As we face yet another period of change, as business leaders, our ability to adapt to change and preparedness to be agile in our response to opportunities or threats has never been more key to our success.

To achieve this we need to have sharpened our business processes to the optimum so we have spare capacity to adapt to new opportunities.  

In the business world in the UK we are told that our workers are not as efficient as some of our European cousins.  I find that hard to believe, but if we accept it at face value, ok there are plenty of ways we can improve our Productivity and Processes and we see good examples of companies doing that in the UK and USA, every day. However we are also aware that there remain many companies who are still using the tools prevalent 20 years ago which struggle to collaborate, never mind do it on any platform and it be intuitive and easy to work with.

There are many business leaders who are embracing change and helping their workforce to find smarter ways of working. Yet many are still using the same old tools because they are familiar and not because they are the best, which is dramatically limiting the scope of their progress

Recommended Productivity and Efficiency Tools

As a company we are focussed on helping companies to improve their processes, making sure their workers (users) of IT solutions have the best and most intuitive tools to work with. Let us share our recommendations of great software that could help your company make a step change in Business Process improvement…. They are…. Below and all offer a free trial.

The range of Cloud based solutions grows daily but we recommend Smartsheet instead of Excel and Task lists/to do lists that don’t join up and collaborate.

Appsheet which offers the ability to build cost effective Mobile Apps in a day or two, that work on any device and deliver the exact solution you seek by conditional logic. Collaboration for the masses! Costed in £100’s not 10’s of £1000’s.

Data produced by these work management Apps should be viewed in Graphical dashboards so good decisions can be made, based on Real Time Results. Microsoft  Power Bi is one of those Graphical Apps that reads data from any Spreadsheet, so your management finger is on the pulse of your business ready to act on what you see.

For many workers travelling to work or to a meeting is the tradition, rather than best practise. Since our company started working with companies around the world, we have had to embrace the video conference and screen share world.  These tools have improved dramatically, speeding up decision and delivery times, and cutting down on travel time and costs and reducing our carbon footprint.

We currently recommend Zoom.us for conferencing and screen share but equally acknowledge that Skype, Webex, GoToMeeting and Join.me among others achieve good results. Alas Face time is still one to one… at the moment.

If we manage the changes that are affecting us, then we can seize new opportunities as they are presented.  In order to achieve this our Business Processes need to be fully optimised, allowing us to create in our organisations a culture of continuous innovation, safe in the knowledge that our Key Performance Indicators are telling us what we need to know… in Real Time.

The post 4 Tools to increase Productivity and Efficiency appeared first on SmarterBusinessProcesses.

Unclog your email and keep track of every detail with ease when you pair Smartsheet and Outlook together.

Key Features:

• Convert any email into a shared item that instantly appears as a row in a Smartsheet project or sheet for all collaborators to see and act on.
• Create or edit a Smartsheet item or task, then assign it to someone, schedule it, or add comments and other relevant details from the email.
• Attach the entire email as a discussion associated with a Smartsheet item.
• Search Smartsheet for the right sheet or project.
• Add all or selected email attachments to a Smartsheet item.

From the Smartsheet for Outlook app, you can either log in to Smartsheet using existing Smartsheet credentials, or request a free trial of Smartsheet 

Talk to us about remote support and onsite Training on MS apps including 365 and integration with Smartsheet

At Build 2015, Smartsheet  also showcased a fully functional prototype of how its work management platform can be integrated with multiple Microsoft Office apps such as Outlook, One Drive and Contacts using the unified API.

This merging of data helps organizations visualize how people are working together, on what initiatives and the status of the work. “Being able to see a picture of who’s working with whom on what work has been invaluable to our customers. Now layering in the Microsoft Office 365 data into that visualization takes it to a whole new level,” Mader added.

As a trusted provider to many of the world’s industry-leading organizations including Cisco, Google, Bayer, HomeAway, Facebook, Groupon, DHL, the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA), and more than 60,000 other companies in 170 countries, Smartsheet is making significant strides towards becoming the global standard for work management.

Smartsheet pairs the familiar, easy to use spreadsheet interface with capabilities like real-time collaboration, work automation, Gantt chart features and integration with leading cloud productivity tools, leading to a flexible, highly functional project management tool that is becoming incredibly popular. It is used to collaborate, plan and execute a broad spectrum of work, including marketing campaigns, product launches, business operations, manufacturing processes, strategic planning and HR initiatives.

Contact us about your work managment requirements, we’d love to hear from you!

The post Clients are loving Smartsheet for Microsoft Outlook appeared first on SmarterBusinessProcesses.