I am a big fan of what cloud computing and mobile technology can offer to small business. To me, the cloud and mobile technology (and devices) enhance the competitiveness of small businesses, allowing them to access what was only accessible by big businesses. I follow the updates on cloud-based business and productivity tools on regular basis, and this time, I stumbled on a tool so unique that I want to let you know about it: Bitrix24.
Why Bitrix24 interest me?
Bitrix24 has a cool front-end design – are the features as cool as the front-end design?
First of all, what is Bitrix24? In short, is a collaboration and communication platform for your business – with a twist: Unlike many others, it offers social environment for you and your employees.
Bitrix24 calls itself a “social intranet.” At first, I’m not sure what a social intranet is – I thought that the tool is just yet another online collaboration software, project management software or intranet software; well, it’s not.
I learn that Bitrix24 offers you an environment for your team members to collaborate on projects, share ideas and get feedback, find reports and documents, get notified about what’s going on in the company, and more – all done in real time, in the cloud.
Social intranet
Now here’s the feature that interest me: Updates and progress are displayed in “Streams” – just like your good old Facebook updates. What’s more, you can “Like” and comment on the updates, documents – anything. This is great to let the whole team to learn what others think about a project and its progress. Pretty neat, I must say…
Of course, Bitrix24 also feature what most online collaboration and project management tools offer: Gantt charts and reporting to track projects’ progress, time tracking capabilities, and so on – all presented in a single dashboard, accessible by your team members anytime, anywhere.
Mobile version
As I mentioned above, I fancy mobile apps; I rave the fact that Bitrix24 mobile version will be made available this Autumn, with all the functions of the web-based version has – here’s Bitrix24 Mobile Version Preview.
CRM
Of all features, I would like to highlight Bitrix24 CRM. The CRM (Customer Relationship Management) features allow you to manage your interaction, as well as providing reports and information on sales funnels (e.g. progress of transaction, size of a deal with a particular customer, etc.)
You can automate leads and deals processing using business processes tool. To further streamline your CRM, you can also integrate Bitrix24 CRM with your website, allowing you to generate leads right from your business website.
How much?
Well, you might want to try Bitrix24 soon – it’s free for an account with 12 users or less and no more than 5 GB of storage usage. The Basic account has limitations, though – you can’t use the time management, meetings and reports. However, it is ideal for small businesses that only want a platform for communication among team members. This account also works if you run an online store that need a tool to process incoming leads.
For unlimited number of users and access to full features, you can sign up for as low as $99/month.
Verdict
I know I’m in knowing the fact that the dashboard sports social media look and feel. Such layout encourages employee interactions; along with the fact that you can actually vote and leave comments on info and project progress streams, as well as access everything from my mobile device, Birix24 is a recommended tool for entrepreneurs and small business owners who are social-media-savvy and location independent.
I recommend you to give the tool a try; it’s free, anyway… so no risk to you and your small business. If you decide to go for it, please share what you think by leaving a comment on this post.