint 2010 or later, IE 10, etc. Then you have your primary data storage and servers on-site, with a direct connection to a secure off-site location for nightly backups of data for disaster recovery. You then use some of the new SharePoint features that allow mobile users to have cloud access and collaboration to the company's Intranet. There are still tons of options out there, and if you ever have any questions on a direction to go, ask me, or demo lots and lots of software. Sometimes, demoing is the best way.

Does my business need Windows 7?

In follow-up to my Vista post, I wanted to touch base on Windows 7. If you are still on Windows XP and have not taken advantage off all Windows 7 can do for your business, you may want to upgrade...quickly! In a nutshell, Windows 7 is what Windows XP was when it came out...the new and best solution. When it comes to networking support, stability, performance, and flexibility, Windows 7 has it all.

Now, despite me pushing people to upgrade, I do want to toss some words of caution, especially to companies with small IT budgets. Although Windows 7 may be able to really help your business, there are a few pitfalls that many companies are not aware of. First off, system requirements. If your computers are more than a couple years old, there is a good chance they may not support Windows 7. You can view the minimum requirements at Microsoft's Windows 7 site. So this means you may need to buy all new computers. Although computers have gotten much cheaper, to get decent business systems, it is still going to cost you a good bit. I recommend Dell, HP, or IBM. If you have a good IT staff and don't need vendor support or warranties, then I suggest either building your machines or finding other places like TigerDirect or NewEgg-type sites to get good system at super cheap prices.

The next big problem is software compatibility. For many companies, they are using software that may be 10+ years old. Most of these applications are not compatible with Windows 7, especially Windows 7 64-bit. So, before upgrading, make sure you know if your company's software is compatible, or you will be having the biggest headache. Other than those 2 precautions, there should be nothing else stopping you from upgrading to Windows 7. I hope to post some cool features in later posts.

Collaboration at your fingertips

In business today, being able to collaborate documents across a company or even the world has become much easier. However, to save a company resources, such as time and money, businesses need to collaborate quickly and easily. Therefore, a company needs to find a collaboration tool. Of course, there are many tools out there, some ranging from free to very pricey. They all have the pros and cons, but I wanted to mention two that really stand out for the everyday company, ranging from large to small.

Google Docs

Well, as most people know, Google has a great web-based office suite. The tool is called Google Docs. It allows you to collaborate with spreadsheets and word processing documents. While one user is updating a document, another can be updating as well. Or, while one person is going over a document a group of people can follow along, since there is a built-in chat feature with the document sharing. GDocs also has a "PowerPoint" presentation equivalent, form creator, drawing tool, and now file storage for any document type. For a free online tool such as this, it doesn't get much better. Or does it? I had said no before, but most of Google's latest enhancements has it playing with the big boys now. If you are savvy with HTML, CSS, and the like, you can do everything that you would in Office in Google Docs. Did I mention this is free? Although, if your organization wants to benefit from a SharePoint-esq feel, there is a paid service, which is very afforable to all size organizations.

OfficeLive (Now SkyDrive)

What if you still want free but need to use Microsoft Office? Well, don't worry, since most companies fall into this boat. Microsoft actually offers a document management and collaboration solution for free! And now, you can edit/create Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote documents directly on the web, thanks to the power of Microsoft's 2010 products. Wonderful! A person doesn't even need a Windows Live / Hotmail account to view the documents. However, if they want to edit or work with the documents, they will need an account, which is free as well. OfficeLive, now SkyDrive, acts like a document repository in which you have collaboration abilities. You can have multiple people working in the same document at the same time. You can then edit documents offline or in a full version of Office.

Conclusion

If you had to pick between these two only, it would be a tough call, but still the same end result. If you are on a budget and can't afford Microsoft Office for every person's computer but need something that has a good chunk of the features, then I would use Google Docs. All you need for that is a computer with an Internet connection...or even a Smart Phone. But, if you really need to use Microsoft Office, then I recommend trying out SkyDrive. It has a slight learning curve, but is very dynamic and useful, as well as easy to integrate into your current work environment thanks to Live.