How can an integrated cloud platform turn your business competitive?

Across the world, businesses of all sizes are increasingly managing their operations through digital tools such as an integrated cloud platform. The benefits of such a cloud platform extend not just to big businesses but also to the Small and Medium Enterprises (SME) segment where cloud technology has made a significant impact. 

The State of Cloud Adoption Amongst SMEs

SMEs are undoubtedly a major contributor to the global economy. While individually, they would not be a significant job creator, the collective market they open up for both jobs and economic contribution cannot be ignored. As competition increases every year and with pandemics like COVID-19 wrecking entire economies in a matter of months, SMEs must stay focused on delivering maximum value from minimal expenditure. As always, turning to digital transformation will be the key element that brings about a competitive edge to SMEs and helps them serve the large digital-savvy customer base worldwide.

No other technology has made business stronger and more profitable for SMBs as the feat achieved by cloud computing. 59% of small businesses that use the cloud have found to be enjoying more productivity benefits than those who are not on the cloud. Additionally, 82% of small business organizations that moved to the cloud reported that they reduced costs considerably with cloud technology.

Now let’s move back to the initial discussion about the benefits of an integrated cloud platform to manage operations, for a small business. Today, there is no shortage of cloud-based business applications that propel SMEs into the same competitive advantage position that bigger companies have with their spending power. 

So how can SMEs make the most of a cloud platform to get an edge over their competition? Here are 5 ways:

1. Connected Business Value

An integrated cloud platform for business management provides a medium for businesses to manage their entire ecosystem of digital applications in one place. From functions such as CRM and marketing automation to deal with customers and ERP and HRM to handle internal operations, there is a need to bring a streamlined workflow that connects insights from each department and makes it available for general consumption. 

Read more: 5 Reasons Why Every SMB Should Invest In An ERP Solution 

A cloud platform-based business management software empowers businesses to achieve this feat at ease. When all stakeholders of a business value chain are brought into a single collaborative platform, it becomes easier to offer better services at a faster pace to customers.

2. Easier Development of New Features

Over time, your business may require newer capabilities in its digital channels to remain competitive. These features and capabilities may be required across different applications or business departments and incorporating them should not be an overly complex endeavor. 

With an integrated cloud platform, newer business applications or features could be developed by business users with low code application development mechanisms, facilitated by such platforms. In fact, Gartner estimates that by 2021, nearly 30% of manufacturing organizations will entrust their digital teams to build new features with low code technology. With an integrated business management platform, it becomes easier to maintain a common technology architecture and extensible APIs onto which new features can be easily built and deployed.

Read more: How Workplace Technology and Culture Will Evolve in 2020 & Beyond

3. Reduced Operational Costs

Having disconnected and disparate digital applications in your technology ecosystem can push up operational costs as each system may need access to a different talent pool of specialists for any maintenance or development activity. Having an integrated platform deployed on the cloud will ensure that there is a need only for a single point of contact for all maintenance and development needs. The unified technology architecture makes it easier for newer developers to build features that can be shared across units without the need for development and deployment effort in each individual business system across units. This will greatly improve cost savings in the long run.

Read more: 3 Strong Reasons for Your Business to Embrace Cloud-based IT Services 

4. Seamless Organizational Data Management

By leveraging a cloud platform, businesses can enable different sub-functions or departments to work simultaneously on the same digital data from across systems and ensure that all have access to the latest version of files as well. With an integrated system, businesses can save on data re-engineering and re-modeling efforts for interoperability between systems. 

Having a centralized business management platform on the cloud also provides a single source of truth as far as key business data is concerned. Management can draw up analytical reports, insights on performance, evaluate metrics of growth, and much more easily from a unified system of applications that cater to multiple business units. Data synchronization and real-time updates allow organizations to maintain the integrity of business data and enable transparency between departments accessing or working on the same data.

5. Easy Cultural Adaptability

When the core business operations are managed and run by software on the cloud, it becomes easier for businesses to respond to cultural changes that may happen abruptly. A striking example is the COVID-19 pandemic which forced hundreds of thousands of businesses to transition into a work from home or remote operations model for employee safety. Those that had a digital core managed by an integrated cloud platform faced no disruption as employees could carry out their daily tasks from the comfort of their homes by securely accessing the organizational cloud system whereas those that did not use such a mechanism found their business to be disrupted for days due to delays in facilitating work from home for all staff.

Read more: How InfinCE Helps You Quickly Transit to Remote Working

How InfinCE Helps

Even before the COVID-19 pandemic shook the world, it was predicted that nearly 78% of all small businesses will fully adopt cloud computing by the end of 2020. By moving to the cloud, they not only realize the benefits of scalability and cost-efficiency but also set the pace for the rapid proliferation of digital transformation. With a powerful integrated cloud platform at the core of operations, enterprises can propel their digital future to new heights. Making the right choice for such a cloud platform is all that matters in this case. If you’re thinking about making the switch to the cloud, then InfinCE can be the answer you were looking for. 

With years of expertise in powering the digital backbone of successful businesses worldwide, InfinCE can become the central business management platform of your business handling everything from ERP to Sales and CRM functions. Get in touch with our experts to learn more.

Building an ideal digital workplace today: What you need to know!

The modern-day workplace is evolving rapidly with remote working culture, distributed teams, innovative business models, and more. This has led to the rise of many digital workplace software solutions that empower organizations to make the most of their digital transformation. Yet the availability of multiple features in online collaboration tools also makes it a bit difficult to choose the right one for your needs. That is why it is important to understand how online collaboration software can help to unlock your business potential for the better.

The need for robust digital workplace software solutions has never been more important to tackle the new challenges. Traditional content management systems and remote work tools do not make the cut anymore. You need to equip your business with the right solutions to ensure high-end productivity and improve the efficiency of your digital workplace. Here is a checklist that will help you in that regard.

1. Define the Strategy and Roadmap

You need a dependable digital workplace strategy and roadmap before you start investing in any kind of online collaboration tools. It is imperative to determine your goals and technology priorities and understand how the remote work platform can provide more value to your business, your employees, and your consumers. This way, you can find the best solutions for meeting your specific requirements and ensure that your business processes support your objectives.

Read more: 5 Points To Consider While Choosing Your Enterprise Collaboration Software

2. Focus on Project Management

Once you have identified the need for online collaboration software for boosting your digital workplace culture, you need to see how they can help with project management. Your ultimate goal should be to make sure that your team members stay aligned with the company objectives and perform their roles on time to meet the targets. Similarly, your remote work software should also allow you to analyze the market trends so that you can figure out the right approaches to stay ahead of the competition.

Read more: 5 Ways A Project Management Tool Can Help Your Business Grow 

3. Ensure Seamless Communication

The most practical benefit of remote work software is that they allow easy communication. Yet this should not be limited to instant messaging alone; you should also make sure that your team can seamlessly share relevant files and information to make it more effective. Therefore, you need to invest in all-in-one digital workplace software that allows you to make the most of both top-down and bottom-up communication channels through different features like polls, feedback forms, news bulletins, etc.

Read more: 5 Best Practices To Enable Seamless Communication For Your Remote Workforce 

4. Include Video Conferencing Features

While you are looking for seamless communication, also see if your remote work platform comes with video conferencing capabilities. This is one of the most popular modes of communication these days and helps to ensure that your remote team can have face-to-face interactions with each other. Likewise, it should also have simple collaboration tools to let your employees convey their ideas across easily. This way, you can maintain good relationships within the company and ensure superior productivity and business efficiency.

Read more: Why is InfinCE the safest choice for your company’s video conferencing requirements? 

5. Leverage the Power of Chatbots

Chatbots powered by Artificial Intelligence (AI) can perform many of the day-to-day rule-based business tasks to ease the stress on your employees. That makes automation and chatbots an integral part of any digital workplace, allowing your team to focus on other important aspects of the business. Besides, chatbots can also help to streamline employee access to essential data and information across the business network. Chatbots also enhance customer experience by facilitating quick responses to their queries.

Read more: Automation In Small Business: 4 Areas To Get Started

6. Look for Personalization

Your online collaboration software should also come with personalization features and allow you to customize the digital workplace solution as per your needs. Many of the modern all-in-one workplace collaboration platforms come with AI-driven personalization capabilities, which give you superior results in terms of delivering relevant information as per the user roles, location, preferences, interests, and other activities. This can help to boost employee engagement and ensure improved productivity and experience.

Read more: Personalize your digital workplace with InfinCE’s enterprise collaboration features 

7. Opt for Flexible Integrations

Your business may already be using many different digital systems such as ERP solutions, CRM systems, content management infrastructure, etc. Therefore, you should make sure that your digital workplace platform allows flexible integrations with these systems as well. That way, you can continue using the existing digital platforms for your intended purposes and make them even more efficient by integration with the remote work software. Remember that your goal should be to unify these systems with technology and not create disruptions in the business processes.

8. Keep an Eye on Data Security

Data security forms the backbone of any company in today’s digitally-advanced era. As your employees will be accessing critical business data from different locations using the remote work tools, you need to make certain that the online collaboration tools you use are equipped with high-end data security features. This should go beyond standard user authentication and limited access; instead, you should bring additional safety features like firewall protection and data encryption to the mix.

Read more: 5 Features of InfinCE that will Transform The Way You Work 

The modern-day workplace can be complex, but it is not too difficult to navigate. You just need the right digital workplace software solution to strengthen your systems and ensure improved efficiency, productivity, and revenue.

The impact of using workplace technology is growing strong in every industry. Powerful workplace apps like InfinCE empowers businesses to make the most of digital transformation. Remote work software will not just ensure higher employee productivity and satisfaction, but also lead to better customer experience and help in superior revenue generation. Get in touch with us to understand how InfinCE can be the game-changing workplace application for your enterprise. 

Catch InfinCE on NewsWatch!

InfinCE will be featured on the award-winning television show NewsWatch on November 30th at 7 AM EST. 

NewsWatch is a popular TV show that covers technology, consumer, travel, health, and entertainment news for a broader audience and airs nationwide on the AMC Network and ION Network. 

Over the years, InfinCE has transformed into an all-in-one cloud built for the demands of modern businesses. Featuring a unified cloud, InfinCE packs in advanced collaboration and remote working tools to empower the global workforce to work and collaborate from anywhere. Business owners, on the other hand, can easily manage their IT assets and data from a single location via the centralized administration capabilities of InfinCE. Moreover, nascent entrepreneurs can quickly set up their entire IT from email to website and collaboration tools on branded IT infrastructure at an unbeatable price!

InfinCE is a product of Fingent, a global IT company that provides strategic IT business solutions and services for complex business problems, in multiple industry sectors.

Don’t forget to tune in to NewsWatch on your preferred network. To know more about the program schedules, visit the NewsWatch website.

Is your KPI Tracking Software pursuing these 5 metrics?

Achieving sustainable growth is vital for businesses of all sizes today. With pandemics like COVID-19 showing how unexpected events have the potential of wrecking global economies in the blink of an eye, it is important for today’s businesses to have a well established Key Performance Index driven metrics to track for their business growth. By following these metrics closely, a business can be better prepared to combat threats from competition, changing market trends, disruptive market forces like pandemics, and ensure that there is steady cash flow even in the most challenging of times. These KPI metrics should be on the organization’s business dashboard software which will be reviewed and closely monitored by the leadership and will form the foundation of all strategic initiatives and decisions taken by the board or top management. So now the question is what are those KPI metrics that need to be tracked on an organization’s business dashboard software to ensure sustainable growth? 

Here are our top 5 picks:

1. Cash To Revenue Position

In the initial days of the COVID-19 pandemic, China was one of the worst affected economies. Studies showed that nearly 85% of small and medium enterprises (SME) were projected to run out of cash in a timeframe as low as 2 months due to severe lockdowns leading to restrictive economic activity. 

Cash to revenue position is an indication of how well endowed is an enterprise to deal with emergencies and how much liquid cash they have at their disposal to invest in measures to counter low revenue scenarios such as pandemics or weak consumer spending. When the position is better, business owners or management has breathing space to make amendments in their operational style when revenue channels are disrupted and without having to take drastic measures such as cutting jobs or delaying bills. This is definitely an important metric that needs to be on every business KPI dashboard software and monitored regularly.

Read more: Creating Organizational, Department, Team and Personal Dashboards using InfinCE

2. Customer Acquisition Costs

For any business to survive, there is a need for customers to spend money on their products or services. In the business world, it has been proven through studies that acquiring a new customer would incur more than 5 times the cost it takes to retain an existing one. As such, customer acquisition costs have the potential to consume the budgets of several departments like sales, marketing, and IT. So, leaders need to keep a tab on spending in this section and this is precisely the reason why customer acquisition costs are an important metric that needs to be tracked via an organization’s KPI dashboard software.

3. Outbound Marketing Performance

Marketing is the engine that fuels sales. The better a business is able to market its offerings to the right audience, the greater will be the business returns in terms of sales revenue. However, marketing needs to be a highly disciplined and well-tracked activity, especially for small and medium businesses. 

Conversion rates from marketing activities are important in ensuring that a business always has a healthy leads pipeline that the sales department can focus on and convert into deals in due course of time. Using intelligent marketing analytics and automation platforms, businesses need to track their ROI on every single dollar spend and correlate to the leads or business opportunity, or social influence that a marketing campaign was able to generate. 

While sales are in itself a large activity that can be tracked through a separate KPI in an organization’s KPI tracking software, it can also be clubbed with the marketing KPI in small businesses. The reason is that in smaller organizations, it is quite common for marketing and sales to be functioning as a single entity sharing a lot of human and technology resources and well synchronized towards a common goal.

Read more: Focus on these 5 KPIs to improve small business growth

4. Operational Efficiency

Improving the quality of labor is vital for businesses to survive in the long run. Studies show that 52% of SMB owners find it hard to hire a quality workforce. So, the next biggest challenge here is to maintain productivity. Every business organization will have its unique list of business processes, policies, and frameworks on which they operate daily. As the competition tightens, it is important to work as a lean business organization with more agility to ensure that customer needs are understood and fulfilled at the earliest. For this to happen, there is a need for seamless operational efficiency. 

Read more: 5 Key Features Every Project Management Dashboard Should Offer 

It is important to keep track of the time it takes for a sales process to be completed, the number of sub-processes involved, the amount of productive time an employee or team spends in a project or sales transaction, and other similar elements that need to be measured. Once these are known, it becomes easier for decision-makers to re-engineer processes and work frameworks regularly to cope with changing trends in the market and help employees adopt new additions to the business easily, such as new software or new machinery in a manufacturing unit. 

The training process can be tweaked in line with new learning norms prevalent in the market and made easy and highly accessible for employees so that they can speed up the learning activity. Both the employee performance as well as the operational efficiency of the business thus need to be tracked efficiently in an organizational KPI tracking software.

5. Employee Engagement

Employees are just as important as customers to a business. Ensuring that they are well-taken care of is a key milestone that every business must strive to achieve. Studies show that 71% of executives believe that employee engagement is key to ensuring successful business growth. While measuring it as a KPI, employee engagement will include a vast majority of key indicators of employee wellbeing. Some examples of items to be evaluated for this KPI include employee turnover, attrition rates, revenue per employee, hiring budgets, etc. Insights from this metric are important to plan the future expansion of the business as you always need employees to drive your business forward in all circumstances.

Read more: 5 Benefits Of Having A Centralized Employee Dashboard In Your Business  

The above 5 metrics give a clear picture of whether your business is progressing in the right direction. Having a regular watch on these will ensure that you are prepared well for any emergencies or disruptive situations that may occur in the future like the COVID-19 pandemic. To drive maximum results, it is important to have a digital backbone that will enable all units in your business to seamlessly measure KPIs and perform according to expectations in their respective tasks. This is what InfinCE can help you achieve with its range of business applications available on a secure cloud platform. Get in touch with us for more details.

How to Stay on Top of Video Conferencing Software Security

Video conferencing has emerged as one of the simplest solutions to overcome the challenges of social distancing and restrictions on physical meetings amid the COVID-19 pandemic. As more and more businesses are implementing video conferencing solutions for managing their day-to-day operations, the trend has led to the development of a wide range of collaboration platforms as well. However, as the demand grew, it brought along a few security challenges too.

Read more: 10 Benefits of Using Business Communication Apps to Future-Proof Your Company 

Businesses utilizing a video meeting platform to communicate with their team, clients, and customers need to understand that remote video conferencing carries an inherent data risk as well. That is why you need to ensure that you adopt the right cybersecurity measures to protect your organization’s confidential data. Below are 5 ways to help you keep your shared data safe while ensuring increased productivity and collaboration.

1. Monitor your network security

Implementing adequate network security measures is vital for keeping sensitive business data safe from hackers. It does not matter how secure the devices are that you use to connect to the video conferencing software; if you do not have proper network security, anyone can obtain the details shared via video conference by gaining access to the company network.

You can use encrypted passwords and customized firewalls to secure your network. Likewise, you should also use Single Sign-On (SSO) authentication for all users to reduce the risks of network breaches due to compromised user credentials. As SSO credentials are strategically linked to the specific user’s authorization and entitlements, it will help to monitor and control access to all the video conferencing units in case the user credentials are compromised.

2. Assess your current video meeting platform

If you are using a legacy video conferencing software solution, then you could be dealing with an outdated platform with weak security features. Even the best meeting software that performed well a couple of years ago can be at risk of security breaches if it is not updated regularly with the latest security patches. That means putting your employees, customers, clients, and your company reputation at risk. 

Note that installing updates may not work after a certain point for older video conferencing technology. So it will be wiser to upgrade to a reliable, modern team collaboration software like InfinCE. Users can enjoy enhanced communication, without the fear of data breach through InfinCE’s video conferencing platform. 

Read more: Why Is InfinCE A Better Choice For Safe Video Calling Than Zoom

The latest video meeting solutions come with advanced data encryption features that will help to keep your online conferences private and shared data safe and secure.

3. Use tough-to-crack video conference passwords

In order to keep your video conferences secure, you need to secure both your software and hardware with 128-bit AES protection. This security measure will allow your video meeting platform to use a 128-bit key to encrypt and decrypt all the video calls. As it works by automatically generating secured keys before the start of each video conference, it makes cracking the passwords virtually impossible for hackers.

You should ensure that you secure all your new business conferences, instant video calls, personal meetings, and attendees with unbreakable 128-bit encryption. It is also important that you never shared the video conference links via open channels like social media, as it will make it very easy for hackers to hop into your video conferences and try to steal secure company data.

4. Get the best meeting software with domain-based approach

There are a lot of video conferencing solutions out there, but not all of them follow the domain-based approach to security. Choosing such a provider will help you to make sure that all the attendees can collaborate in a well-controlled and secure environment. Moreover, it will also ensure that you do not connect your video conferencing software directly to the internet without a firewall.

Regardless of whether it is managed by the video conferencing provider or by your in-house IT team, domain-based security will allow you to assign various levels of user permissions to have better control of the video conferences. This way, if hackers try to hop into your video meetings, they will not be able to enter the system without you granting access.

Read more: Top 10 Alternatives to Microsoft Teams that Aid Remote Work in 2020 

5. Ensure robust privacy policies

Choosing the best meeting software for your video conferencing needs also has the benefit of reliable privacy policies. Check that the video meeting solution you use has clear policies on the collection of user information as well as meeting content for any kind of advertising or marketing efforts. Moreover, you should also create a video conferencing policy for your company to establish clear guidelines and expectations for all users.

You should have a well-defined privacy policy that specifies who can connect to the video conferencing software remotely and how they should access and use the shared data. You can even prepare a list of team members, pre-approved clients, customers, and vendors, who can gain access to specific meetings to bolster the security of your video conferences.

Apart from following all the above-stated guidelines, you should also ensure that your employees are educated on how to host and manage a secure video conference. For that, you can conduct training sessions to explain the specific steps, recommended security settings, and company policies that they should follow to maximize video conferencing security.

Want to know how InfinCE can elevate your video calling experience with robust security and exceptional collaboration features? Get in touch with our expert today.  

The Role of Business Communication Tools in the Growth of a Business

Effective communication is the backbone of every successful business. This is even more applicable for modern businesses because of the massive shifts in the workplace culture of late. Technology advancements and the impact of COVID-19 have made robust business communication tools more than a necessity in every industry today. Fortunately, there are many impressive business communication apps, which make it easier for leaders and managers to collaborate with their teams, connect the missing dots, and drive improved performance and productivity.

Why Business Communication Tools are Inevitable in Today’s Workplace

It has become a norm for employees to use business communication tools for efficient collaboration. A recent Facebook Messaging Survey found that more than 63% of people across generations prefer messaging apps for communication instead of emails or calls. The impact can be seen in the business world as well with around 60% of businesses of all sizes using collaborative chat apps today. That is because business communication apps perfectly suit the evolving workplace culture while opening up ways to ensure improved employee productivity.

How Business Communication Apps Contribute to Business Growth

Business communication tools offer a flexible platform to furnish the varying demands of interaction within the company. Below are some of the fundamental advantages of using business communication tools that help in business growth.

1. Unmatched Adaptability

The nature of the modern workplace is changing rapidly and businesses across industries are promoting remote work. With a reliable communication app, leaders can collaborate with remote workers as needed, while allowing them to work as per their schedules. As more than 70% of millennial employees prefer working in a flexible environment, it is high time for businesses to adapt to the change and ensure proper communication channels to boost productivity.

Read more: 5 Tips To Effectively Manage Remote Teams During Challenging Times 

2. Easy Data Sharing

Modern communication tools come with simple features to share all the data and information needed for any task. Team leaders and employees can share files, upload links, or even directly stream content to make sure that everyone is on the same page. Business communication apps like InfinCE allow you to save files and data on the integrated cloud system. This makes collaborating on a project further easier, as anyone can access the required files later.

3. Effortless Task Management

Leaders can have a very difficult time managing a project if the team communicated through multiple channels. A business communication tool is much more than an everyday messaging app. It brings everything in one place so that managers and leaders can have a quick overview of the processes and stay updated with the progress of the project. It also makes planning tasks, assigning duties, setting deadlines, etc., simpler while improving accountability amongst the team members.

4. Real-Time Communication

Team collaboration apps keep employees posted on what is going on and make it easier to focus on their job roles. Messages can be sent to individual employees or in a group to make sure that everyone stays on track and performs their duties on time. Business messaging apps like InfinCE come with video conferencing capabilities to make meetings more interactive and engaging.

Read more: 5 Workplace Innovations You Can Welcome with Video Conferencing 

5. Less Unproductive Meetings

Physical team meetings can waste a lot of productive time. As per the Harvard Business Review, around 65% of employees believe that “meetings keep them from completing their own work, while 71% said meetings are unproductive and inefficient.” This serious problem needs to be fixed as quickly as possible to ensure better employee efficiency. As team collaboration apps allow you to access relevant information anytime and from anywhere, they help avoid the need for any physical meetings.

6. Improved Employee Engagement

Business communication apps are much different from mundane emails. They can act as a platform to share inspiring stories, exciting news, motivational messages, and have some fun too. Team messaging apps are not necessarily limited to sharing business-related data; many of them also come with emojis and stickers to add a personal touch to the messages and make it a bit lighthearted.

Read more: 5 Ways To Improve Business Growth Through Employee Engagement

7. Integrated Modern Technologies

An enterprise collaboration app can also be customized to accommodate various modern technologies, such as Machine Learning, Robotic Process Automation, Natural Language Processing, Predictive Analytics, and Artificial Intelligence. These technologies can help streamline business communication by sorting information, analyzing data, generating reports, creating policies, and much more. This will, in turn, help to ease the stress of performing routine tasks from the employees and they can focus on other productive duties.

8. Performance Tracking

A business communication app can also allow leaders to track the performance of their teams effectively. Team collaboration tools allow managers to create jobs and determine goals before handing over those to the team members. They can then track the progress toward the specific goals and see how each employee is collaborating to achieve them. This brings more transparency to the team, boosts accountability among the employees, and motivates them to perform better.

Read more: 11 Online Collaboration Tools That Facilitate Remote Work In 2020

9. Mobile Apps

Everyone prefers to use mobile apps these days to read emails, track work, share information, and more. Forrester reports that around “66% of employees now use two or more devices every day.” With an integrated mobile app for business communication, employees will not have to manage multiple channels to communicate with each other. Instead, it will make it easier to access all the data and information across devices.

10. Improved Productivity

The most obvious benefit of workplace apps is that it improves employee productivity. As business communication tools make it easier to set goals, assign jobs, track progress, generate reports, and interact with the team members in real-time, they help boost employee morale and efficiency. Having a single channel for all business communication also avoids the need for multitasking, which further helps to improve time management.

There are countless ways for team members to interact with each other, but business communication apps give a more dedicated platform for building a productive work environment. While it cannot be predicted how the future will shape workplace culture, it can be said that advanced and feature-rich business communication tools will certainly be integral in the coming days.InfinCE brings you a pool of effective collaboration software to help you connect with your teams faster and work together better, for greater business achievements. Get in touch with us to learn more.

10 Leading Apps for Secure Enterprise File Transfer in 2020

From being one of the world’s most severe pandemics, the COVID-19 disease has devastated economies of almost all countries worldwide by forcing them to go into lockdown situations that were unprecedented in the past. There are several businesses that have been forced to operate with their staff working remotely and their business moving to predominantly digital channels. From retail to finance, there was a rapid shift in consumer appetite from an in-person store or branch visit to availing of goods and services from the comfort of their homes. To sustain operations of their digital customer channels, businesses had to ensure that their workforce too was able to work seamlessly and productively from their homes. However, conducting daily business operations from home rather than an office environment had its fair share of challenges. One of the most dominant challenges that existed was facilitating seamless and secure file sharing between employees. 

Confidential files that involved sensitive information are often shared between employees of the same department or between departments for various operational reasons. While at the office, the securely monitored local network serves as the best medium to share files irrespective of a file’s size. Being locally hosted and monitored, there wasn’t any threat from erroneous or malicious access being made of the files. For employees who now have to work from home, businesses have to rely on internet-based file-sharing platforms to enable continuity of their operations through successful employee collaboration.

Read more: 6 Ways to Build a Secure File Sharing Practice Within Your Organization

Keeping this need of facilitating secure file transfer between employees, let us explore the top 10 apps that help businesses achieve this feat seamlessly:

1. InfinCE

If you are looking for a one-stop-shop to enable your business to transition into a digital-friendly one, then InfinCE is the solution you have been searching for. InfinCE offers unparalleled cloud file storage and sharing options as well as becomes a comprehensive enterprise digital platform for collaboration, customer relationship management, HRM, and all core operational areas. InfinCE offers a branded cloud platform and a custom website builder with personalized options to match your brand’s identity. 

Read more: 5 Features of InfinCE that will Transform The Way You Work 

2. Dropbox Business

One of the early birds in the cloud storage market, Dropbox made its name from being the preferred destination for storing and sharing files online. For businesses, they have a dedicated enterprise version offering seamless file sharing, collaboration, and synchronization while ensuring secure information exchange between stakeholders.

3. G Suite Google Drive

Google is the undisputed leader for personal communication and collaboration with its range of services like Gmail and G Suite web productivity and storage apps. For businesses, Google offers an even more superlative file sharing and collaborative experience with its dedicated business focused G Suite Google Drive services. With highly affordable subscription plans and splendid support, it offers a great value proposition for businesses of all sizes.

4. One Drive for Business

Microsoft did not want to be left out of the enterprise file sharing market when its key rivals were all offering highly competitive products to entice customers. The One Drive for Business platform offers a highly scalable cloud-based storage and file sharing service that allows employees to securely share large files with their peers effortlessly and also get access to Microsoft’s leading enterprise collaboration tools like MS Word, PowerPoint, etc. as integrated subscription options for very attractive prices.

Read more: Top 10 Alternatives to Microsoft Teams that Aid Remote Work in 2020 

5. Citrix ShareFile

Citrix is a darling of the enterprise world where thousands of companies rely on their virtualization and secure remote access platforms to conduct business. The file-sharing app offered by Citrix offers an equally efficient job of helping businesses facilitate better and more secure file sharing to sustain their operations.

6. Firefox Send

The world’s most popular open-source web browser offers a free and secure file sharing feature via the Firefox Send option. It allows users to share files securely by simply dragging and dropping the file into the browser and share access links to relevant stakeholders. You even have options to set expiry for the files after a certain number of downloads or even set password protection for added security.

7. WeTransfer

WeTransfer provides business users with a simple drag and drop interface to host files on the cloud and share it with privileged access to any stakeholder. With free and paid versions available, the platform offers one of the quickest free sharing experiences for any collaborative file.

8. FileCloud

If you need a file-sharing platform that can be customized with your own intuitive corporate branding guidelines, then FileCloud is the perfect option for your business. It offers a highly personalized dashboard that can be modified according to your branding guidelines to give a unique user experience for all your employees while they use it to share files seamlessly with peers.

9. Box Business

Box is also one of the earliest cloud storage companies that revolutionized online file sharing. With seamless integration capabilities for G-suite, Office 365, and other popular collaboration platforms, Box makes for an attractive enterprise data-sharing platform with secure credentials thanks to its focus on encryption using data protection policies of high standards.

10. SendAnywhere

This is one platform that sticks to its name more rigorously to carry out its operations. It simply lets users send files from one location to anywhere using its secure data transfer channel. A paid subscription offers higher data caps and more control over transfer permissions making it a worthy contender for today’s business users.

Read more: 11 Online Collaboration Tools That Facilitate Remote Work In 2020

We hope you get to make an informed choice for your business’s digital future from our recommendations above and enable your staff to seamlessly share information and collaborate on work. Besides secure file transfer, InfinCE offers a basket of features that enable hassle-free and seamless remote work for enterprises of all sizes. 

Get in touch with us to know more about how InfinCE can be the best remote cloud platform for your business. 

How InfinCE Transforms the Way Your Workforce Operates Today

As vaccine trials show promising results, the world is in high hopes of recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic slowly. But the scale at which vaccination needs to happen, conquering challenges in production, logistics, demographic, political, and societal scenarios, is huge and hence it may take time for the total eradication of the virus. This means, the new norm of working for most companies wherein a good majority of their employees work from home, is likely to continue for the long term. However, 2020 witnessed the massive change of modern workplace software being increasingly brought to the traditional workforce wherein it only took a matter of days for millions of employees to work at the same pace from their home as they would from their office.

One of the most celebrated enterprise collaboration and digital platform for small and medium businesses during the COVID-19 pandemic was InfinCE. Some of the most demanding businesses managed to successfully keep their staff engaged and productive through seamless collaboration courtesy of InfinCE. 

Read More: Top 10 Alternatives to Microsoft Teams that Aid Remote Work in 2020

Today, let us take a look at the 5 key features of InfinCE that make it an undisputed leader in enabling better employee collaboration and transforming the way employees work remotely.

1. Easy Information Access

When employees work remotely, the biggest hurdle they face is getting information about their job activities at the earliest. With InfinCE’s cloud-based platform, companies can create a centralized virtual repository of all company information that employees can access based on their job roles. InfinCE allows privileged access control options to ensure that confidential or sensitive files and data are made available only to the right stakeholders and with proper logging of access to ensure transparency. 

The best part is that employees can access this information on the go right from the comfort of their smartphones thereby providing more flexibility. This allows them to plan better responses for customer-facing job objectives.

2. Improved Collaboration

With InfinCE, enterprises can create virtual workspace platforms wherein teams working on a project can converge and collaborate digitally. Be it brainstorming for solutions and ideas, daily standup meetings, project progress meetings, the platform allows all team members to digitally meet in one place.  You can securely share files, work together on documents, communicate via instant messaging, manage dependencies in work together, and create custom dashboards- both at the individual level or at the team/ department level to visually track and analyze what’s happening in your business. 

Read more: 5 Benefits Of Having A Centralized Employee Dashboard In Your Business

Collaboration is propelled to the next level as employees can carry out almost all sorts of work activities together just as how they would do so when they were at the office. This is facilitated irrespective of where your employee may be based out, anywhere on the globe.

3. Budget Friendliness

When a pandemic rips through economies worldwide, it is important for companies to preserve operational cash flow to the maximum possible limit. For this to happen, they need to enable a digital-first environment for employees that don’t burn a hole in their pockets. InfinCE has always been built for the cloud-centric enterprise of tomorrow. With a range of subscription pricing plans, the digital enterprise platform offers more value for every single dollar spent as a subscription charge. 

InfinCE offers small and medium businesses the flexibility to save on costs since they only pay for the features and scale they consume from the platform. This helps them significantly boost their operating margins as expenditure comes down drastically. The additional savings can go a long way in helping businesses preserve cash and sustain profitable operations in challenging times.

4. Secure Digital Infrastructure

Today’s businesses deal with a large volume of sensitive customer data that needs to be accessed and shared between multiple employees across different departments. When your entire work environment turns into a remote one due to a global pandemic, the concerns regarding data security heightens to new levels. This is where InfinCE assures peace of mind with its state-of-the-art security credentials. The platform offers you the choice to run your digital enterprise infrastructure on a secure private cloud location which can be monitored and managed effectively by your technology team without worrying about security threats.

From building your website to offering a secure intranet, InfinCE offers all the IT set up needed to run your business under one roof! InfinCE provides you a dedicated and secured cloud-hosted IT infrastructure comprising a private email server, dedicated virtual servers, virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI), intranet for internal communication, and custom website builder. 

Read more: How InfinCE enables you to quickly transit to remote working

5. Long List of Applications

Over the years, InfinCE has grown a large community of applications under its ecosystem that enables businesses to streamline productivity and improve engagement levels of their employees. Additionally, the platform also allows small and medium businesses to experience the digital transformation of their key growth activities like human resource management, marketing, and sales by introducing applications for CRM, marketing automation, HCM, and much more. 

The list of supporting apps for the InfinCE ecosystem has been steadily growing which makes it a complete digital package for today’s businesses. InfinCE helps you build a branded cloud platform with customization options to match your brand identity.

As your business operations are increasingly being disrupted, it is becoming clear that there is a need to rapidly transition your operational model to accommodate a highly digital-friendly workforce that can work from anywhere. InfinCE takes you closer to this goal by creating the most secure and cost-efficient yet feature-rich experience for your business’s digital infrastructure. Get in touch with us to know more.

How can businesses pick the right enterprise collaboration platform?

Recently, we wrote about the leading online collaboration tools that facilitate remote work in 2020 and which are the best alternatives to Microsoft Teams your business can consider. We know how important it must be for you to facilitate remote work collaboration among your teams positioned far and wide, at their homes or co-working spaces. That’s why this time we decided to share a few tips on what all you need to consider while choosing the best enterprise collaboration software for your business. 

Half the year down, COVID-19 is still doing its rounds worldwide, pushing the economy to a slow reopening after months of lockdown. While some countries are experiencing drastic spikes in the number of cases, others are witnessing a gradual decline of cases. Irrespective of their geographical positions, a huge section of the global workforce is poised to continue working remotely for a long time to come in the interest of safety.

Read more: 5 Tips To Effectively Manage Remote Teams During Challenging Times

So, here are 5 things you need to keep in mind while choosing an enterprise collaboration platform for your business:

1. Evaluate your needs

All modern-day enterprise collaboration platforms have tons of features and each of these features may sound exciting when you hear or explore them initially. However, not all businesses need all these features to be present in their collaboration software. You need to go back to the drawing board, run a campaign internally within your workforce to identify the challenges they face in collaboration, the tools, and support they need through a collaboration platform, and then have a look at features offered by leading vendors. This will help to keep your digital infrastructure optimized and personalized according to the needs of your workforce. 

Rather than the management implementing a platform that is most appealing to them, the focus here is to garner requirements from the actual workforce who would be using this platform for collaboration and then pick a vendor that offers these features on demand.

2. Scalability

It is likely that every collaboration software you came across in your search will be a cloud-based one. Thus, you assume that they will be scalable. But scalability is not restricted to just storage on the cloud. By scalability, we mean the ability of the platform to grow across all dimensions as more departments and processes in your business go into the platform. It includes support for feature additions, easy development of new features, accommodating multiple processes and new policies over time, and above all, handles more complex computing needs in the future based on your business’s growth. 

A digital collaboration platform is not something that you invest and implement for the short term. It will be a crucial digital platform that will grow with your business and adapt to changing work trends in the future.

Read More: How IT Teams Can Prepare to Support Remote Workforce During COVID-19

3. Cost Efficiency

As described in one of the previous points, your business may not need all features as advertised by vendors. By subscribing to more features, you will end up paying more on the subscription fee if the platform offers a “pay for what you use” model of subscription. Some features may be needed only in the future when your business grows and more employees use these features. Hence a platform that allows you to configure your subscription is the most desired option from a cost perspective. Once you identify the features you really need as described earlier, you can pick a vendor that offers you the freedom to pay for only those features on demand.

4. Security

When almost all of your employees work remotely, it is likely that confidential and sensitive customer information will be handled through the enterprise collaboration platform you deploy. Hence there needs to be an adequate security protocol in place within the software that lets you make governing policies on data and information exchange within the digital environment. Permissioned access, transparent work and project management, logged activities, etc. will be required to ensure that there is no compromise in security.

Read more: Why Is InfinCE A Better Choice For Safe Video Calling Than Zoom

5. Usability

When employees are suddenly moved into a new paradigm of working, there will be disruptive impacts on their daily routine. On top of that, if they are allotted a new collaboration platform without adequate onboarding time and awareness, the chaos will multiply many folds. To make a smoother transition into a new enterprise collaboration software, companies must pick a digital platform that has a high focus on usability and provides a comprehensive support and training exercise to help make the transition seamless. 

These tips could be video demonstrations, how to use manuals, a comprehensive FAQ section, dedicated support associates available all time, and much more. Platforms with intuitive interfaces and a shorter learning curve can be given preference for quicker adoption in your workforce.

The remote work culture is here to stay for a long time. We did not mean to say that there will not be a return to the office, but even when work resumes from office, employees would certainly feel much more comfortable to avail of Work from Home options occasionally. The pandemic showed us that it is possible to maintain your productivity levels while working from home to be on par with an office-based culture. 

Read more: How InfinCE Helps You Quickly Transit to Remote Working

Hence the only requirement is that you make the right collaboration platform available to employees. With secure information policies, seamless cloud-based deployment and management, InfinCE offers the best enterprise collaboration platform for today’s businesses. Get in touch with us to explore more. 

4 ways to bolster your IT team’s efficiency to support remote operations during COVID-19

It’s only the second week of June 2020 and the total number of confirmed COVID-19 cases worldwide has come close to 7.15 million. Governments, businesses, and people have started to realize that we may need to learn to live with the coronavirus for an unexpected period of time, at least until vaccines are found that can neutralize or eliminate its threat for good. Businesses and universities have transitioned their core operations to adopt a remote work culture. Except for some critical work operations that require a physical presence in the workplace, almost all companies now operate with employees working out of their homes.

Read More: Effective Work From Home Tips – Infographic

What does this mean for the IT department across businesses who have moved into a remote work operation mode? 

IT teams need to quickly support the transition of the entire IT work infrastructure into a near 100% remote mode. From productivity tools to instant peer communication platforms, everything needs to be available for employees irrespective of where they are located. 

Here are some best practices you can utilize to get your IT team prepared for keeping your employees connected to their workplace virtually during such uncertain times.

1. Set Communication Policies

While remote working employees need access to multiple communication channels to effectively work on their tasks, it is important for companies to define the clear scope of each channel. One example would be an optimal usage of paid communication channels like VOIP facilities with limited licenses or shared licenses between departments. 

There should be a minimum availability of each such resource and policies must be laid out to ensure optimal utilization. 

Read More: How can businesses manage their remote workforce through efficient communication?

For example, if teleconferencing between team members of a project requires more time and more users to be connected to a single conference call, it can be moved to an online meeting platform that offers unlimited conferencing options rather than using limited license telephone-based VOIP conferences. This offers your IT team the flexibility to allot VOIP facilities to more demanding teams like customer-facing employees who may find it difficult to ask customers to get into online meetings rather than just a conversation over the telephone.

2. Secure Information Access

When employees work from their office, confidential information regarding customer projects may be distributed in local networks which could only be accessed from office computers. 

When there is a shift to remote working, this information should go into a more distributed storage facility that can be accessed over the internet. Hence a proper security policy and protocol must be defined for flexible information access over the internet. This allows IT teams to implement monitoring systems, maintain access logs, set privileged access options, and much more. 

Moreover, all employees need to be strictly made aware of these policies through regular communication from leaders, managers, and HR. Security should not be the sole responsibility of your IT team but an extended oversight of the entire workforce.

Read More: Why Is InfinCE A Better Choice For Safe Video Calling Than Zoom

3. Provisioning of Digital Platforms and Tools

There is a huge demand for collaboration and communication platforms when employees work together on projects. The demand escalates to unprecedented levels when your stakeholders shift to a remote mode. 

From meetings to file sharing to project management, there is a multitude of managerial overhead for facilitating seamless operations while employees are working from home. 

This calls for the implementation of a powerful digital enterprise platform like InfinCE which can offer different departments within your organization the necessary digital tools and platforms for communication and collaboration. Such platforms make it easy for your IT team to manage overall digital infrastructure availability for remote workers and make support readily available for their needs at any time.

Read More: Best Practices to Remotely Manage Your Business During COVID-19

4. Measure, Analyze and Improve

For many businesses, this is probably the first instance where such a massive remote working policy came into force and that too in a very short notice. Glitches and delays are expected, but the key focus here should be to learn from each event and ensure a better experience the next time. 

It is important to regularly measure productivity levels of staff and align it with IT objectives such as availability, file management, security and data policies, software and license management, etc. 

Set out clear KPIs for measuring employee productivity during the timeline of remote work. The measured values should be analyzed to arrive at trends that occur in work patterns frequently. Feedback from employees should be collected with regards to infrastructural availability, network, or communication channel flexibility, etc. Learnings from all these should be factored in while your IT department optimizes your digital infrastructure to meet rising demands from your workforce.

Read More: How InfinCE helps you quickly transit to remote working

The remote work culture is expected to remain a norm for months to come as the COVID-19 pandemic is not showing a dramatic rate of containment of spread. Your IT teams need the most resilient enterprise IT platforms to help manage complex requirements of the entire workforce who are working remotely. This is where enterprise platforms like InfinCE can be their best friend. Get in touch with us to know how some of the world’s best businesses manage their digital workforce infrastructure seamlessly with InfinCE.