In a blog we did in January of last year entitled Need Office Space Toronto-There is no app for that but there is Telsec we introduced our readers to the concept of mobile apps. Since then the world of apps has exploded and continues to change how we do things while on the go. More and more small businesses depend on their smartphones and the usages keeps growing. This is because off all the apps that are being developed for business purposes. Despite all the hundreds of thousands of business apps available today, only a small percent of small businesses use apps. Of the small businesses who use apps, they will tell you that they couldn’t live without them. One of our Toronto office space clients mentioned that he uses a large number of business apps on his smartphone, so we thought we would share this with our readers.

Before we share some info about mainstream apps that are readily available through the app store or Google Play store, we should talk about the apps that some businesses are having built – or intended as proprietary products for use by their customers. Most companies that do direct marketing or use a database customer relationship marketing program are moving away from hosting their own database and moving to the clouds with companies like Quickbase, SugarCRM, Zoho and salesforce.com to keep their data safe and mobile.

Many of these companies have developed mobile CRM’s that are ready-to-run mobile applications that provide a company’s sales team with on-the-go management of accounts, leads, opportunities and contacts from their mobile device. With a direct connection to your CRM system, the app puts critical customer and prospect information into your sales reps’ hands where and when they need it. Other examples of apps that are intended to help mobile users to work with existing programs as part of their business, are account programs that allow mobile users to create time sheets, track inventory, track jobs, manage payroll or even create a customer invoice right on their smartphone app.

There is a large number of business apps available for free or at very little cost. Here are some of the more popular apps with small business people and entrepreneurs who rent office space or have a Toronto virtual office at Telsec:

  • Evernote is a cloud-based note-taking app that allows users to organize photos, voice notes, file attachments, Internet video clips, typed and even handwritten notes. It then makes everything you include searchable, synced and accessible on all of your devices.
  • Brewster Instant Rolodex is a mobile app that pulls in contact info and other details from all of your programs over your various platforms and creates  in-depth profiles for each and every person and/or client.
  • Here on Biz allows you to instantly see which of your LinkedIn contacts are physically nearby and to make requests for meetings.
  • Dropbox was built as a seamless, cloud-based system to sync files across all of your devices – including phones, PCs, laptops, tablets and smartphones – automatically. You can even edit documents from anywhere and your changes are saved and synced.
  • UberConference helps businesses in organizing conference calls. With this app you select attendees from your phone’s contact list and UberConference automatically calls, e-mails or texts them to join. No PIN is required.
  • HootSuite is an app for handling your social media accounts on the go. The app allows for publishing to all of your social networks – Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and others – all from one interface.

Our next blog will be on the topic of Branded and While Label apps that your business can adapt, re-sell or even give away to customers as promotional apps.