We all use the standard desktop apps like MS Office to get our work done. The newer, more sharable versions of these are Gmail, Google Spreadsheets and Documents. While all are useful, they fall short at the next level–-when workgroups need centralized collaboration that supports their workflows and reporting needs. On the other end of the spectrum, companies’ main transaction systems, like GL and ERP are not meant for collaboration, or agile enough to keep up with your business unit’s dynamic, evolving needs. Off-the-shelf software can fall short too…giving you a lot of functionality you don’t need, missing some you do, and forcing you to buy multiple packages to meet multiple but often related needs (like managing customers and projects). This means there is an “App Gap” between the tools your workgroup and company have and the tools you really need.

Enter cloud-based online databases like QuickBase, that meet all those needs and more. They are established and have been used by leading companies for several years, but they are still “new” in the sense that many companies have not discovered them or are not using them nearly as broadly as they should be…leaving lots of new value to tap.

QuickBase is the most credible of the cloud-based/online databases that can fill your company’s App Gap in so many places. Tracking and Managing Marketing efforts, Sales, Customers, Projects, Orders, Production, Services, Support, Supply Chain, Assets, Facilities, Personnel…the list is nearly endless. And you can build all-in-one apps that do any combinations of these, just the way you need them. Whether you use a credible partner like us or do-it-yourself, you can gain tremendous value employing a tool like QuickBase in more places in your business.

Please post your questions or thoughts on this here.

We strive to put this in place and get our clients the significant value it can deliver, while providing the governance that minimizes the risk of such powerful new tools.  Our Enterprise Services offering includes training, support and governance of new App Creators within a company, so Advantage can accelerate and amplify the value of QuickBase use across an organization.  It is a turnkey offering that helps large enterprises get all the value QuickBase can offer while managing cost and risk, and reducing the burden on I.T.

If your enterprise is not using QuickBase as smartly and broadly as it should, this report’s findings should prompt you to act, and contact us if we can help.

We applaud their initiative, but many businesses are not onboard yet and are missing significant value. If you aren’t fully employing QuickBase as a cloud platform for instance, how much value is your company losing?

Also noteworthy that 140,000 employees at the General Services Administration and Department of Agriculture are moving to cloud-based (Google) email. If you are concerned that your business data may not be secure in the cloud, we propose that QuickBases’s secure, central, controlled system is far better than all the spreadsheets and documents those 140,000 employees are emailing around.

We’ll post successes, new ideas and developments wherever we find them. The focus will be on business improvement, how to best connect your people and information and, most important, how to get more value from QuickBase as a cloud platform.

We look forward to connecting with you!