Over the past 18 months I've been lucky enough to have the opportunity to work on\in two start up companies. One of the items I've learned from this experience is cloud computing (application hosting variety) provides a great advantage to small business, which were unthinkable 3+ years ago. The advantage it provides is the opportunity to leverage the same type of business processes supported by technology that in the past only the medium to large enterprises had the scale and money to utilize. 3+ years ago, how many small businesses could have CRM, HRIS, email, website, telephone systems, and ecommerce functionality? Because of cloud based computing and application hosting, small businesses can utilize the technology that in the past only the bigger companies could afford. And they can do this without paying computing professionals to manage computing infrastructure every day.
The services are wide ranging - but here are some of the services I've used for free or very little cost:
CRM - Everyone knows about salesforce.com but Zoho CRM is my preference at the moment. It's free for up to 3 users and provides lead generation forms that can be integrated into your website along with basic workflow all for free.
HRIS (Human Resource Information System) - Zoho People provides a nice employee portal and HR management (application tracking, vacation requests, etc) system that is free for up to 10 employees. It allows you to integrate an application\profile submission process into your website along with basic workflow all for free. Zoho also provides an online testing tool that could be used to test potential candidates via the web - they call it Zoho Challenge.
Phone System (PBX\Auto Attendant) - My favorite in this space is Grasshopper (previously gotvmail). Using their system allows you to have a toll-free number with an answering machine on steroids. While they don't offer a free plan, they have pricing plans starting as low as $10/month. This is a great deal when you consider a system that offers this type of functionality would cost at least $10k to implement and $2.5k a year to maintain.
Document\File Share (file server) - There is a lot of competition in this space that comes in many varieties from the likes of big players like Microsoft and Google - along with Zoho who all want you to use their applications for your work. I find that people like to use their preferred tool for documents (MS Word, Open Office Writer, etc), presentations, spread sheets, etc. so I like to use a storage platform that doesn't lock people into a set of tools. My favorite tool here is called DropBox. It stores your files in the "cloud" while representing them as a local directory or directories and it allows you to manage who can access the files and directories (you can share them with people by just using their email address). And a side benefit is you don't have to worry about setting up a backup schedule!
Email\group calendaring\website - What business can survive without email and calendaring today? There are many free providers today - Microsoft and Google are the first that come to mind (Google for businesses isn't free anymore - $50/user a yr). I prefer Google email and calendaring (Gmail for organizations) because it's free and offers the right technical functionality for the price (biggest being IMAP access).
podcast hosting - If you use podcasting in your business, you can't beat libsyn for hosting of the podcasts for around $10/month.
There are many, many other areas and applications I could\should cover but I will end it here for now.
The main point here is if you're a small business, you have more tools available to you to help you serve your customers! And if your considering building your own infrastructure or upgrading it, WHY? Here are some simple numbers to think about when you begin to think the services outlined above are too expensive and you can do it yourself cheaper.
Cost of power for a computer per month: ~$20
Cost of a computer hardware per month: ~$17
Cost of 1 hour of computer support: ~$75 **
Total cost for a month: ~$112*
*not including cost for internet access because you'll likely need to have it regardless of your decision.
**assuming you only need 1 hr of assistance a month - which is really conservative
Here are some posting that cover what google apps you should use from a marketing\web perspective that are valuable:
