It’s the 21^st century. We live in a digital world. Technology has superseded our expectations and has given solutions to many of our problems. It has replaced books, letters, visits to banks, provided us storage spaces, connected us with our near and dear ones. etc.. In this article, I will be covering 6 Essential Google Apps for business which will improve your productivity. Most of them come available by default with your smartphone. 

Businesses that utilize technology, can work effectively and organize their operations easily, reducing costs.  Google is one of the leaders of the tech world. It has been powering Internet-related services and products since 1998. Google Play, the official Android App Store has billions of downloads every year. There are several applications available ranging from entertainment, maintaining fitness to organising your life.

Here are the 6 Essential Google Apps for Business

1. Google My Business

Have you ever wondered how your businesses can appear on Google Maps or on Google Search without building a website or contacting directories like Just Dial / Sulekha? The answer is ‘Google My Business’. By downloading this app and listing your business on it, millions of people can search and find your business.

Through your Google My Business app, you can upload photos and videos, create offers, respond to reviews and engage with your customers. You can add your business details, provide your contact and website link and  list your opening hours. You can get real time notifications when a customer connects with your business through Google. One can also manage multiple branch locations of business from the same dashboard. You can check it at https://www.google.com/intl/en_in/business/.

2. Google Keep

Google Keep is essentially a note-taking app but is also much more, than a simple diary. It is an effective tool for task management.  You can add notes, lists, photos to Google Keep. It helps you capture what’s on your mind through voice memos which are automatically converted into notes. One can color-code notes and add labels to organize them. It is synced across all your devices.

You can also setup location based reminders, so that your shopping list is pulled up when you get to a particular store.  Google Keep is a collaborative tool and is a good choice for small-medium businesses, where in notes and reminders can be shared with other members of your team. Try it out at https://keep.google.com/u/0/ or download the app on your phone.

3. Google Pay for Business

Google Pay is a platform that helps businesses accept payments from customers and promotes cashless transfer. Customers can make payments using your businesses phone number, QR Code or Tez Mode. Money is sent directly to your bank account with no fees unlike POS systems like credit/debit card readers. Your business can also be eligible for rewards when you signup for Google Pay for Business or on doing certain number of transactions via the app. 

Through Google Pay for Business you can track how your business is doing by checking insights and get daily, weekly and monthly views of your transaction history. Google Pay has a world-class security system that helps detect fraud and prevent hacking. You can use the app in the language of your choice English, Hindi, Bengali, Kannada, Tamil, Telugu, Gujarathi or Marathi.  Download the app via your phone’s app store.

4. Google Drive

What do you do when you have clicked a number of photographs on your phone and your phone flashes a warning saying ‘Storage almost full’. Do you delete the photos with an elongated sad face or is there a better option? Google Drive is a cloud storage platform which provides you 15GB free storage space for all your photos, videos, files and documents.

All you have to do is upload your files using the share option on your phone to the Google Drive App. You can also upload files using a computer to your Google Drive Account. One can also purchase additional storage space from Google. Google Drive is a wonderful tool for collaboration. The files on your Drive can be shared with your colleagues, family and friends. You can provide them options to download, view, comment or edit the files. Team members can work on the same report at the same time, thus eliminating multiple versions of files and the need of revising and re-editing content. Google Drive supports over 40+ file formats including PDFs, MP4’s etc..

All those who have a google account can easily access this app by visiting this link https://www.google.com/drive/.

5. Google Calendar

Google Calendar is the best way to organize your day. It is a Master Calendar with several sub-calendars all in one place. You can colour code each of your sub-calendars according to travel, work, meetings, volunteering, household chores, birthdays and anniversaries etc. It helps you manage your daily schedule. Events from Gmail are automatically added to your calendar. Your schedule is stored online. Even if you lose your phone, you will be able to access your calendar by logging into your google account from any device. Google Calendar helps you set reminders and create events and link the events with Google Maps, Gmail and Google Meet.

Google Calendar lets you share individual calendars with your colleagues and family. You can allow them to have full access and change events and reminders or you can set it up so that they can only view the calendar but not edit it.

I have tried several calendar apps, but Google Calendar is the best because of its ease to use and its ability to link with other Google Apps.

6. Google Meet

Due to the Coronavirus pandemic across the world, people have been looking for alternatives to face-face meetings. There has been a rise in the number of downloads of videoconferencing solutions like Skype, Zoom, Cisco Webex, and Google Meet. Google Meet is Google’s premium platform for video conferencing. It supports upto 100 participants and there is no meeting time limit (until September 30^th 2020).

Google Meet lets you conduct meetings by sharing your screen (presentation) with other participants. It has also live captions feature which displays subtitles of the person speaking so that others can follow easily. Google Meet uses advanced technology such as AI to improve video quality in low lighting situations and filters out background noise. Check it out at https://meet.google.com/ or by downloading the app through the app store. To know about other video conferencing tools in the market, check my article Online Meetings: Which tool should I use?

In conclusion, I have listed my top 6 Google Apps for businesses. Even if you aren’t a business person, do try some of these apps such as Drive, Keep, Calendar and Google Pay. I guarantee that they will help you improve your productivity. If you have any questions or clarifications, regarding the use of technology for your business, please feel free to contact us at hello@marketbird.in or call me at +917204592231.