The entrepreneur's software toolbox
Are you the head of a very small business (less than ten employees)? Or an entrepreneur just starting up your own business? What do you need on a day-to-day basis, and what business software will support you and make managing your business easier? Read all our advice on customer relations.
Your day-to-day needs
Needs related to your core business
What's on your to-do list? You have objectives to achieve, an action plan to implement. What are the main points?
- Canvassing: as you know, it's your customers who keep your business going. So finding them is a priority.
- Customer loyalty: once you have a customer, you need to keep them. This is a sine qua non for growth. One-shot sales are short-lived and incapable of sustaining your business.
- communication:
- firstly, operational: a professional e-mail account is a basic requirement,
- then promotional, to develop your customer relations, communicate more widely about your news, your image... and gain visibility and legitimacy with your prospects as well as your current customers or potential partners.
- Invoicing and collection: you may have customers, but are they paying you as expected? You need to keep track of payments, and follow up if necessary - that's the bare minimum of accounting.
The four points above are directly linked to your core business. But they are followed by indirectly related actions that are no less important.
Indirect needs
More to do with the environment in which your company operates, there are also the associated risks. The structure may be small, but their impact will be no less great.
- Backing up your data: a sudden loss of your information, such as customer files, databases or accounts, would be dramatic. It would mean wasted time and energy, but it would also damage your image and affect your credibility with customers and partners.
- protecting your data: hacking doesn't just happen to other people. Malware (viruses) abound. What should you do if a hacker corrupts your system or demands an astronomical ransom? It's best to protect yourself beforehand.
Management tools that respond
With this check-up in hand, let's take a look at the SaaS management solutions that can make your day-to-day life easier.
Zimbra for your mailbox
Having a professional email account is, of course, essential. But which mail server should you choose? There are several, at different prices. Zimbra is one of the most popular, both for businesses and for organisations and associations. Open source, it is customised by Ovea and hosted in France. Its availability and the quality of its associated services make all the difference. Synchronised across all devices, it allows you to work on the move while always having your mailbox, contacts, calendar and even working documents with you. And because Zimbra is more than just a messaging system, it's also a suite of collaboration software to make you more efficient, productive and responsive.
TigerPro for prospecting, building loyalty and even invoicing
CRM is your tool for prospecting, building customer loyalty and managing customer relations. It can also be extended to the administrative management of your sales force, as with online sales management software. Like TigerPro: software that lets you :
- create your own differentiated pricing grids,
- send your quotes to prospective customers in the same way as with quote software,
- automatically transform these quotes into invoices,
- monitor payments and set up reminders to keep your cash flow healthy.
With these workflows within the same tool, TigerPro extends the notion of CRM and offers the beginnings of a valuable ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) solution for start-ups and small structures destined to grow (a dedicated ERP could cover different needs and processes such as purchasing and stock management, for example). For more advanced accounting management (general accounting, entry of accounting entries, tax returns, etc.), it is advisable to turn to dedicated online accounting software such as EBP Compta.
Send up to communicate
Now, how do you communicate? With CRM (Customer Relationship Management) software such as Send up. This multi-channel communication solution enables you to run marketing campaigns:
- by email: using an intuitive drag & drop interface, you can choose from responsive templates, scenarios and landing pages. Once the campaign has been sent, a detailed report with sales analytics and dashboards can be used to assess its impact in real time and steer actions to optimise campaigns,
- by SMS: you can send push SMS messages to your customers or prospects with a specific message,
- by fax: still useful in more old-school sectors! Your campaign is exported as a pdf and then sent.
Send up can also be used to conduct market or satisfaction surveys by sending forms or polls.
Oxibox to back up your data
Data is precious for all businesses (VSEs, SMEs, large companies): the database, the contact book, but also the associated history with exchanges and work carried out. The question of how to back them up should not be overlooked. It would be unconscionable to leave yourself open to the possibility of losing everything in the event of a crash. What's the best thing to do? A local backup? Cloud? For added security, the Oxibox solution offers you both, with a guarantee of simple restoration and the support that goes with it. The data is hosted in France, and insured to the tune of eight million euros... reassuring!
Bitdefender to protect your data
Backup is one thing, protection is another. You use professional devices: computers, tablets, smartphones; specific applications: email, portals, software... These are all inputs to your information system that need to be protected from malicious attacks. That's what BitDefender offers with its Cloud administration console for setting up and deploying a complete cybersecurity system that protects you in the Cloud as well as locally.
A company, no matter how small, has incompressible needs. Those linked to its business, of course, but also those linked to the associated risks. There are various management software packages available, all of which are designed to be both accessible and appropriate, so it's up to you to pick out what you're looking for to simplify and control your day-to-day activities.
Article translated from French