The success of any project depends on having a great plan as well as a platform for improving team productivity. As important as it is to execute a new project or idea, it’s that difficult to maintain efficiency throughout the project.

For a project manager, it is imperative to see the bigger picture and do the best to manage the different tasks related to the project at hand. However, it is seen that many project managers struggle to keep track of tasks and end up losing control of everything. To avoid all the unnecessary chaos and confusion related to managing a project, you need reliable project management software that is designed to make the entire process smoother. This blog will help you understand the difference a good project management suite brings to your business and how to choose one!

Read more: Why is Project Management Software Crucial to Project Success in Remote Work Environment

What is Project Management?

The term project management can be defined as the approach one takes for planning and coordinating a project. Be it a small-scale entity, a decentralized team, or a global enterprise, there should be a proper channel available for project management. Every business is optimistic during the starting stages of a project, but it can get very difficult when it comes to overseeing the project development to the final product. This is where project management software comes to play.

Project management software applications have become a necessity in today’s competitive world. They are an essential pillar of support to get the job done regardless of the industry or domain. A project management platform can ensure that you get access to all the tools required to manage every task involved in the project. In other words, you have everything at hand to finish the project within the set deadlines and achieve the expected outcomes.

What are the Functions of Project Management Software?

Project management software like InfinCE can have many functions. InfinCE goes beyond the traditional project management software in numerous ways. It offers you an entire suite of apps at the price of a traditional project management application to ensure improved productivity. Below are some of the main features that make a project management suite exceptional – ensuring the platform you choose has these would be the first stepping-stone to success.

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

1. Cloud-Based Functionality

Cloud-based solutions have become a commonplace feature for forward-thinking businesses. What’s more, remote work culture has become the mainstream option for many businesses due to the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. With a robust project management suite that provides cloud-based services, you can ensure better collaboration among your team members no matter where they are located around the globe. In addition, cloud-based solutions are cost-effective, easier to implement, and scalable to meet your varied needs.

2. Seamless Collaboration Options

Seamless communication and collaboration are vital in every project to ensure that all the team members are on the same page. A project management solution like InfinCE can ensure cross-functional collaboration to simplify the way different teams work. You can easily communicate with your team members using the all-in-one platform to share important information and documents related to the task, which will make sure that the job is done efficiently and on time.

3. Easy Integration of Tools

As a project manager, you may find yourself using different productivity tools for different functionalities. For instance, you may use a tool for communication, another for assigning day-to-day tasks, and yet another to share files. An all-in-one project management suite like InfinCE can offer you a unified platform to manage everything. You can integrate as many apps into the software as you want to manage your project. This way, you will not have to juggle between different tools, which can lead to a loss in productivity.

This also means that you will get more time to spend on the important aspects of the project. The most essential tools you should have in your project management software include:

• Planning Tools: Your project management suite should have the right tools to let you map different tasks and describe task iterations clearly at the start of a project. This will help you to layout the project expectations upfront for your team members.
• Task Management Apps: The project management platform you choose should allow for seamless integration of productivity and task management apps to make day-to-day work easier. This could range from creating jobs to assigning tasks and setting deadlines to generating reports and more.
• Time Tracking Options: A successful project management strategy relies heavily on how different team members utilize their time for the different tasks assigned to them. With efficient project management software, you can track time and export timesheets from a single dashboard to monitor the performance of your team.

Read more: 5 Must-have Features In A Project Management Tool For Small Businesses

Added Functions to Look Out for in Your Project Management Software

The final output of a project depends a lot upon who is responsible for what. This demands keeping the team updated about the different tasks at all stages of the project as well as assigning tasks and job roles as required. With an all-in-one project management software like InfinCE, you can automate the assigning of repeated tasks based on specific rules to streamline the process. Moreover, you can also communicate the deadlines and responsibilities to your team more clearly when you are on the same platform.

InfinCE also makes it simpler to track the progress of the project by giving you a unified view of the various tasks on a single dashboard. This can not only help to monitor the performance of your team members but also motivate them in case they hit a roadblock or need some help in getting things resolved. This also means that you can prevent bottlenecks and break any silos before they affect your team’s overall productivity.

InfinCE also allows you to anticipate what can go wrong in a project and take the required actions in due time. This will keep the workflow unhindered so that the objectives of the project are achieved as expected. In a nutshell, a reliable project management software suite like InfinCE will help you to keep your team focused and organized to ensure optimal success for your business. So wait no more! Sign Up with InfinCE today and unlock unlimited possibilities for your business!

Best Practices to Optimize Project Management Communication

Agile project management is highly crucial in today’s remote-first, digital-first workplace. The remote work culture has emerged as a potential solution for handling various operational aspects across companies. Remote work management brings several benefits to the table, but it is not devoid of challenges. One of the biggest concerns in managing remote teams is effective communication.

Without consistent and effective project communication between the teams, it can be challenging for the managers to execute actions as planned. Likewise, lack of proper communication will make it impossible to ensure that everyone is on the same page about the project’s status and what changes have been made to it. Ineffective project communication can lead to transparency issues between the teams, affecting their productivity and overall results.

Download White Paper: Adapting to The Changing Face of Enterprise Collaboration

Common Challenges in Project Management Communication

Most managers fail to drive the optimum outcome when managing remote teams. It is because they do not start with a well-planned communication strategy. Remote work and project management should always have a robust communication strategy so that no unwanted scenario pops up. It prevents project teams from using ineffective channels at inappropriate times.

For instance, while dealing with an urgent customer request, email communication alone may not be effective. You may have to use telecommunication, video conferencing, or instant messaging platforms to solve the customer challenge immediately. At the same time, an everyday instant messenger may not support screen sharing or file sharing. Hence, it is crucial to adopt Digital Workplace Orchestration platforms like InfinCE to manage your projects. 

Read more: How Successful Leaders Engage Employees Using Modern Business Communication Tools like InfinCE 

Communication gaps in project management can also arise when some team members are not updated with the project’s progress. For example, suppose someone is handling the design aspect of the project and fails to update the design status to other members. In that case, the production team will have to wait until they receive notification regarding design completion. This can lead to trust and transparency issues and minimize employee productivity. 

Another challenge in project management communication is that managers often do not have the means to fine-tune their strategies as per the project’s progress. Even though the project communication management approach fits the implementation needs, companies may need to accommodate frequent change requests from the customer. It’s crucial to refine the communication and collaboration strategy to match the changing project management demands.

Read more: Business Process Management Strategy for your Small Business 

How to Ensure Project Management Communication Success

When developing the project communication plan, you need to determine how you can pass on the relevant information to the team members in due time. It’s also important to decide how you can share the necessary files and documents with the appropriate parties for carrying out their jobs. InfinCE’s project collaboration software can simplify all these processes.

How to Choose a Project Management Platform

An all-in-one project collaboration platform like InfinCE can come in very handy in team management, as it gives you an effective communication channel for different purposes. InfinCE’s project management software helps you handle knowledge management and data sharing functions. It allows you to oversee the progress and status of various project aspects on a unified dashboard.

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

By adopting a reliable project management platform like InfinCE, you can rest assured that a proper communications workflow is in place. InfinCE helps deliver the data that your team members require to perform their job roles at every stage of the project. Moreover, it can also serve as a channel to collect feedback and improve the project management communication system to guarantee optimal results. InfinCE helps build trust among the team members by making your process more transparent.

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

Best Practices to Handle Project Management Communication

Along with an all-in-one project management platform, you also need to implement the best project management communication strategy. The next step is to confirm if the strategy works as intended. As a business owner, you should regularly monitor the strategy. It includes conveying insights generated at each point of the project management process, how and where the data is processed, and how the team members apply insights to improve their work. 

Analyze the efficiency of your project communication strategy at regular intervals to identify any communication gaps and take steps to address them. Keep an eye on how your team members use the project communication platform. Review how project managers use the digital workplace platform to share team and project updates and dashboards. Project management software like InfinCE also helps encourage virtual socialization among team members. You can also use it to assess the performance of your project communication strategy and make changes if needed. 

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

Tips to Manage External Communications

An agile project management tool allows you to communicate with all the parties involved in a project to ensure that you can reach your target outcomes on time. For instance, InfinCE OpenProject enables you to grant access to external users like your clients and other stakeholders. This improves the stakeholders’ visibility over the project’s status. They can recommend insights relevant to the execution of a specific project process. 

You can also manage access to the communication funnel for document sharing internally and for other purposes externally. This will help the team members find the required information instantly, which leads to improved transparency and productivity. On the other end, having a unified communications channel will make collaboration with clients and suppliers much easier for your team members.

Read more: 5 Must-have Features In A Project Management Tool For Small Businesses 

The Closing Note

Besides a robust communication strategy, you also need to ensure appropriate communication at the end of a project. Project management communication will help you confirm that the results meet the intended quality. You can also refine the approach and the process in due course.  

Communication should continue even after completing the project. Employee recognition, social conversations, and casual interactions go a long way in boosting remote team morale, which will eventually lead to high-end productivity and performance.InfinCE is a digital workplace orchestration platform that offers a vast array of collaboration apps, productivity tools, custom dashboards, centralized and private IT infrastructure, custom branding elements, a curated app marketplace, and a host of other features. Talk to us and find out how InfinCE can be your best project management companion.

Benefits of Implementing IT Assets and Inventory Management Software

During 2020-2024, the IT Management software is predicted to grow at a value of over USD 353 Million, with a 7% CAGR year over year. These estimates were from the pre-COVID era, which means that the growth rates could be accelerated now. In the new normal, workforce worldwide is undergoing a seamless transition from desk-based jobs in the office to work from anywhere culture. Fueled by the pandemic’s necessity, remote working from home became a mainstay for professionals in almost every country that bore the pandemic’s brunt. With this culture becoming mainstream, there is an essential requirement for two major components for succeeding:

1. Flexible Enterprise IT Policies

2. Flexible IT Asset Management Software

Flexible enterprise IT policies are needed to ensure that employees are readily connected to the organization’s technology ecosystem from their home networks without facing any issues.

Flexible IT asset management software is needed to accommodate and manage the entire spectrum of IT assets that are now distributed between employees’ offices and homes.

Read more: 4 Tips To Attain Success In The New Normal Remote Work Environment  

Once a strategic enterprise IT policy is in place, the next important thing a business needs for enabling a seamless remote working culture is efficient IT management software. Such a platform would allow easy control and management of an organization’s IT assets. Companies often rely on outdated IT inventory management software or manual spreadsheet-based mechanisms to organize their crucial assets. These will increase overhead and lead to utter chaos when the business faces disruptions on scales as massive as the COVID-19 pandemic.

Benefits of having a Modern IT Inventory Management Software

With more companies expected to have a hybrid model of work in the future, employees may get the privilege to decide whether they want to work from the office or home. In such a mode of operation, having powerful IT management software can empower organizations to achieve agility in their operations. Let us examine the top 4 benefits that can be realized when an organization deploys a modern IT inventory management software:

Read more: Top 5 Productivity Tools Every Small Business Needs Today  

1. Manage IT Hardware

An organization’s IT hardware includes components ranging from small network hardware to servers, data centers, and intelligent sensors that are used to aid work. It is vital to enable secure and seamless access to each of these assets when authorized employees need them. Also, there is a need to manage every hardware’s lifecycle from procurement to installation, deployment, maintenance, and retirement at correct intervals of time to maintain a sustainable IT environment for your staff.

2. Manage Devices

With digital being of paramount importance, every business will require employees to have some form of a computing device to be with them for official purposes. In most cases, it will be a desktop PC or laptop, or it could be smartphones with dedicated company apps for work management. Additionally, there will be a host of supporting devices such as printers, webcams, projection devices, etc. It is essential to keep a record of who has access to what to ensure that costly IT assets are not lost or misplaced.

3. Manage Software Licenses

Irrespective of the business sector that a company operates, there will be a range of software products that their employees would use to work better. It could be productivity apps, HR software, digital storage, enterprise work support apps, etc. The IT team will have a hard time administering licenses to employees who need access to different software at different times to progress in their work schedules. With robust IT Assets management software, they get the required dashboards to view, control, and administer licenses to cloud-based or on-premise software used within the workplace.

4. Manage Data

In the digital economy, data is the King, and this notion works in the operational side of businesses. When organizations deploy more software or platforms to empower their employees to work better and serve clients faster, these applications will generate a vast gamut of data daily. This data fuels in-depth analytics and yields insights on improving productivity, better allocation of IT and human resources, optimizing costs, etc. A modern IT management software can handle enterprise data as an IT asset and help companies build internal data workflows and processes to ensure that the data is put to fair use and ROI is derived faster.

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

A modern IT management software can help businesses realize untapped potential and value from their IT infrastructure. As we have broadly covered in this blog, enterprises of all sizes have an opportunity to make their entire business’s digital backend more flexible to support employees when they want to work from anywhere. This will significantly improve the organization’s preparedness for future disruptions similar to the COVID-19 pandemic. If your organization is on the lookout for a comprehensive enterprise management software to manage your digital landscape, get in touch with us to see why InfinCE can be the ideal solution.

How to Build an Effective and Solid Business Strategy for 2021!

For most businesses, 2020 has, undoubtedly, been a year they would want to write off from their history. As some things are meant to be forgotten, and things should move on, businesses must also look for the opportunities 2021 and upcoming years hold. Prospects will keep coming and going, but having a defined business strategy can help a company make the most of these opportunities.

Read more: Business Process Management Strategy for your Small Business 

If you don’t have any business development strategies or are looking for suggestions, you can consider the following recommendations.

Ten ways to form an ideal business strategy

NOTE: Not always, but sometimes implementing specific strategies may require you to take advantage of certain productivity tools, centralized IT Management applications, private IT infrastructure, etc. For any such tools and applications, you can always count on InfinCE. Using this tool, you can get desired business management software to improve business processes, achieve cost efficiencies and experience the utmost data security. What makes InfinCE the first choice among businesses is its unbeatable pricing, including a 30-day free trial.

Read more: How Successful Leaders Engage Employees Using Modern Business Communication Tools like InfinCE 

A company can incorporate the following suggestions to enhance its growth and competency and improve its business level strategy.

1. Have a realistic vision

In a business world, having a vision may seem cliché, but it is, in fact, an essential thing which a business must be precise, clear, and realistic about. As vision is a peek into the future, it must comprise aspirations related to the organization you want to develop and ascertain what success implies in various business terms like markets, volumes, customers, etc.

2. Be unique to have an edge

One of the most critical business strategies is to choose the right tools and techniques that can help you identify how your company can deliver unique value to its customers. In most divisions of the economy, businesses are struggling in the crowd of similarity. When you have a well-planned business strategy, you can stay on top of the competition through its pricing model, delivery system, service offering, and more.

3. Be clear about your targets

Poor targeting is one of the major barriers to the growth of a business. Lack of clarity in targets makes a company suffer from imprecise messaging, which in turn misaligns sales and marketing. Therefore, make sure to be clear about your targets so that your business can focus better on resources and device an integrated sale and marketing approach, where marketing enables sales productivity. With clear targets, you can execute sales and marketing plans more effectively.

4. Focus on systematic growth

Only through systematic and streamlined growth can a company invest in talent, technology, and new tools. To achieve this growth, you need a business level strategy. A robust business development strategy allows your business to grow in the required dimensions.

Once your company is precise on this aspect, it will be easier to anticipate how much you can afford in terms of capital expenditure, overhead expenses, resource management, etc.

5. Decisions must be fact-based

Most executives complain about a lack of adequate data when planning or executing a business development strategy. Having access to fact-based data or information (through public records, social media trends, geographical location, etc.) allows a business to quickly quantify the value of various segments served, thus easing the decision making for multiple operations.

6. Have a balanced short & long term planning

While some companies may prefer to have short term planning to achieve their objective, others may choose long term planning as a better way to achieve it. Instead of choosing one or the other, it is advisable to have a balanced mix of short-term and long-term planning. Having such a balance allows companies to keep the team and the strategies aligned with the objectives through long term planning.

7. Agility is Necessity

Companies should always be focused on long term scenarios; however, they should be responsive as well. For example, one of the critical components in forming a business strategy should be anticipating market trends. Companies should evaluate long-term market trends and follow procedures based on this information by holding strategy review meetings at regular intervals.

8. Bring transparency

As companies are looking to hire more millennial employees in their team, it has led to agility and enhanced transparency in operations. Such transparency in the various departments and operations has brought employees together, easing the endeavors to meet the company’s objectives significantly.

9. Invest time in pre-planning

You would want your managers to welcome the business development strategies that you frame without any hesitations. It would be better to do proper research and gather important information ahead of your strategic planning. When you have a well-thought plan beforehand, it can help you gain greater control over your choices, resulting in a positive outcome.

10. Make your strategies flexible

Every strategy you form for your business should be amendable. This characteristic comes useful when you wish to make changes to them due to unexpected changes in the business trend, customer’s preferences, or results being different from what you expected. Ensure that you always have a Plan B for the things that don’t go accordingly with your Plan A. This way, you might achieve an increased success rate in implementing your strategies and successfully meeting the organization’s objectives. 

To sum up!

To conclude, a company should incorporate a business strategy to bring together all their employees working towards the set target while keeping things transparent at all levels. A company must ensure that its business strategies are swift, well-planned, and fact-based, supported by a backup plan if things don’t go as expected.

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

If, at any level, your business development strategy requires the help of IT management, private IT infrastructure, cloud migration and data management, custom dashboards, and collaboration or productivity tools, reach out to InfinCE. Here, industry-trained professionals devise the best business strategy for your organization.

How InfinCE’s Online Collaboration Software Facilitates Effective Business Communication

Effective communication plays a significant role in business success. Having proper business communication channels means having a highly-engaged workforce, which boosts employee morale, performance, and productivity, leading to higher returns. Employing robust business communication tools will enhance communication within your organization.

The importance of ensuring seamless communication between the team members can be felt more deeply at present, as every industry is shifting toward a more remote-friendly work culture. Hence it is essential to have a reliable online collaboration software that offers all the features for improving employee engagement and productivity. With an all-in-one collaboration platform, enterprises can facilitate effective employee communication and address many existing gaps in their productivity and work environment to achieve better revenue.

Read more: 3 Ways a Workplace App Helps Manage Your Business During COVID-19 

The role of business communication tools in today’s work culture

Business communication can be defined as the process of “exchanging information to promote an organization’s goals, objectives, aims, and activities, as well as increase profits within the company.” Effective business communication also implies how the management and employees interact to realize the company’s goals while focusing on improving organizational practices and reducing errors.

Enterprise collaboration software allows businesses to keep the communication channels open for better teamwork between different company departments and between the management and employees. Organizations can use business communication tools to generate new ideas, find solutions for specific problems, make proposals and sales plans, identify the right marketing strategies, reach agreements, and execute the decisions.

Read more: 6 Ways Online Collaboration Software Helps Manage Your Virtual Team 

Advanced online collaboration software like InfinCE comes with features to capture various forms of data to track sales performance, monitor employee productivity, analyze your marketing campaigns’ performance, and more. It results in better collaboration between the teams and helps foster a work environment that motivates everyone to achieve better results.

How to make the most of enterprise collaboration software

By integrating an all-in-one online collaboration platform in the company work culture, you can stay on top of the employee engagement problems, recognize any communication gaps, get instant feedback from employees, and predict your workgroups’ changing needs. 

Below are some ways to leverage the maximum potential of business collaboration software and ensure superior employee engagement.

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

1. Keep your team aligned with your mission

Defining your company’s mission and values to your team members will help them provide sincere feedback on how they feel about that and play a role in achieving the business goals. You should also answer any questions they have and keep the channel open for discussions. Encourage a free exchange of ideas, which you can incorporate for making future decisions. At the same time, keeping your employees aligned with the objectives will make them feel more valued and lead to better productivity.

2. Plan strategic initiatives with your team

You need to express the strategic initiatives of your organization clearly with your team and ask them to provide any inputs and ideas that they may have. Real-time collaboration software can help you plan the strategic initiatives alongside your team, ensuring that everyone is on the same page and understands what they need to do to achieve those goals. Likewise, it will also ensure that your employees brace themselves for the upcoming changes in the company’s direction that may affect their work.

3. Create a dedicated two-way communication channel

Listening to your employees is very important to ensure that you have a flawless two-way communication channel in your organization. Just as you deal with your customers’ grievances, you should make sure that you address the problems cited by your employees. Following a feedback system and encouraging employees to express their views during team conferences can help you gain valuable insights into your company’s work culture. It will also enable you to identify any roadblocks that affect productivity. 

Advantages of choosing InfinCE for business communication

InfinCE is an all-in-one enterprise collaboration software that allows you to maintain a competitive edge in the industry with innovative features. Unlike the usual business communication tools, InfinCE offers you a complete suite of productive features to ensure effective collaboration between your employees and the management and do a lot more.

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

1. Streamlined communication with live chats

It is possible to miss out on important messages when you communicate through emails, especially if they have multiple recipients or long threads. InfinCE solves this problem by allowing you to communicate through individual and group chats. You can also share local files through the live chat for real-time collaboration.

2. Seamless team meetings with audio/video calls

Video meetings can quickly eliminate communication gaps, due to which most online collaboration software mainly focuses on offering video conferencing features. InfinCE goes a step further by providing group or one-on-one audio/video call options with file-sharing capabilities and high-end security features so that you can enjoy enhanced business communication.

3. Improved collaboration with online office tools

InfinCE gives you access to a wide range of online productivity tools to make employee collaboration simpler in your company. You can easily access these office tools to manage your company data in various forms and collaborate with your employees on the go for realizing efficient results.

Read more: An 8-Point Checklist to Enhance The Modern-Day Digital Workplace 

You can also get many other functionalities with InfinCE that make business communication effortless while allowing your employees to be more productive and achieve the company goals quickly. As employee engagement relates to your team’s level of commitment and their connection to your company, such an all-in-one enterprise collaboration platform can be a critical driver for your business success. Contact us to explore InfinCE further. 

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. 

Why is a custom web domain important for your business branding needs?

Having a website is considered a standard pre-requisite for today’s businesses as it is likely the first place where people will enquire about the business and its offerings. While creating and hosting a website is no big deal today with the tons of ready to deploy template website builder services available, there is one element that you must focus from a branding perspective for an enterprise website. It is none other than a custom domain name. For example, if your business name is “John’s Giant Ice Cream”, then a website with URL as www.johnsgianticecream.com will be more appealing from a branding perspective than having one such as www.johnsgianticecream.wordpress or www.johnsgianticecream.blogger.com. The same logic applies to your enterprise email id as well. If you have an official email account that reflects your business name as the email domain rather than Gmail or Hotmail, it is better from a branding perspective.

Let us examine 5 benefits of branding that your business will experience if you have a custom website domain and email:

1. Brand Recognition

Having a co-branded domain such as wordpress.com/mybusiness would be harder to remember for customers than one such as www.mybusiness.com. This would make it easier for customers to pass information about your business to their friends verbally or via telephone calls. The element of simplicity in having a custom website and email URL will ensure that your customers, both existing and prospective, can reach out to you at the earliest, in case there is a need for them to avail of your services or buy your products.

2. Risk-Free Personalized Identity

From a business point of view, having a unique website and email domain would ensure that they have a unique existence. When you have a 3^rd party sponsored co-domain as your business’s web address, then there are chances that you may have to change them in the future depending on policies made by the service provider. The service provider could cease to exist due to other issues and your domain goes down with them thereby impacting the large presence you would have built over the years with that website. Considering the risks involved in such a scenario, a custom domain for your website and email makes sense for a secure and seamless future for your business with a personalized identity.

3. Search Engine Friendly

Building a simple website for your business’s online reach is not a very tough thing to do. But making it visible in search engine results with a high ranking takes a lot of effort. By having a custom website URL, it helps your website to rank better in search engine ranking algorithms that focus on uniqueness more than generic names and 3^rd party hosting service providers who append their names to your domain for free hosting. As such a unique URL is more likely to be shared on social media, they get better ranking credits on that front as well.

Read more: 5 Ways Virtual Private Server Make a Difference to Your Business’s Digital Future

4. Subdomain Flexibility

Very often you might face the need to create subdomains within your website to have separate showcase pages for a particular service or marquee product. When you do not have a custom domain for your business, the concept of subdomains becomes even more complex. In most 3^rd party hosted domain services, you do not even get that option to include further subdomain on your website. This further reduces your organic SEO efforts and also makes it harder for customers to trust your unique offerings and learn more information about them from the subpage.

Read more: 5 Tips to Select the Ideal Web Hosting Partner

5. Email Credibility

One of the biggest advantages of having a custom business domain for your web landscape is the ability to have a unique email domain. When contacting customers or prospects, having a genuine business name domain as the extension of your email address will add more credibility. From a receiver’s point of view, they will feel more genuineness in your business for the effort you took in creating a unique domain name for your website and email communication address rather than opting for a free service like Gmail or Hotmail. A professional email address is also a unique credential for your business to avail of multiple digital services available online today that helps in boosting your internet-based business services. Examples include payment gateways, information forms, cloud storage options, and much more.

Read more: How to choose an email service provider for your small business?

Set up your professional custom domain and private email with InfinCE

If you are a business owner wanting to have a unique identity on the internet with a website and email, then you should definitely explore the option of a custom domain rather than opting for free hosting service providers. 

The several benefits in branding and customer experience you stand to enjoy as outlined above will be instrumental in growing your business in the coming years as more customers rely on internet-powered digital channels for their daily needs. 

Having a powerful digital ecosystem with credible domain and secure hosting infrastructure is the need of the hour especially for small and medium businesses. This is where InfinCE can be the ideal companion for your success. Get in touch with us to see how you can build and deploy a comprehensive web-based business online with custom URL and professional email service with InfinCE in a matter of days.

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.