The cloud continues to be a huge part of the computing world, particularly in the business sector, growing to $131 billion in 2013, according to a report by Gartner. It’s a massive market that is only going to become more relevant in the computing world, whether you’re looking at Software as a Service or cloud-based infrastructure.
Cloud computing services are heavily used to support the mobile workforce, as you can access your data and applications anywhere in the world given a compatible device. Here are some of the top cloud services putting smartphone and tablet apps to good use so you can meet your goals of having a fully mobile workforce.
Project Management
Asana is a full-featured project management software that’s accessible from the cloud, allowing you to keep yourself and your team on top of projects no matter where they are in the world. The mobile app component of Asana sends tasks to phones or tablets, allowing you to see the full task list. It shows you who’s working on what, and how to collaborate on each task. You can assign the task to a specific person, and they’ll be able to see their assigned tasks through their Samsung Galaxy or other mobile phones. The tasks and associated conversations are threaded, so it’s clear what each message is pertaining to. It also automatically syncs with the service, so your employees can stay on top of project changes. Moreover, technological advances make it possible for you to design and build enterprise mobile apps that cater to the specific requirements of your business or organization. Whether you want an app that will connect all your departments or one that is specialized for managing a certain project, you can get in touch with companies similar to Darwoft to design it for you.
Inventory Management
Do you find yourself drowning while figuring out your business inventory, or are you looking for an easier way to manage package lists? BoxMeUp generates a QR code for a particular shipment, allowing you to specify what each box contains. You use the app to scan the QR code and get the shipping manifest on your screen, so there’s no confusion about what ends up in each box, according to BoxMeUpApp.com. If you don’t ship enough to have full-blown inventory management software from somewhere like Inflow, but you do need some way of keeping track of all of your products, this is one of the most efficient ways of doing it.
Office 365 Office Mobile
Microsoft’s cloud-based version of their popular office suite, Office 365, comes with a companion app that means your employees don’t need to be at the physical office to work with the documents that come through the virtual paperwork pile. This service integrates with SkyDrive and SharePoint servers, so if your business uses either one of those technologies, it’s already set up and ready to go.
You can check out the most recent documents you were working on at your workstation, look through email attachments to see if your team sent anything interesting, and edit Word, Excel and Powerpoint documents. You do need a subscription to the Office 365 service before you can use this app. Presentation View is a great feature if you want to have your presentation notes on hand, but don’t want to set up a projector to display them to yourself and the crowd. Instead, you have your own personal view, and you can edit alterations on the fly as you’re giving your presentation.