The Best Airtable Alternatives to Look Out for in 2021 and Beyond

The Best Airtable Alternatives to Look Out for in 2021 and Beyond

The popularity of Airtable, a tool that combines features of a spreadsheet with a database, has been on the rise over the years. 

Unlike other databases, Airtable holds a fun interface with a variety of options to store and visualize data.

However, the challenge is that its functionality is limited and this is the reason that teams have to start looking for its alternative.

Are you too using Airtable for project management? Are you not satisfied with the platform’s performance?

Looks like you can use something better—like Airtable alternatives. 

If you are also having second thoughts about Airtable, we have come up with a comprehensive guide to provide you with the list of best Airtable alternatives that can help you run things better. 

So, let’s dive deeper without wasting any minute!

Smartsheet

Smartsheet is a SaaS, enterprise-ready work management and collaboration software. Smartsheet is regarded for its amazing project management, collaboration, and file-sharing functionality. It’s an intuitive application with which businesses and teams can track and manage everyday work-related stuff like projects, tasks, task lists, customer information, sales pipelines, event schedules, and more.

Smartsheet feature highlight:

  • les
  • Reminders
  • Forms
  • Update requests
  • Alerts and automated actions
  • File sharing
  • Resource management
  • Reports
  • Export, email, and print
  • Custom branding

Pricing Plans

  • Individual ($14 per month)
  • Business ($25 per user/per month)

A 7-day (+7-day extension) free trial is available.

Tigersheet

An ideal business automation platform should be packed with features that can help an individual, a team, and even an entire organization plan, work, collaborate, deliver results faster and more effectively. Tigersheet does the same. 

Airtable is a great tool for organizing your work—no doubt about it. But Tigersheet will help you organize anything you put your mind to thanks to a better structure, complete flexibility, and additional features for advanced work management.

Tigersheet is a modern-day, spreadsheet-inspired no-code platform that comes packed with scalable features that make it a perfect alternative to software like Airtable.

You can plan, manage, and also automate your data enrichment and reporting in a single place. Whether you’re a marketing team managing content, campaigns, and reports, a sales team dealing with leads, or even a project management team assigning tasks, Tigersheet has you covered.

With customizable forms, plus Kanban & Standard views, you can visualize your data effectively and share it with the world.

Here’s a sneak peek into the vast array of features and modules Tigersheet offers:

  • Track orders, projects, invoices, payments, employees, expenses, office assets, employee leaves, employee advances, and more.
  • Attach files and documents to rows.
  • Hide certain fields or rows from users easily with the powerful roles and permission system.
  • Set reminders for important dates like a deadline, a follow-up date, etc.
  • Access data from your Tigersheet’s mobile app.
  • Create reports, have different views to visualize your data better – like Kanban, timeline, etc.
  • Use Triggers to create workflows, send email notifications, and more. Now no need to resort to custom application development to automate your business.

Best suited for: Small and medium businesses (SMBs), agencies, and large organizations

Pricing: Starts with a standard free absolutely no strings attached plan at $0/user per month, scaling to the Pro plan at $5/user per month, and the Enterprise plan which costs $35/user per month. 

Does Tigersheet offer a free trial? Yes, a 30-day free trial is available with awesome features like 1500 Records per sheet, 5 Triggers per sheet, 1 Gb attachments per sheet, and Chat / Email / Community Support.

Zoho

Zoho is a simple cloud-based project management solution. Like other project management tools, you can create projects and tasks, assign them to employees, and set start and end dates. You can track time with Zoho too.

You can also interlink tasks so that the next one automatically starts after the previous one ends.

And it has four types of views. These are classic, plain,

kanban, and Gantt charts. You can pick the view depending on the project you are creating.

Zoho integrates with several third-party tools such as Zapier, Dropbox, GitHub, and Slack to simplify project management even more.

It might have all these integrations, but it is a simple tool when compared with Airtable. It will suit you best if you plan to use other Zoho tools too.

Best suited for: Individuals to medium businesses.

Pricing: $0 to $6 per user/month.

Does Zoho offer a free trial? Yes, a free plan is available.

Notion

The next Airtable alternative we’ve added to this list is Notion. Primarily a note-taking application, Notion comes with a pretty solid task management feature set that allows you to manage your tasks without getting into the frustration of complicated functionality.

It’s a tool that comes with a pretty neat user interface combining note-taking, task management, spreadsheets, and databases all under one platform. Through a knowledge base, Notion combines all your team’s knowledge in one centralized location to be accessed whenever needed.

Key Features:

  • Some of the key features you can get with Notion are:
  • To-do list management
  • Knowledgebase for common team data
  • Tasks management through Kanban workflow
  • Documents management to keep all your documents in one place
  • Third-party application integrations

 Pricing Plans:

  • Free
  • Personal ($4 per month- flat-rate)
  • Team ($8 per user/month)

Enterprise ($16 per user/month) plans

Podio

If you’re looking for a tool that provides a rich set of collaboration features, Podio might be best suited for you. The platform combines content, context, and collaboration in one place, providing a unified task management solution.

The tool ensures transparency and accountability by providing a solution that comes with elaborate social communication features, like file attachments, likes and sharing, and instant audio and video calls. Not only this, but you can also create workflows by adding if-this-then-that logic and streamline your processes effectively.

Key Features:

  • Personal dashboards for monitoring progress in a
    • Task management, with integrated workflows
    • Private and public workspaces for multiple projects
    • Recurring tasks for tasks repeating on a regular basis
    • Activity stream to keep a check on current updates
    • Comments, likes, and file sharing
    • Audio and video calls with team members
    • Podio chat for instant messaging with team members

     Pricing Plans:

    • Free
    • Basic ($9 per user/month)
    • Plus ($14 per user/month)
    • Premium ($24 per user/month) plans

Quip

If you are looking for a straightforward and simple alternative to Airtable, then Quip is the perfect option for you. It’s an easy app that allows teams to create living documents. It offers tools to create and edit documents, spreadsheets, and lists in the cloud. In addition to this, the app integrated well with chat, docs, task lists, and spreadsheets. No more endless chain of emails and overly complicated document versions, Quip makes it super easy for you to simplify communication, collaboration, and document management. 

Quip feature highlight:

  • Document sharing
  • Tasklist
    • Chat and messaging
    • Spreadsheets
    • Access on any device, anytime
    • Import and export

Pricing: Free for users of Microsoft 365 and Office 365; $5 per user per month, Plan 1; $10 per user per month, Plan 2; $20 per user per month, Office 365 E3

ClickUp

ClickUp is an intuitive and easy-to-use platform for all your project management needs that can increase your team’s productivity by tenfold.

The versatile features in this app offer tools and capabilities to scale with different users and business types.

With ClickUp one can also customize and optimize features according to one’s team’s needs.

Key Features:

  • Document management
  • File sharing
  • Data import/export ability
  • Product planning and road-mapping
  • Task management
  • Workflow automation
  • Supports Waterfall, Scrum, and Agile
  • QA and Testing management

 Pricing:

  • ClickUp offers a Free Forever option
  • The Unlimited plan costs $5/month, per user
  • Business plan for $9/month, per user
  • Contact the provider for a quote for the Enterprise plan.

Have You Picked Your Airtable Alternative?

As you can see above, there are so many fantastic Airtable

alternatives. Some are simpler and cheaper than Airtable, while others are more sophisticated and cost more. The one you pick should depend on your needs and budget. So, make sure you assess them carefully before you decide on a tool.

Almost all of the above offer trials or free plans. You can try them out before zoning in on your favorites.

September 13, 2021 General, IT No comments yet
Database vs. Spreadsheet: what is the Best Option?

Database vs. Spreadsheet: What is the Best Option?

We tend to confuse databases and spreadsheets. Yet they are very different. To determine what best meets your needs, you need to understand how (and why) they differ.

Databases and spreadsheets are fundamentally different tools.

A spreadsheet is a well-known tool – and for good reason. It is remarkable, accessible and universal. In particular, it allows you to make calculations, balance a budget and organize information.

But as useful as it is, the spreadsheet is not always the most suitable tool. For example, a spreadsheet does not allow you to duplicate data or change views. In some cases (more complex use cases such as content calendars, inventory management etc.), the database offers much more flexibility and power.

Today, with the right tools, anyone who can use a spreadsheet can use a database. Understanding the differences between the two will allow you to make the right choice for your use case.

Defining Database:

Whether you know it or not, you are probably already familiar with one or two databases. Most business applications work with databases.

Your customer relationship management (CRM), for example, is a database. The websites you visit every day – like Amazon, Wikipedia, and Netflix – are powered by databases. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

A database can contain different levels of abstraction in its architecture. Typically, the three levels: external, conceptual, and internal make up the database architecture. The external level defines how users view data. A single database can have multiple views. The internal level defines how data is physically stored. The conceptual level is the means of communication between the internal and external levels. It provides a single view of the database regardless of how it is stored or viewed. 

There are many types of databases such as analytic databases, data warehouses and distributed databases. Databases (more correctly, relational databases) are made up of tables and contain rows and columns, much like spreadsheets in Excel. 

Each column corresponds to an attribute, while each row represents a single record. For example, in a database, which stores employee information for a company, columns might contain employee name, employee ID, and salary, while a single row represents a single employee. Most databases come with a database management system (DBMS) which makes it very easy to create / manage / organize data.

What is a Spreadsheet?

A spreadsheet is a computer software application that allows users to work in a GUI environment similar to an accounting spreadsheet. Spreadsheet applications display a 2-D grid (or matrix) of cells consisting of rows and columns simulating a paper spreadsheet. Each cell can be inserted into three types of content like text, numbers for formulas. 

The formula is a mechanism for calculating the value of a particular cell using the contents of several other cells. The formula value (displayed in the cell) automatically updates whenever any of the other cells (which are used to calculate the formula) change. 

This is one of the reasons why electronic spreadsheets are used for financial information, as the operator does not need to update all cells manually depending on a single change in the spreadsheet. Microsoft Excel, which is offered as part of the Microsoft Office suite, is the most popular spreadsheet application in the world.

Database vs Spreadsheet: Endgame

This battle may not be as epic as the ones we see in Endgame but it is equally interesting! Let’s take a closer look.

Simple and efficient use

At first glance, an Excel spreadsheet may seem simpler to use, but when you have a large flow of information to update every day, it is clear that for companies they may not be the most efficient option. Also, a spreadsheet becomes “heavier” with a huge amount of information and slows down.

Meanwhile, the business management system or database, if it works online, will not take up physical space on your computer, making it faster to search for information and add new data. But that’s not all, as it adapts to the needs of each company, its tables and other resources are already configured to receive the proper information.

Also, there’s no need for your employees to have advanced knowledge of databases. Even basic information about it is sufficient to use a company’s resources.

And in addition to being simple, a database is efficient not only because it allows more tasks to be done in less time, with no loss in quality, but also because it allows all your business data to be properly organized.

Integration of operations

Another point where spreadsheets lose to databases is interactivity. After all, the first ones, to be shared with other team members , must be sent as an e-mail attachment like any other file. A database also helps in managing systems for companies as everything can be processed within it.

There is no need to waste time sending emails and attaching files, as a database also connects the sectors of your company, sharing all the necessary information between the different departments. This means that working together becomes more efficient.

Information security

The security of existing data in spreadsheets will depend on the security of your computer, which is a serious matter that should be among the main concerns, even for micro and small business entrepreneurs. Today, businesses of all sizes can fall prey to malicious third parties.

In this sense, one more advantage of the database is to keep your company’s information safe, as the software can use the same security mechanisms as large banks. 

Therefore, you don’t need to hire professionals specialized in security.

Furthermore, access to data is restricted, and only those who know the correct password can view and manipulate them. You can authorize access or restrict anyone who wants to collect certain information about your company.

Prevention and problem reduction

With so much security given to your business data, possible problems that your company would be liable to are also prevented. However, even when a problem occurs, it is possible to seek assistance from qualified professionals who usually provide all the necessary support to the users of the database.

Therefore, it is important to hire a database from committed and experienced suppliers, who not only have adequate training but are also available whenever necessary. Also, another tip when choosing the ideal database is to check the frequency of updates.

Quality systems provide updates periodically so that your database always meets the new market and government requirements. Thus, your company keeps up with the tax authorities and offers the best service to your customers.

Long term investment

When it comes to software VS spreadsheets: which is the better option, you must also take into account the cost-benefit of each one. While Excel spreadsheets need tiny

investments, in part, since the law requires companies to use original programs that are not company copies, databases require investments a little more than spreadsheets.

However, as you can see, it is a complete system to manage your business, with numerous features, in addition to tables to register all the necessary information, such as customers, suppliers, products, and others. 

In addition to offering the most competent security for your business, a database is online, which means that it allows remote access from anywhere and anytime to your company’s system. Even so, only authorized people can use it.

Conclusion

This is only a brief introduction to the main differences between databases and spreadsheets. While spreadsheets are simple and accessible, the power and flexibility offered by databases are essential to creating internal tools.

Tigersheet is a new generation no-code platform that looks like a spreadsheet. It is therefore the ideal tool to make the transition from a simple spreadsheet to a more robust database.

 

 

September 1, 2021 General No comments yet

10 Reasons You Should Ditch Spreadsheets Today

For many years, Excel spreadsheets have been a staple in both professional and personal circles for organizing, calculating and presenting data.

They have been a universally functional tool for a variety of applications, such as keeping tabs on company financials and managing inventory.

There hasn’t been a single technological development that’s been able to replace spreadsheets as an office fundamental (other than ongoing updates from Microsoft Office and similar competitors like Google Docs), so spreadsheets remain in active circulation.

For many uses, spreadsheets are still valuable, but there are a number of inefficiencies that prevent them from being the powerhouses they once were. which is why we have put together a list of reasons why you should really stop using spreadsheets.

  • Spreadsheets are prone to errors

Nearly 90 percent of all spreadsheets have errors. This may be an improper formula, a misreported number, or inefficient formatting that leads to misinterpretations. Given your valuable or sensitive information, even a single mistake can be costly here, so it’s not worth the risk.

  • Spreadsheets get cluttered over time

Most spreadsheets start off very simple but as they grow in size and complexity they become difficult to manage

You end up with a large spreadsheet that is very difficult to maintain.

This becomes even worse if you have multiple people working on it. 

  • Limited or no automation

With spreadsheets, you can’t automate tasks or you have to automate them through complex scripts. For example, if you want to know when someone updates the status column, with spreadsheets, either it’s not possible or it requires complex scripts.

  • No custom roles and permissions for spreadsheets

As your database grows in size and complexity, you may find that you need an extra layer of control and protection. This is very important if multiple people have access to your database. With spreadsheets, it is impossible to set up custom roles and permissions.

This means that you need to give “Full Edit” permission to everyone who wants to make an edit which could lead to security risks.

  • No Notifications or Real-Time Updates

No notifications can hamper team collaboration. Unless your spreadsheet lives on the cloud or on an otherwise networked computer, you can’t get real-time updates. To get updates, you’ll need to manually email/copy-paste rows.

  • No Attachments

For completing a task, you may need to work with documents, presentations, brochures, graphics, or other files. But you can’t attach files within a spreadsheet! This is a severe limitation.

  • Prone to Security Risks

Because spreadsheets give access to more or less everybody on a team, instead of only to specific users, sensitive information may end up in the hands of people that are not entitled to see it. This is a major disadvantage, especially in a time where companies generate ever-growing amounts of data every day.

  • Scales poorly

As an organization grows, data in spreadsheet-based systems get more distributed; It is absolutely not advisable for a large organization to keep using spreadsheets.

What to Use Instead

So there are lots of good reasons to stop using spreadsheets, but that doesn’t make your needs go away. You still need to track inventory. You still need to report financials and chances are you need an easy way to transition your old materials into a new system. What could take the place of spreadsheets?

The simple answer is specialized software. There are thousands of types of tracking and management software out there, some of which cover many needs generally (like team collaboration software) and some of which narrow down into a focused niche (like accounting software). Your best bet is to choose a suite of software services, a la carte, that best cater to your company’s specific needs. There’s no one-size-fits-all solution out there (which is why spreadsheets are becoming obsolete), so shop around and consider your options carefully.

Instead of relying on spreadsheets to do the heavy lifting, look for a platform like Tigersheet that scales as you grow, providing secure features that improve collaboration, accountability, and accuracy so that you can move quickly and have an impact on your organization.

TIGERSHEET- A No-Code platform to build and automate apps 10x faster!

 

August 17, 2021 General No comments yet

The 8 Best No-Code Platforms For Building Your App

Building applications for your business has become easier than ever with the introduction of low-code or no-code platforms.

Now, it is possible to create even more complex applications without spending a lot of money, waiting days or months, or employing multiple developers, all thanks to these technologies.

You don’t need to be an expert in coding to build an app. Modern no-code platforms make sure you write little to no code and still produce the applications that drive your business forward.

In addition to building applications, no-code platforms offer workflow automation, help improve business processes and provide other capabilities to support your operations and help you grow.

Now, let’s take a look at some of the best no-code platforms available on the market for small and medium-sized businesses, as promised!

 Zoho Creator

Zoho Creator is one of the most competent no-code platforms that helps you create applications quickly and extend and integrate their functionality seamlessly. 

It doesn’t matter what level of coding experience you have or how complex your coding requirement is; Zoho Creator makes everything fast, easy, and secure.

It helps you transform your business by offering customized solutions so you can build theapplications you conceptualized. You can build cross-platform applications ranging from minimalist call logs to heavy and complex ERPs capable of integrating with your current processes.

Accelerate your application development process with its rich and intuitive code editors, visual builders, pre-designed templates, and more. On top of that, you can easily configure and automate workflows in your applications with simple steps and iterations.

Caspian 

Caspian is another great option for building cloud applications without coding. This leading no-code application development platform is well suited for building scalable, reliable and secure online database applications.

The platform enables more than 15 clients in more than 150 countries, from government agencies and global corporations to small businesses, universities and non-profit organizations. Caspio can help you plan your database layout, user permissions, workflows, and more.

Tigersheet

Tigersheet is a new generation no-code platform that serves as a middle way between spreadsheets and business-specific software

It offers a way to everyone, not just developers to build custom business applications with everything tailored as per your business needs. The fact that millions of people out there use spreadsheets to manage their data is a good start for us.  So, we make the experience of application development a lot like using spreadsheets, something everyone knows.

Tigersheet is a no-code platform equally capable of handling all your business challenges effectively. A unified surface with infinite room to grow your ideas, from tables to CRM tracker.

With Tigersheet, your team can:

  • Track orders, projects, invoices, payments, employees, expenses, office assets, employee leaves, employee advances, and more.
  • Attach files and documents to rows.
  • Hide certain fields or rows from users easily with the powerful roles and permission system.
  • Set reminders for important dates like a deadline, a follow-up date, etc.
  • Access data from your Tigersheet’s mobile app.
  • Create reports, have different views to visualize your data better – like Kanban, timeline, etc.
  • Use Triggers to create workflows, send email notifications, and more. Now no need to resort to custom application development to automate your business.

Mendix

Create applications of your imagination from simple, time-saving tools to enterprise-grade applications that help businesses run smoothly with the help of Mendix.

It is a no-code platform that anyone can use to improve their business by delivering quality applications without involving code complexities. This application development platform helps you build impact-driven applications to deploy sooner and make them successful faster.

You can build applications to serve various industries, including SAP supply chain processes, high-value asset field service, digital insurance solutions, plant equipment maintenance, delivery management, analytics and reporting, logistics tracking, artificial intelligence, smart banking, facial recognition, etc. more.

Quickbase

Unleash the full potential of your business operations by incorporating Quickbase into your organization and create high-quality, results-based applications that can connect ideas, information, and people everywhere.

This application development platform helps you bring your business, IT teams, and developers together to innovate and build secure, sustainable, and secure applications. It also helps speed up your business processes to deliver quality applications with fast response times.

Quickbase frees you from legacy systems and gives you a set of built-in capabilities built to work together to enhance your applications without taking on the high cost of development, deployment, and maintenance in traditional ways.

Retool

Building internal apps and tools becomes remarkably fast with Retool. It saves you from struggling with user interface libraries, searching for access controls, and combining data sources. Instead, seamlessly build apps and ship them faster to speed up your business.

Retool provides you with solid building blocks like tables, charts, lists, maps, wizards, forms, and more essentials for building in-house tools. As a result, it is easy for you to work on your user interface and present them sooner without searching for libraries.

You can assemble your applications in just 30 seconds with the help of drag and drop of your pre-built components. Additionally, you can connect to major databases using a REST API, gRPC, or GraphQL.

Retool allows you to work with your data sources seamlessly in one application. One need not mention that they are the only person who stores your data. When a query is run, the Retool backend sends this request directly to your backend. This means that they never store your data.

Microsoft Power Apps

Building low-code apps and sharing them is no longer challenging if you have Microsoft Power Apps. 

It helps you quickly build applications that can solve challenges while revamping processes to increase business agility.

They offer pre-designed templates and a drag-and-drop feature so you can quickly start building applications. As a result, you can deploy immediately and then make quick improvements.

Power Apps gives your team the power of advanced features and functionality, including pre-built artificial intelligence components. 

Additionally, you can provide your developers with the essential tools they need to seamlessly extend application capabilities through custom connectors and Azure Functions to on-premises or proprietary systems.

OutSystems

 

OutSystems is transforming software development and helping you quickly create and deploy complex applications that can evolve with you. It enables you to create blazing fast model-driven development using the cloud, DevOps, and AI.

With OutSystems, it’s easy to manage application backlog, keep up with changing business needs, and deliver cloud applications to drive innovation. In addition, they offer many integrated tools and automation services to produce secure, scalable, easy-to-manage, and resilient applications.

AirTable

Create powerful applications by combining your imagination with the power of Air Table . It will help you get started quickly by offering the power of an impressive database with the familiarity of spreadsheets.

Airtable is trusted by more than 200 organizations that have developed applications on Airtable and modernized their business workflows while delivering effective results. It enables you to create solutions with greater capabilities and sophistication.

Conclusion

Let’s hope this information on no-code development platforms helps you understand these concepts and choose a platform based on your business requirements. Wishing you success in building your next product.

Don’t have the time to do IT on your own? Contact us and we’ll take care of the rest.

August 10, 2021 General, IT No comments yet
5 Tech Upgrades Your Business Needs in 2021 and Beyond

5 Tech Upgrades Your Business Needs in 2021 and Beyond

Over the last few years, the world of enterprise technology has changed significantly. Digital technologies have evolved. Rising data volumes have changed the way businesses operate. It seems like new technologies are constantly emerging. 

As technology is constantly improving and can sometimes be hard to understand, many businesses are not utilizing the best and latest tech, which could be holding their business back in more ways than one way. So, if you feel that you need to upgrade your business tech to improve your company but are not sure how to go about doing this..Here’s our comprehensive blog that will give you insights on some of the best tech upgrades you can make.

Keep reading this blog post to learn more!

Automation

Automation of workflow and business processes are crucial tech upgrades that businesses should adopt, especially in this day and age where time is money and has to be used wisely.

By using a no-code platform like Tigersheet for automation, the redundant and repetitive tasks could be looked after automatically. This in turn can let employees manually engage in more critical matters concerning the business, enabling it to grow and develop further.

The benefits of automation include:

  • It is inexpensive and assists you in the long ru
  • You will not be overburdening your workers
  • Your company can achieve more with the time and resources available to them

Give Your Team the Fastest Internet Possible

Switching Internet providers may not top your list of to-dos. It should be, though. Now is not the time for a snail’s pace online connection. Far too many businesses simply accept that their Internet will be ridiculously slow from time to time. Yet slow Internet has serious repercussions.

Case in point: Everyone’s experienced an arduous Zoom meeting with maddening lag times and freeze-ups. What kind of an impression do those interactions make on prospective clients or talented job candidates? What does a slow connection do to your own employees? And downloads that take forever or ones that stall? They’re cutting into profits.

Consequently, whether your team is remote, in-house, or a mix of the two, your employees, clients, and prospects need high-speed Internet.

Invest in security

Security is of grave importance at a company; unfortunately, a lot of companies do not understand the gravity of the situation until cyber thieves have a field day.

Here is why security should be treated with utmost importance:

  • Customer and business data is not something a company can afford to take lightly, quite literally, the legal penalties and fines for data breaches are a serious amount.
  • Data breaches are not tolerated by communities in today’s business environment.
  • Failure to maintain security can turn into a PR nightmare overnight.

Prioritize Better internal communication

Internal communication sure took a hit after the pandemic with everybody having to communicate and coordinate with each other while working from home. Texting is great, it’s intuitive and quick but is it sustainable in the long run?

The confusion and insecurity of texting make it unsuitable for the modern workplace in the digital era. The last thing you need is for basic communication to become taxing and frustrating.

The solution to this? Keeping all your communication in one area.

One of the techs upgrades your enterprise needs is to use a specialized tool for your teams to utilize in order to ensure a cohesive and teamwork-inducing virtual environment.

After revitalizing your technology and giving the employees time to get the hang of it, there will be a boost in their overall productivity.

Move All Collaboration to the Cloud

Teleworking doesn’t raise eyebrows anymore. But is your company getting it right or still merely getting by? Consider your collaboration efforts for a moment. Is it easy for colleagues to share documents and information? Or do they have to take extra steps to get each other key data?

Minutes matter, especially for sales and customer experience professionals. Forcing a frustrated consumer to wait because your employees can’t find what they need isn’t acceptable. Customer behavior has changed radically, and patience (let alone loyalty) isn’t high on buyers’ priorities.

Migrating all your sharing platforms to a centralized, cloud-based location can take away barriers to wooing and keeping customers.

Conclusion

In the end, it is always sensible to invest wisely in what can create and deliver value for your enterprise and your customers. The goal is always to strengthen your business and not wait for anything to become obsolete and get left behind.

We hope you gained some value from this blog post about the tech upgrades that your business should hop on as soon as possible to keep growing in and competing in their industries. Change is the only constant; do not be afraid of it, embrace it.

July 29, 2021 General, IT No comments yet
How-to-Create-Web-Forms-That-Convert-Visitors-to -Leads

How to Create Web Forms That Convert Visitors to Leads

Funneling lots of traffic to your website is an impressive feat, but it’s an empty metric unless it can convert visitors into subscribers or customers. That’s exactly why having effective web forms is essential—these data capture tools allow you to gather information on leads that you can in turn nurture into clients and customers.

But have you ever wondered how many visitors struggle to complete your forms – or simply give up?

According to one study, 80% of users have abandoned an online form even after starting to fill it out. Some 27% quit simply because the form is too long. Imagine how many leads and how much potential revenue you’re losing because of poorly executed web forms!

Best Practices to Create Web Forms

Webform conversion optimization is not just for marketers. It’s something to ponder on any time you use forms to collect orders, subscriber information, customer feedback, and product inquiries. Each successful interaction grows your business, while each failed attempt is a lost opportunity.

So, before you hit that publish button, spend a little extra time to incorporate these conversion best practices:

1. Define a Clear Purpose

  • What is the most important information to collect? Limit to as few fields as possible or consider breaking the form into two steps.
  • What data formats are required? Set up your fields to collect data in the appropriate data formats. Include a calendar to make it easier for users to enter a date. 
  • To avoid typos, use an email field for email submissions, which will display an error if users enter the text that’s not in an email format. 

2. Design with Direction

  • Stick to a clean and simple design. Choose a font and color palette that’s easy on the eyes and professionally matches your website or brand.
  • Keep field labels short. If more explanation is needed, consider adding a small tip next to the field.
  • Use a large button in a strong color. The button should demand attention with action-oriented text such as “Sign Up for Free” or “Subscribe Now”.
  • Limit any distractions around the form. Eliminate surrounding clutter such as graphics, links, or navigation that may sidetrack users from completing the form.

3. Improve form placement

Like the form’s design, its location on a website or specific page plays a considerable role in converting customers. Ideally, you can place forms as calls to action above the fold if your purpose is to generate more sign-ups and submissions. As one of the first things people may see, there’s a good chance that they’ll be willing to submit.

However, it’s common for some landing pages to take the AIDA approach (Attention, Interest, Desire, Action) and place the form at the very end. Long-form sales pages occasionally use this template to maximize conversion rates.

No matter where you want to place your form, be sure to track and monitor its performance regularly. 

Better insight about which parts of your web pages receive the best engagement is critical. For example, if the majority of visitors leave before scrolling halfway through the page, and your form is at the bottom, consider adjusting placement. 

4. Ensure you have a strong call-to-action

While placement and design are essential, one of the most crucial elements in a form is the call to action or CTA. Make sure that your CTA is visible, legible, and packs a punch.

Next, ensure the clarity of your CTA by using descriptive action words. Instead of “Send,” “Click Here,” and other common language associated with a form submission, mention the specific benefit or outcome again.

A few examples include “Get My Free Guide,” “Get Your Copy Here,” and “Yes, I Want the Checklist,” among others. Once you settle on the copy for your CTA, take extra time to monitor its performance to see how your visitors respond.

Remember, changing just a word or two (or even removing them) can help increase web form conversion rates. You can always run A/B tests to see which CTA buttons work best for your organization and for your users.

Convert Your Business with No Code WebForms Built on Tigersheet

Tigersheet allows you to create web forms,  that not just convert users but also help your business digitally transform, given these unprecedented times.

Tigersheet’s no-code platform provides you with all the tools you need to create, customize and deploy powerful web forms, all without having to hand-code.

By using our intuitive point-and-click tools instead of painstakingly writing down line after line of code, you gain the agility to build and deploy apps and forms 10-20x faster. The sooner you build the forms, the sooner you get the leads, subscriptions, and sales.

Want to learn more?

Check out our Ultimate Video Guide: How to Build Web Forms on Tigersheet. This comprehensive, step-by-step video series shows you how to easily build web forms, using the contact us form as a sample use case. 

Alternatively, sign up to Tigersheet for a free trial to see how Tigersheet can help you create optimized web forms that bring in leads, subscriptions, and sales for your business.



July 6, 2021 General No comments yet
6 Best Business Process Management Podacsts

6 Best Business Process Management Podcasts You Must Listen To

Over the last few years, Podcasts have grown from a niche media to one of the most popular ways to get news and information. In fact, Podcasts are like hacks for our everyday life. They allow us to passively improve our knowledge and gain valuable insight into almost any topic one could imagine, while doing pretty much anything.

Business process management podcasts can be an invaluable resource for those in the know or those who need to know about it. With this in mind, we have come up with an insightful list of our 6 favorite business process management podcasts, listed below in no particular order. To keep up with the latest news, trends, best practices, and to hear from the top minds in the industry, we highly recommend giving these a listen.

In no particular order, let’s take a look at each of these picks.

The Project Management Podcasts

The more companies understand the importance of sound Project Management, the more will your skills be in demand. Project Management is the means used by companies today to turn their vision and mission into reality. It is also the driver behind transforming a business need into a business process. The Project Management Podcast looks at how project management shapes the business world of today and tomorrow.


-Solution’s Review

Whether you’re a beginner or an expert, this is one of the BPM podcasts hosted by Cornelius Fichtner that is brilliant for both. With over 400 episodes about subjects related to process management that offer a deep program showcasing strategies for success for small businesses.

This podcast was started and remains until today Cornelius’s love project that he does on the side. He founded the OSP International LLC in 2006 and ever since then, he has utilized podcasting to help more than 50,000 students prepare for the PMP exam by teaching project management; the podcast is used as a preparation guide.

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-project-management-podcast/id79900698

Workflow

Workflow is one of the BPM podcasts that enable company’s teams to find and learn the best possible ways to work, enable meaningful collaboration with each other and others and ultimately get work done in the most effective manner possible. This podcast is on Rindle.

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/workflow/id1132878011

Disrupting Business Process Management

Our next pick is a podcast brought to you by FlowForma. In every episode, they interview thought leaders or one of their own customers and ask them about their Digital Transformation journey to a paperless office. 

Paperless offices are the way to go and this podcast’s recommendations can assist you in learning the best practices from your colleagues in the business world.

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/disrupting-business-process-management/id1400867590

HBR IdeaCast

Harvard Business Review has BPM podcasts where you can discover new ideas with an old-school provision of advice on innovative strategies and leadership. This is gained from the world’s best management and business experts to create global leaders of tomorrow.

The podcast comes out on a weekly basis featuring these thought leaders with business and management expertise.

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/hbr-ideacast/id152022135

Hack the Process: Mindfulness Meaningful Progress on your Plans

A podcast about taking action on your plans, and building your business, your career, and your life around sustainable and satisfying processes that support mindful and meaningful progress.


HACK THE PROCESS

This podcast is hosted by coach and writer, M. David Green who uses it to help people constantly improve by making effective collaboration an everyday practice. He coaches companies and individuals in a varied and widespread range of industries that excel in tech to assist them in the improvement of their processes so as to boost productivity, flexibility, communication, and the leader’s life quality.

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/hack-the-process-mindful-meaningful-progress-on-your-plans/id1076068196

In Process Podcast

The In Process Podcast has a range of conversations with experts in business showcasing new tools, techniques, and ideas in general to assist the growth and success of your business. The Host Evelyn Ashley brings you these talks featuring the importance of change being the only constant in business and the continuous challenges that are faced.

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/in-process-podcast/id1048394662

Conclusion

We hope that you like these top 6 BPM podcasts and delve into them for your unique businesses with a better understanding of the concept.

At Tigersheet, we aim to make business process management easy and efficient through an intuitive interface and a drag-and-drop builder. We want to make automation easier for you by simplifying and demystifying the process by using no-code tools. Take the first step to automating your workflows and increasing your productivity by contacting us for your free trial!

April 29, 2021 General, Uncategorized No comments yet
Managing Your Work in Spreadsheet Is a Pain? Use Tigersheet, not spreadsheets to track and automate your Business.

Managing Your Work in Spreadsheet Is a Pain? Use Tigersheet, not spreadsheets to track and automate your Business.

Just because something is universally adopted doesn’t mean it’s the better way. There are countless examples of products and tools that are popular simply don’t deliver on their promise. And within businesses of all sizes, one of the biggest culprits is Spreadsheets. Yes! You heard that right!

Though a majority of businesses use spreadsheets in various capacities, these tools are often used by default without anyone giving serious consideration to the benefits or costs they offer compared to other solutions. A report focused on finance and accounting professionals, for example, found that Excel usage for budgeting and planning purposes dropped six percentage points from 2017 to 2018, to 63%.

This suggests that many businesses have yet to evaluate the hidden productivity toll and other costs of managing work in spreadsheets. Here are some ways that using spreadsheets to manage tasks and projects can cost your business.

Spreadsheets Slow You Down

slow warning sign isolated

Whether you’re trying to beat the competition to market or achieve some other goal, an ability to act fast is one of the top differentiators of high-performing companies. But all too often, spreadsheets slow people down by requiring individuals to manually perform repetitive tasks that can be streamlined and/or automated on other platforms. This can include things like manually populating the same information into numerous files, and extra steps such as sending an email to notify others every time you make a change.

At a glance, these added tasks may not seem too burdensome. But that time adds up quickly, across tasks, employees, and departments, taking a hefty productivity toll on companies.

Automating repetitive actions gives teams more time to focus on tasks that have a higher business value. Using Tigersheet, employees can automate update requests, approval requests, reminders, and notifications. Setting up automated actions means teams won’t have to manually send out follow-up emails to task owners.

Spreadsheets Restrict Collaboration

Today’s employees have to collaborate across teams and business lines, with both internal and external partners in different locations and using different devices. In fact, 80% of businesses say collaboration is a must for delivering on top business objectives.  Yet in order for employees to do so effectively, they increasingly need a platform that’s up to the task.

Spreadsheets act as barriers to collaboration by restricting users from simultaneously making changes in real-time. Version control also becomes a nightmare as multiple people make changes to a spreadsheet and lose track of the version they should be working from, resulting in lost time and inaccurate data.

Tigersheet is a new generation platform that ensures teams stay on the same page via seamless collaboration. With Tigersheet, collaborators can comment directly on a corresponding row in their sheet. Team members can dive into the sheet and read the latest comments as they correlate to specific tasks or activities. All it takes is for the sheet owner to create a comment and ‘mention’ the designated user with an @ symbol and an automated notification is sent as an alert to the person at his email.

Spreadsheets Aren’t Connected

Not only do spreadsheets pose a barrier to collaboration, but the fact that they aren’t connected can lead to siloed information, particularly if spreadsheets are being emailed around as they are updated.

Even if they’re cloud-based, spreadsheets are not necessarily connected to other parts of the business or the project at hand. There’s no way to attach or store related files, annotate the file with related information, or comment on the progression of work itself.

The standalone nature of spreadsheets also makes it difficult to report on work. Showing how a project is progressing based on a plan that’s being tracked in a spreadsheet is time-consuming, even worse, when data gets locked in silos, the lack of visibility may mean information gets missed altogether. This can affect the accuracy of reports and status updates and take away your ability to make informed decisions.

Spreadsheets Don’t Let You Scale

Managing a set list of tasks in a spreadsheet? Not a problem — maybe. Managing a larger initiative that involves different teams and workflows, changing information, and other complexities? You might be able to do so successfully. Yet while the limitations discussed might not be problematic for simple projects, these issues can compound as more people and parts are introduced. At some point, your process will break down.

Why? As collaboration increases, along with the speed at which you need to get work done, you’ll notice the strain of relying on spreadsheets to be your workhorses. They may seem like a convenient, free tool to help you get work done, but there’s a point at which the costs far outweigh the benefits.

Instead of relying on spreadsheets to do the heavy lifting, look for a platform like Tigersheet that scales as you grow, providing secure features that improve collaboration, accountability, and accuracy so that you can move quickly and have an impact on your organization.

Tigersheet is a new generation no-code platform that serves as a middle way between spreadsheets and business-specific software

It offers a way for everyone, not just developers to build custom business applications with everything tailored as per your business needs. The fact that millions of people out there use spreadsheets to manage their data is a good start for us.  So, we make the experience application development a lot like using spreadsheets, something everyone knows.

Tigersheet is equally capable of handling all your business challenges effectively. A unified surface with infinite room to grow your ideas, from tables to CRM tracker. If you’re ready to test it out, sign up for a free trial of Tigersheet, absolutely free no strings attached! You can start building your own enterprise apps for desktop and mobile using one of our templates or start from scratch with Tigersheet drag-and-drop interface.



April 19, 2021 General, Product No comments yet
what is citizen development

What is Citizen Development & 5 Reasons to Embrace Citizen Development at Work

Advancement in technology has empowered employees with some powerful capabilities to solve their business problems. Specifically, low-code and no-code platforms have inspired so-called citizen developers to create their own solutions to solve their business problems without relying on the IT departments of the organization.

The term “citizen development” is often  misunderstood and can easily get maligned as “shadow IT.” So, before we dig into the crucial question What are the reasons to embrace citizen development at work, we had better start with a definition to make sure we’re all on the same page.

Breaking the Basics: What is Citizen Developer?

According to Gartner, “A citizen developer is a user who creates new business applications for consumption by others using development and runtime environments sanctioned by corporate IT.”

There are a plethora of advantages that come with encouraging the citizen development initiative in the organization such as faster time to market, cost benefits, and transparency.

In this article, we will focus on five additional benefits that citizen developers bring that will compel IT leaders, to embrace and promote the citizen development initiative in their organization.

Keeping Pace with The Market

As every business becomes a digital business, there is a need to be systems in place that can keep up with the tech disruption. Legacy systems and traditional methods of IT application development are struggling to do just that.

By enabling those outsides of IT to develop their own solutions for their unique workflows or challenges, the business can become more agile to better respond to the changing marketplace. Instead of complex and expensive custom installations the business can augment and automate processes as their market changes.

Rapid development of custom applications

When the IT departments are already overburdened with huge IT backlogs and various requests, creating altogether new solutions by IT teams can result in a longer waiting time. IT leaders can fill the void between the available IT resources and enterprise users by promoting citizen development and enabling enterprise users to create solutions to fulfill their business requirements.

Low-code and No-Code platforms empower users with the rapid development of custom applications using a model-driven development approach to create applications to meet their business requirements.

Empowering your employees

Another benefit of enabling citizen developers is the empowerment your employees will get from solving problems or improving processes.

This enables them to get to the root of problems faster, enabling them to get their work done faster and more easily, and fostering autonomy.

When you empower employees to develop their own business applications on a managed software platform it provides both sophistication and security. You can transform tech-savvy employees into citizen developers, which is a great move for your entire organization.

Enabling business agility

Business agility is an organization’s ability to adapt quickly to internal and external changes while remaining flexible to market and customer demands. Four in five executives told Forbes that agility is the most important characteristic of a successful organization. Increased competition, market fluctuations, and new technological innovations force businesses to respond faster than ever.

Here are some of the benefits of business agility:

  • Quickly spot clunky or broken applications and processes
  • Faster application deployment
  • Faster innovation
  • Improved customer experience
  • Improved employee morale

Dedicated citizen developers can deal with problems immediately instead of sitting tight and hoping IT find time to help. They can minimize the time between identifying issues and solving them.

A No-code Platform is what you need

Citizen development marks the beginning of the organization-wide culture of innovation. Tigersheet empowers citizen developers with No code technology to create applications and automate any vertices of their organizations. With Tigersheet, anyone can be a developer as it provides an intuitive environment with powerful features to create an app. 

Tigersheet ensures that your business applications and workflow processes are consistent and compliant and gives you the visibility to easily change and improve individual processes – all while empowering citizen developers, boosting morale, and reducing costs. If you are looking for a no-code platform to embark on your journey of digital transformation to boost your productivity while remaining agile, please visit www.tigersheet.com and Sign Up for a free trial today




March 30, 2021 General, IT No comments yet
Web Application Development Challenges You Need to Mitigate for 2021 and Beyond…

6 Web Application Development Challenges You Need to Mitigate for 2021 and Beyond…

Technology is evolving at breakneck speed, and it is bringing its fair share of opportunities and challenges too. Businesses that are now understanding the importance of moving from legacy to a more digitized architecture must be on the lookout for these opportunities and know about the methods of mitigating web app development challenges for 2021 and beyond. But, before we dive deeper and introduce these challenges let us look into some basics first!

So, what’s a web application? 

In concrete terms, an application is a software program that runs on a device. A web app is one that’s stored on the Internet and can be accessed from any browser. They aren’t constrained to any one operating system, don’t take up hard drive space on your device, and can be used by anyone with an Internet connection.  

Web applications can include everything from productivity-improving collaboration tools (e.g. Google Drive and Slack) to less productive (but often fun) games (e.g. Candy Crush and Words with Friends). Popular web apps are also often available as mobile apps too.

Moving to the next important question: Why are web applications so important right now? As the world becomes increasingly digital, more of your business moves to the web. As a result, your web application development process becomes a vital part of your business.

What does a modern web application development process look like? It’s all about speed and security. You must create secure applications efficiently, in hours/days rather than days/weeks. Those applications must be easily maintainable. They must grow with your business.

How does your development process stack up? Perhaps a better question: How can you meet these goals?

If you want a modern development process, you must first address a few common challenges that most businesses face. In this article, we’ll explore 5 of these challenges and explain why they’re so important to your development process.

Challenge #1: Standardizing your development process

If you ask 5 developers to build an application, you might get 5 different approaches. Sure, they might meet the requirements, but they’re all built using a different process. Imagine the maintenance nightmare.

Unfortunately, this is a challenge for too many businesses. They don’t have a standard development process. The result: This makes maintenance far more difficult and time-consuming than it should be.

A modern dev process requires a standard approach that’s consistent and easily maintainable. Every developer works the same way. The process is understandable and predictable.

Challenge #2: Speed

These days, speed is the name of the game. Developers are under more pressure to deliver solutions quickly–without sacrificing function or security.

How can one move past the development time hurdle? There are a couple of options:

Hiring more developers: If you’re facing a development bottleneck, the simplest solution is building your team. However, there is no denying that this is the most expensive option, and most businesses can’t afford to hire a bunch of developers.

Using software tools to get more out of your existing team: Over the past few years, we’ve seen major growth in the low-code/no-code development software space. One of the driving forces behind this growth is the whole “do more with less” challenge. Low-code tools help your existing team create web applications 50-80% faster. How? The speed boost is driven by a couple of factors:

They eliminate coding in most projects: Most applications are built-in minutes or hours, without code. 

More complex applications might take longer, and have the option to add custom code if needed.

They reduce testing: Since low-code tools create use pre-tested templates and components, testing time is dramatically reduced.

However, you choose to address the dev speed challenge, one thing is clear: The demand for fast development is only growing, and becoming a competitive necessity.

Challenge #3: Security

One of the main things web app developers are always concerned about is the security of their web app. With the rise of cyber-threats over the years, keeping the app secure should be the priority of product managers.

There are many things to consider when it comes to web application security such as the denial of service attacks, the safety of user data, database malfunctioning, unauthorized access to restricted parts of the website, etc. 

Creating robust password requirements and multi-factor authentication for your users are also effective security measures. More complex passwords are less likely to be hacked. Multi-factor authentication, where your users take multiple steps to confirm their identities, also gives your application an added layer of protection.

Challenge #4: Bridging the talent gap

Web application development is becoming more complex. It’s evolving faster than ever. Developers need an ever-increasing, and ever-changing skillset.

The problem for businesses: Finding web developers with modern skills. Sure, they have developers to maintain their current systems…but those are often outdated. The skills you need for modern web app development don’t always align with the skills you need to keep the business running.

How do you find developers that understand security, integration, responsive design, etc.…? How do you bridge the skills gap without hiring a dozen new employees? Here are two common approaches:

  • Adopt development tools: Development tools bring modern skills to your existing team. For instance, suppose you have a team of COBOL developers. A web development platform will help those developers create web apps with a minimal learning curve.
  • Set up training: There are plenty of online training options available for developers. Set up training classes for your team, or incentivize them to take training classes on their own.

Challenge #5: Support and Maintenance

Just like your car needs service after every three months, so does your web app. Building a nifty app is great, but without the right support, maintenance and upgrades, your app is only relevant until the next algorithm release. Without application maintenance, businesses become unhappy because the app doesn’t perform well and the tech leader gets the heat.

Challenge #6: Integration

More and more, business applications live outside of the firewall. They are more diversified than in the past. For instance, a modern business might use a SaaS-based CRM system, in-house BI tools, and host their website on the cloud.

While this improves flexibility, it creates a challenge. How do you tie everything together? The challenge for web developers is no longer building every feature into an application. It’s creating an application that can integrate with other applications. This challenge can easily be handled by creating more indigenous applications and integrating them with other applications.

How does Tigersheet fit into the grander scheme of things?

Tigersheet has been dedicated to providing custom web applications that have been changing the way businesses work. We like to take advantage of the disruptive technologies that can provide scalability to our clients.

Developing a sound and functional web application means you can make the most of modern technologies and benefit financially. There is no denying that the constant influx of money in the form of grand revenues allows you to flourish in this market. Tigersheet is a custom app solution provider that has helped various businesses successfully achieve their digital transformation goals. We take on web app development with a straightforward motto; help you deliver excellent customer experience and personalized experience to your audience.

TRY Tigersheet for FREE and witness the change in your organization today!




March 15, 2021 General, IT No comments yet
Factors to Consider When Upgrading a Business Software

Making a Choice: What to Consider When Upgrading a Business Software?

If you own or operate a business, that means good and bad news. The good news is that, for nearly any task, software makers have given us practically thousands of options. The bad news is that we now have to choose between these thousands of options. This leaves decision-makers in a tight spot. Do you let teams choose their own tools based on what they think works best? Or do you clamp down and choose a single, unified platform that provides “one-speed” of integrated capabilities?

All business technology has a shelf-life, whether it’s that an app that receives weekly upgrades or that dusty server that’s been underpinning your IT infrastructure for years.

For businesses of all sizes, it’s vital to consider not only when to upgrade, but how to do so if they are to ensure that the process goes as smoothly as possible.

And Here We Enter into Enterprise-Grade Decision-Making

This is why making enterprise-wide technology decisions can be complicated. There are some high-level benefits to either path: a single unified platform or diverse point solutions.

  • A unified platform increases your control while decreasing risk and limiting the number of checks you have to write to vendors. But it might also make modernization slower and make for unhappier users. It also gives you room to grow as you modernize (or digitize) more workloads.
  • Letting teams decide increases freedom and allow your organization to adopt new tools more quickly, but it may introduce unnecessary risk to your business. It’s also the easiest way to match the task to the tool carefully.

So, what’s a decision-maker to do? The answer is simple, but probably not 100% satisfactory: it depends.

The right and smartest choice must be driven by the unique outcomes you’re looking to achieve and the obstacles you face getting there. In this piece, we’ll take a look at some of the most critical factors decision-makers should consider before going for a software upgrade.

Is it necessary?

It may sound obvious, but the first thing that organizations must consider is whether now is the right time to upgrade. On the one hand, businesses don’t want to get caught up in a tedious IT cycle and upgrade just for the sake of it, but on the other, they can’t afford to let legacy systems hamper business growth.

Businesses must evaluate whether their current hardware and software solutions are meeting their organizational needs and whether an upgrade would make them more competitive. They should also research whether further upgrades are expected in the coming months to ensure they do not end up with new IT technology that quickly becomes obsolete.

How is the Data Being Managed – Big, Medium, or Otherwise?

Everybody wants to talk about data. And, not surprisingly, lots of people want to sell you solutions. So, do you need to embrace ‘big data’ applications or stick with a medium-sized data solution that’s serving you now? Whether you’re moving from popular spreadsheet software to something more sophisticated or looking to switch your online database provider, the decision must be driven by facts on the ground.

Employees: Assessing Your Culture

Another important consideration that businesses should make before upgrading is whether their employees are ready for new IT solutions. After all, they will be using the hardware or software on a daily basis and so it is often useful to canvass their opinions before committing to an upgrade.

If you do ultimately decide to overhaul your IT solutions, it is then time to evaluate whether employee training will be needed to help them get to grips with the upgraded technology. A staggered upgrade may be useful to give employees more time to transition to new ways of working.

Integration Capabilities

When you upgrade a particular aspect of your business technology it is likely that other software and hardware features will remain as they are, which is when integration issues can arise. Making sure upgraded solutions integrate with legacy IT is crucial, as any issues can bring workplace productivity to a standstill.

A pilot upgrade can help organizations determine whether any integration issues are likely to arise before committing to a widespread rollout and it is also worth checking to see if help is available from your technology vendor.

The best IT suppliers will offer consultancy alongside the sale, as well as post-sale support, to help prevent and mitigate any potential problems surrounding the upgrade process.

The Final Battle: Budget

Ultimately, many of these decisions come down to money. If you’re not already investing a lot in software, how are your teams getting the job done? Are they using a collection of free tools? Or even worse, obsolete 20th-century tools like paper and pen?

Deciding how much to spend is harder. The best bet is to triage – look for the most significant opportunities to add speed or certainty to how teams work. This is the first step when creating a plan. Beyond that:

  • Chat with peers in your industry or those working at businesses of similar sizes or shapes. What tools have they tried? Which were disasters? Which are they still using?
  • Read reviews online. What do customers like and dislike? Look for users not just using the software but trying to solve similar problems—the more relevant the ‘use case,’ the more relevant the review. 
  • Check video services like YouTube. You can find reviews and walk-throughs that show the software in action. This will give you details you can’t get reading a brochure or website.
  • Signup for a free demo. Many vendors will do it for free, although you’ll probably be dealing with aggressive sales reps for a short period of time.

We can help.

At Tigersheet, we live to help connect businesses of all shapes and sizes with the right software to help transform their business. Whether you’re starting from scratch, scaling for growth, or just trying to keep Frank and Francine happy, we can help you assess your needs, understand your needs, and chart the smartest path forward. If you’re interested in learning more about how an all-in-one uber-fast platform like Tigersheet can help your team based on your role and area of interest, sign up for a free trial today!





March 2, 2021 General No comments yet
5 Must-Read Technology Books for 2021

5 Books You Should Read to Stay Relevant in the Age of Technology

Resolutions aren’t for everyone but around this time of year most of us
start thinking about our intentions for the new year ahead.
Coincidentally, it is usually this time around the year we start thinking
about setting new goals- or provide feedback or direct reports to peers-as part of the annual review process.

As you consider goals for 2020, whether you aim to stay relevant in the
ever-changing age of technology, or want to continue to strengthen
your leadership skills, books can be a valuable resource. And they can
help you formulate feedback and constructive criticism, or even serve
as a resource for a team member needing to grow in a certain area.

The books on this list range — from self-care to professional
development — and are a mix of backlist and newly published. But all
of them offer tips and teach concepts that apply to all leaders, while
still allowing you to remain true to your personality and values;
hopefully, there’s room on your bookshelf!


“Rise: 3 Practical Steps for Advancing Your Career, Standing Out as a Leader, and Liking Your Life,” by Patty Azzarello


“Rise” is the perfect resource to use as a practical guide for career advancement. The book is broken into three sections:


do better, all about how you can have more impact;

look better, covering your visibility and credibility;

and connect better, giving tips for networking and asking for help.

Why you should read it: A former sales engineer, product marketing
manager, vice president, and CEO, Patty Azzarello is honest and
authentic, diving into what people tend to dislike about their jobs and
how to reframe how they think about them in order to achieve more.

Check the book here: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/12838919-rise

The Power of Experiments: Decision Making in a Data-Driven World By Michael Luca and Max H. Bazerman

Book description (via MIT Press): “Have you logged into Facebook recently? Searched for something on Google? Chosen a movie on Netflix? If so, you’ve probably been an unwitting participant in a variety of experiments — also known as randomized controlled trials — designed to test the impact of different online experiences. Once an esoteric tool for academic research, the randomized controlled trial has gone mainstream. No tech company worth its salt (or its share price) would dare make major changes to its platform without first running experiments to understand how they would influence user behavior.

“In this book, Michael Luca and Max Bazerman explain the importance of experiments for decision making in a data-driven world.”

Why you should read it: This book examines the role, experimentation has played in the success of some of today’s tech giants like StubHub, Alibaba, Uber, eBay.  Business professors Luca and Bazerman outline the rise of tech-enabled experimentation in organizations, the powerful role that data-driven tests can play in decision-making, and how business leaders can most effectively harness this powerful tool.

Check the book here: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/51777468-the-power-of-experiments

“Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle,” by Emily Nagoski, Ph.D., and Amelia Nagoski, DMA

This book is for any woman who has felt overwhelmed and exhausted by everything she had to do and yet still worried she was not doing ‘enough.’ Which is every woman we know—including us.

“Burnout” argues that women face the challenge of being — and doing — enough at home, at work, and sometimes even for themselves and that women experience this burnout differently than men. As a result of this, women tend to feel overwhelmed and exhausted, and experience negative physical effects thanks to the “biological stress cycle.”

Why you should read it: It’s a valuable exploration for those who experience these challenges first-hand, and it’s especially useful for those who don’t personally identify with this experience, providing context and creating awareness around issues some may not be aware of due to lack of exposure. 

Relying on science, research, and data, the Nagoski sisters wrote an accessible, conversational guide to empower any reader to create positive change in their life.

Check the book here: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/42397849-burnout#:~:text=This%20groundbreaking%20book%20explains%20why,in%20America%20have%20experienced%20it.

“The Dip: A Little Book That Teaches You When To Quit (And When To Stick)” By Seth Godin

Quick summary: Whenever you embark on a new project, it always starts out great. You’re excited. You’re motivated. You’re having fun. But, inevitably, it gets frustrating. This is what marketer and writer Seth Godin calls “The Dip,” which is the moment when most people quit. And in this book, Seth Godin teaches you what you need to do in order to get through the dip in your own projects and ultimately succeed. “The Dip” is a short, entertaining book that will forever alter the way you think about work and success.

Why should you read the book: This book is a must-read for anyone who feels they have trouble persevering toward their goals.

Moreover, we’ve all heard the phrase “quitters never win.” But, unfortunately, this isn’t true. In fact, winners quit all the time. The world is full of successful individuals who have quit their way to success by quitting the things they weren’t good at or the things they didn’t love so that they could spend their time doing something even better. However, what winners never do is quit just because something is hard. In order to be successful, you have to learn to quit the things that don’t bring you closer to your goals and persevere with the things that do.

Check the book here: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/324748.The_Dip

“Mini Habits: Smaller Habits, Bigger Results” By Stephen Guise

“Mini Habits” by Stephen Guise offers practical and science-backed strategies for building good habits, breaking bad habits, and shows how small behaviors can lead to remarkable results over time.

Why you should read this book: Read it if you want to build good habits, or break bad habits.

If you’re struggling to start, build, and maintain a new habit, then start utilizing mini habits. Mini habits are the tiniest version of the habit you want to build. For instance, exercising 30 minutes a day is a regular habit. Exercising 1 minute a day is a mini habit. Focusing on mini habits will make it nearly impossible for you to miss a day because the truth is a habit must be established before it can be improved.

Check the book here: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/20567918-mini-habits

Final Thoughts: Make 2021 Your Year

Have you read any of these books yet? Are there any new ones that sound interesting to you?

With these 5 books in hand, you will have new ways to read up on important aspects of leadership. Whether it’s encouraging and shaping your team, expanding the skills of employees, or refining your poise, reading any of these books will be a sure-fire way to learn something new and apply the latest findings on leadership to enhance your strategies and skills.

We hope you found a few new must-reads for 2021 to make this year your best year!


January 7, 2021 General, IT No comments yet
8 Tough Questions to Ask Vendors Before Choosing a LCNC Platform

8 Tough Questions to Ask Vendors Before Choosing an LCNC Platform

A recent podcast published by Forrester revealed that companies are now under immense pressure to produce new products and services but at a lower cost.  They often rely on new generation software and services to get there. 

Low code and no-code platforms are a popular option over enterprise-grade applications for companies looking forward to scaling quickly. Since the infrastructure and building blocks are already pre-built in low code/no-code platforms, they tremendously speed the application development process. However, choosing a low code/no-code platform that meets the long-term needs of organizations can be challenging.

Given the myriad options available and an oversupply of information, the decision process can become challenging. That is why we decided to bring the most basic yet important questions you should consider asking vendors when choosing an LCNC platform for your business.

If you need to learn more about the features of the low-code market and the benefits you can get, take a pause and study one of the articles in our LCNC series “Low Code/No-Code Movement: Top Disruptive Trends to Look Forward in 2020 and Beyond.”

Now, let’s get down to the topic at hand.

1)What type of applications does the platform create? How customizable is the platform?

You need to know whether the applications created on the platform are stand-alone or if they need a subscription to run. Ideally, you want to create applications that can run independently without dependencies on the tool, to ensure they will work even if you move away from the platform.

It is equally important to question the levels of customizability that the apps developed on the platform will offer.

  • Will you be able to change, edit, add or remove steps in the workflow?
  • Will you be able to add or remove fields easily?
  • How fast can you do these customizations and deploy them for use?

Also, check on the possibility of white labeling if it’s important for you.

2) What skills are needed by employees of my company to use the platform

The business case for low-code/no-code software usually boils down to time and money savings. They let you deliver applications in less time, using fewer resources. They reduce the need for coding knowledge in the development process.

However, these benefits only apply if the platform has a low learning curve and doesn’t require additional technical skills.

Therefore, the question: What skills are needed to use the platform? How long will it take to get up and running? What technical knowledge will our developers (or citizen developers) need? These are all important questions to consider when calculating the ROI of the software.

3) Does the platform provide enough ready-made templates?

Be sure to check this out if your goal is to automate business processes. The fact is that ready-made templates and components significantly increase productivity, provide flexibility, and a comfortable development process.

4) How secure is the platform?

This is another important one from the questions CIOs must ask low-code no-code vendors. There has been a lot of debate about application security in low code and no code app development. But, the best ones do not take this for granted and incorporate security controls at every step. So, make sure you ask the vendor to go into the details. Ask about user authentication, secure data transmission, content privacy, user access control, encryption of data, and anti-theft measures. 

5) Does the platform make it easier to create, share, and consume APIs? What are its integration capabilities?

Chances are, you don’t want to create apps that operate independently of your existing systems. Integration is a critical part of any low-code/no-code tool.

This question will give you an insight into whether you can use open APIs to integrate seamlessly and if you can integrate the apps you develop on the platform with other apps on the platform or 3rd party systems. At the end of the day, you don’t want another piece of software working in a silo.

6) Can I use other products in tandem with the platform? Are there any limitations to the types of applications I can create?

The main criterion when selecting an LCNC platform is its flexibility and openness, hence it is equally vital to understand what limitations does the platform offer. You shouldn’t get locked-in or dependent on the platform. A “lock-in” further includes different aspects, from the creation of standalone applications, data access, and control, to open-source or proprietary code generated. When examining the platform, you need to approach the answer to this question from several angles.

7) Are there any hidden costs in the licensing structure? What is the pricing?

One of the main aspects when selecting an LCNC platform is pricing. There is no standard, one-size-fits-all licensing structure, and hidden costs could increase your budgeted cost. To be certain you know what you pay for, you need to know the type of charge by vendors such as the fee for end-user seats, developer seats, run-time, distribution, and maintenance fee. Some platforms also provide standard email support included in the cost.

8) What does the customer support service entail? Is training provided?

It is very important that the low-code platform provides proper technical support. Read reviews about the platform. Here they often mention the quality of the platform’s support. Your employees will learn how to develop applications on this platform. That’s why it’s vital that the platform provides training programs.

Conclusion

When choosing a low-code/no-code vendor, it’s important to:

  • Pay attention to how it has proven itself and whether it has a developed network of partners and integrators.
  • Follow trends in the industry and see what’s suggested about the years to come. Reports from Gartner and Forrester can also be an irreplaceable help. 
  • Explore cutting-edge reports, reviewing authoritative feedback, and taking advantage of the trial period to work with the platform can help. When choosing a suitable low-code development platform, consider the needs of your business. A functionality that is ideal for one company may be useless in another.

These are just a few questions to ask about low-code platforms, but the list could be much longer.

Tigersheet is a no-code platform that helps managers automate business tasks by creating applications at drastically reduced costs and lightning speed.  Start your free trial now and experience the difference yourself.




December 20, 2020 General, LCNC No comments yet
Best Digital Transformation Quotes to Lead Change and Drive Business Value

Best Digital Transformation Quotes to Lead Change and Drive Business Value

Digital Transformation has recently become the buzzword within Low Code No Code Sphere. Earlier there used to be a notion that digital transformation is just meant for business houses and companies. However, with time the notions and definitions both have changed significantly making it more of a “People business”.

As Mary Kate Loftus states,

“Digital used to be about coding and IT; now it’s becoming a people business.” Speaking of the definition:

Digital transformation is defined as the changes taking place within an industry or organization whereby the whole set of activities, models, processes, and marketing among other factors are being transformed by the adoption of digital technology with the aim of creating value for their customers, users, and citizens while at the same time expecting to out their competitors.

Digital leaders and renowned industry experts have been talking about digital transformation for years- On that note, here are some of the best digital transformation quotes and what they illustrate. Read them if you truly need to understand digital transformation and its value.

“When digital transformation is done right, it’s like a caterpillar turning into a butterfly, but when done wrong, all you have is a really fast caterpillar.”

— George Westerman, MIT Sloan Initiative on the Digital Economy

Key Takeaway:  This quote subtly brings out the fact that digital transformation isn’t just a switch you turn on with the right amount of investment.  There is always a method to practice it correctly. If you have invested in digital infrastructure but don’t have the knowledge to best utilize the many tools it offers, then you haven’t transformed, rather just built a façade.

“90% of CEOs believe the digital economy will impact their industry, but less than 15% are executing on a digital strategy.”

—MIT Sloan and Capgemini

Key Takeaway: This is an interesting quote that brings out the worrying tendency for leaders (and perhaps humans in general) to understand something and yet not fully internalize what that something means. Too many leaders see the unstoppable wave that is digital transformation coming but choose not to act on that fact.

“You can’t delegate digital transformation for your company… You and your executives have to own it! Executives need to engage, embrace, and adopt new ways of working with the latest and emerging technologies.”

— Barry Ross, Ross & Ross International

Key Takeaway: This quote illustrates that digital transformation has to come from the top down to work well. Company leaders have to take charge. They cannot afford to take a hands-off approach. Not only will that lead to there being a disconnect in the digitization efforts, but they’ll also be making themselves less valuable to their company.

“The biggest part of our digital transformation is changing the way we think.”

— Simeon Preston, Bupa

Key Takeaway: Another detrimental factor that goes into digital transformation is the mindset. Digital transformation is not just getting access to the technology of tomorrow, it’s about having a forward-thinking mindset and company culture. Digitization almost becomes ineffectual without the right outlook driving it.

“We’ve moved from digital products and infrastructure to digital distribution and Web strategy to now into more holistic transformations that clearly are based on mobile, social media, digitization and the power of analytics and we think it’s really a new era requiring new strategies.”

Saul Berman, Chief Strategist, VP & Global Digital Business Strategy Practice Leader for IBM Global Business Services.

“The next 5 years will be more disruptive than the last 15. This is NOT business as usual. A lot of technology that came in three years ago doesn’t work anymore.”

— Saul Berman, IBM

Key Takeaway: Another statement on the exponential speed of technological innovation. Going digital simply means keeping your company afloat so that it has the infrastructure to continue growing technologically. It is a baseline.

“There is no alternative to digital transformation. Visionary companies will carve out new strategic options for themselves — those that don’t adapt will fail.”

— Jeff Bezos, Amazon

Key Takeaway: And we come back around, full circle. Jeff Bezos himself unequivocally states that there is no other option to digital transformation for companies. It’s either to digitize or welcome failure.

…. Choose the transformation path that works for you

Each of these quotes draws on a very real element of the digital transformation reality. Why not use them to get you thinking about how to implement digital automation successfully in your own business?

Tigersheet is a uber-fast modern-day no-code platform that can help automate and streamline business processes in quick and easy steps. The intuitive drag and drop interface allows users with zero coding knowledge to create workflows and share them with your employees.

Using digital transformation quotes as a catalyst. Want to give it a try? Try a 30-day free trial of Tigersheet to witness the change in your organization today!

December 1, 2020 General No comments yet
5 Top No Code/ Low Code Podcasts for Non-Technical Users

5 Top No Code/ Low Code Podcasts for Non-Technical Users

Low Code and No-Code Development is an innovation that is slowly changing the landscape when it comes to the coding of applications and websites. There is no surprise if you find every software funding and product announcement to includes some sort of reference to “low code or no-code” platforms or functionality. The frequent callbacks to this ‘buzzy’ term over the last few years reflect a realization that we’re entering a new software era.

While the technology is not fairly new, still it can sometimes get overwhelming to understand for beginners or non-technical readers.  In this blog, we’ll be discussing a good way to get a firm grasp of the basic thought behind low code-no-code without disrupting your busy schedule.

If you wish to know more about no code and low code technology, but don’t have the time to sit and study the concept, consider listening to podcasts! 
Yes, Podcasts may be perfect for you. This new medium is an easy way of gaining knowledge while being engaged in other tasks. On that note, we’ve rounded up (in no particular order) the top low code & no-code podcasts you should follow to stay abreast of the latest happenings in the LCNC sphere!

This is by no means a complete list, and if we’ve missed any needles in the haystack, let us know!

The Makerpad Podcasts

Ranked top in our list of top no-code podcasts, the Makerpad podcasts are hosted by Ben Tossell, the founder of Makerpad. Makerpad is an enlightening destination to learn, share, and work together to create software—without writing code. They provide best-in-class education paired with a supportive community and accountability. Here you find detailed reviews, product demos, how-to guides of an extensive category of no-code tools.

Coming back to Makerpad podcast, Ben Tossell talks to the founders of no-code tools as well as professionals who are using different tools and solutions based on no-code to help grow and expand their businesses.

In each episode, which lasts about 30 to 60 minutes, there’s an in-depth conversation with a professional in the no-code industry regarding how this form of development helped automate workflows, increase overall productivity, and set-up processes to allow for more time and creativity at work. Each individual gets the chance to share their story giving you a chance to see what goes on in the minds of the founders of the best no-code tools.

Listen Here: https://feeds.transistor.fm/makerpad

No Code Podcast by Alex Karpinsky

Do you often find yourself thinking How to learn more about No Code? How do I quickly test no-code tools for my startup? Where should I learn more about this exciting movement in tech? Well, then it’s time to decode the answers.

This is another informative no code podcast that will answer most of your questions around no code. Hosted by a no-code expert and user, Alex Karpinsky, this podcast has 7 episodes of varying lengths currently, including guests like Mark Magnuson, the CTO of Bildr, and Ben Tossell, the CEO of Makerpad.

This podcast is aimed towards giving non-technical individuals a resource to refer to as they journey into the world of no-code.

Listen Here: https://anchor.fm/nocode

The Make / Shift Low Code Podcasts by Mendix

This Mendix podcast series “Make/Shift”, is a detailed and open conversation with peers about how they are delivering success through building solutions that make an impact on their organization. In an open conversation, the Mendix experts sit down with leaders and makers across IT and business to explore how peers adopted low code.

Listen to the podcasts to get a better understanding of why low code is the solution to rapidly digitize processes using existing resources, deliver much-needed solutions to market more quickly, and cut down on the cost of development.

Listen Here: https://share.transistor.fm/s/2d0d681f

No Code No Problem by Ryan Myher

This podcast is hosted by Ryan Myher, the Head of Community at V/One, and aims to help engage creators in conversation regarding the thoughts behind creating applications and websites using no-code.

No-code development doesn’t have to be difficult for newcomers and this podcast could be perfect for you if you want to just test the waters a little. 

  • It will help you understand how no-code tools are changing the technological landscape in terms of development for applications and websites. 
  • No Code No Problem is also a great podcast if you don’t have much time in the day since each episode is for 6 minutes or less. 

Tune in to No Code No Problem, and you will be able to meet potential co-founders, discover tools, meet investors within the No Code Space, and network with other like-minded people.

Listen Here: https://www.nocodepodcast.co/podcast

Indie Hackers by Courtland Allen

This is another awesome podcast that consists of conversations between Courtland Allen, the founder of Indie Hackers, and other individuals who have created profitable online businesses. The platform- Indie Hackers- is a community where founders of successful businesses have a chance to freely share their stories and teachings with motivated entrepreneurs who want to read and learn more from these stories.

With 176 episodes lasting more than an hour each, this podcast can be a great way for you to get some insights into the different ways that people have created their businesses and their motivations behind launching these successful ideas. 

There are in-depth conversations about how these founders have gotten away from the 9-to-5 grind and found innovative business models that have turned into successful online businesses.

Listen Here: feeds.transistor.fm/the-indie-hackers-podcast

Summary

We hope that you like these top no-code podcasts and enter the world of no-code development with a better idea of the minds behind this concept. At Tigersheet, we aim to make no-code development easy and efficient through an intuitive interface and a drag-and-drop builder. We want to make automation easier for you by simplifying and demystifying the process by using no-code tools. Take the first step to automating your workflows and increasing your productivity by contacting us for your free trial!


November 15, 2020 General, LCNC No comments yet
3 Efficiency Killing Tasks Your Employees Want You to Automate Today!

INFOGRAPHIC: 3 Efficiency Killing Tasks Your Employees Want You to Automate Today!

Your team is well equipped with staff, the market campaign is running in full swing, and the key projects have successfully launched. Yet the business isn’t growing…

One of the major problems that get often overlooked – but creates a great hindrance to growth and innovation- is manual, inconsistent processes that restrain productivity.

Many organizations today are rapidly embracing automation, and for a good solid reason: A recent survey demonstrated that employees want their employers to automate manual, repetitive tasks, and give them time back to focus on higher-value work.  As per the survey report, more than 59% of workers have said that automating manual tasks can save them six or more hours per week.

Here’s an infographic- that offers in-depth knowledge of what workers think about automation- and the top 3 efficiency killer tasks they want their employers to automate.

Repetitive, manual tasks steal time and energy that could be better spent on critical business tasks. Here are three of the most common reasons your business isn’t reaching its potential, along with solutions:

Data collection is tedious and boring. But, you need data to run your business-sales figures, profit/loss numbers, expenses, etc. but manual data collection and analysis can take hours (or days). Error-free, consistent, and organized data becomes easy to achieve with automated web forms.

Approval processes drag on. Major business decisions aside, routine approval requests needed for tasks like expense reports, equipment purchases, and time off requests can be quickly approved when there are established guidelines. Instead of facing delays when requests get lost in email and approvers try to conquer their inbox, automating the process reduces email churn. Using automated triggers & alerts keeps the process flowing.

Reporting on updates monopolizes resources. Employees need to keep managers, teammates, and direct reports informed about the status of work, but it often comes at the cost of the real work getting done. By automating processes, project updates and key results can be done instantly, freeing up time to make an impact. Stakeholders gain instant insight into the progress being made. You save time by automating key tasks, without needing to invest significant amounts in new software or skills.

Take the next step…

If you can’t decide where to begin, check in with your people. Select a single team or pull together a small group of folks to identify opportunities to automate processes, like setting up automated alerts for expense reports or gathering details for weekly sales reports. Once you begin, you can always scale up the solution to automate other processes.

Your business is likely already using business tools, so you can also start there. Identify the solutions adopted by teams that may be useful for other departments. From there, a business automation platform like Tigersheet could help you corral the myriad solutions your teams adopted individually.

Removing the impediment of repetitive tasks for your employees frees them up to focus on the work that matters: strategic thinking, innovation, and problem-solving. These are the activities that truly power your business and propel it forward. Making a small investment now in automation tools and taking the time to master them will pay dividends tomorrow.

October 22, 2020 General, Startups and SMBs No comments yet
Automation with Tigersheet

Automating the Mundane: 5 Smart Ways to Kick Start Your Business Automation Journey with Tigersheet Today!

Are you buried under emails, expense reports, meeting requests, and dozens of similar administrative tasks…? And.. the little voice in your head wishes if this to-do list could get completed? Well, Automation can grant your wish!

All those 3 to 5-minute tasks you repeat throughout the day can take a toll on your productivity. You may find yourself creatively spent, unable to come up with new ideas, or see things from a different perspective. Or, you may burn out and look for shortcuts, which can lead to mistakes, recklessness, or avoidance.

This mental strain has a name: It’s called the decision fatigue. The more choices you make, the harder it becomes for your brain.

Let’s talk about the solution:

You have already thought many times about automating your business processes? But your team is busy now and you are wondering how can you convince them to put in the effort to adopt a new automated work process?

The short answer: You don’t. Instead of switching to a complex work automation project, you can look for a solution like Tigersheet. This will empower your team members to automate their own processes with flexible building blocks and easy-to-configure automation rules.

Here are five ways to start building automated workflows at the individual or team level. You can adopt them, then grow it across the entire organization to improve your business as a whole.

Ask your team what they want to stop doing?

Deciding what to automate is the very first step to get started with your automation journey.

For instance: you might look at the processes behind areas with low productivity.

Or, target the most repetitive and time-consuming processes plaguing your back office.

You could also target the processes automation could boost for a specific department.

Repetitive tasks such as compiling a weekly status report or requesting approvals are important, but they can also be boring. When you automate the most mundane or disliked tasks, you free up time and attention for more creative work that can help advance your business.

Look for the teams with the largest number of repetitive tasks, or the highest level of annoyance. These always act as a strong motivator for change.

Build upon your existing foundation. Explore the resources you already have

From a work management platform to messaging tools to personalized alerts, chances are your teams are already familiar with some of the building blocks for automation. Some teams at your company may have even found their own solutions on their own, either for specific projects or to improve their own team processes.

Not only will they know how to get the best results from the solutions they’re currently using, but they will also serve as great ambassadors and seasoned experts when it’s time to roll out new processes to the rest of the organization.

Finding the Automation Tools That Will Work for Everyone, not only a Few

If you want your entire IT team to jump onboard with intelligent automation, consider a solution that works for everyone – not only a select few. , you should look for a platform that is versatile enough to cover a broad range of tasks and workflows, from routine and common to complex and unusual. Empower your users’ tools that anyone can put in place without the need for coding or scripting. The easier and more flexible the platform, the greater the adoption will be.

Tigersheet is a no-code platform that can help everyone achieve more. It is an automation solution that offers easy-to-configure rules that anyone can set up, without a single line of code, complex formulas, or help from IT. Learn more and Sign up today!

Reducing Email Overwhelm and Too Much Reliance

As you automate tasks, resist the urge to push all communications — such as deadline reminders or completion notifications — out via email.

For example, with Tigersheet you can set up automated alerts and update requests that prompt team members to update status from within the app and using mobile push notifications.

(1) A centralized platform like Tigersheet lets the entire team see when a task gets complete, without generating lengthy email threads.

(2) Updates and alerts can be delivered to the specific people who’ve been assigned a task, instead of spamming a team email alias with messages that aren’t relevant to most members.

(3) Keeping inboxes free of requests and notifications can help employees prioritize and respond to the emails that really matter.

Keep mobile top-of-mind!

We live in an increasingly mobile dependent world. The ability to manage automated workflows from anywhere can be an attractive benefit for your busy IT team. Look for a solution that connects information seamlessly and securely across devices. This will enable workers to check project status and approve requests from anywhere, so you can define how and where teamwork happens.

Are you looking for an automation solution that offers all the perks and benefits outlined above? Why not give our Next Generation Uber fast business automation platform a try today? Click here for a free, interactive no-strings-attached demo to get started.

Build Powerful, Automated Business Processes and Workflows with Tigersheet…

Automating tasks and workflows empowers your staff to become more productive while helping to cut costs, save time, and create efficiencies. That’s why software tools that support task and process automation are critical to your success. One such tool is Tigersheet, a new generation work execution platform that fundamentally changes the way teams, leaders, and businesses get work done at lightning speed and drastically reduced costs!

References:

ü Technology Blog, Why You Need to Start Automating Repetitive Tasks. https://ayehu.com/5-simple-strategies-to-get-employees-onboard-with-intelligent-automation/

ü Tech Republic Blog, 10 ways to automate the mundane (so you can focus on what matters) https://www.techrepublic.com/blog/10-things/10-ways-to-automate-the-mundane-so-you-can-focus-on-what-matters/

ü ThinkAutomation Blog: How to start your business automation journey;https://www.thinkautomation.com/automation-advice/how-to-start-your-business-process-automation-journey/

October 16, 2020 General, Product No comments yet
Difference Between Start-up & Big Corporations: All you Need to Know

Difference Between Start-up & Big Corporations: All you Need to Know

Growing up, we often hear a lot of household names such as Google, Facebook, Walmart, Microsoft without really knowing what they are. Big corporations have been so deep-rooted into society and people’s minds that we do remember what these companies do but stopped thinking about their impacts on society.

On the other hand, startups, though well recognized by people, do not get remembered as easily and are not as integrated into our societies. But, what is crucial to understand that both startups and big corporations are essential to the progressive improvements and growths of society with each of them providing different strengths, opportunities, and purposes.

Demystifying the Difference: Startup vs Big Corporation

Not all recently created companies are startups nor do they have to be. By definition, as coined by Steve Blank, a serial entrepreneur, and professor at business schools such as Stanford, Berkeley and Imperial College, a startup is “a temporary organization designed to look for a business model that is repeatable and scalable.”

While a company is “a permanent organization designed to execute a business model that is repeatable and scalable.” Therefore, the difference is that startups look for an attractive business model, while companies already have such a business model and are focused on successfully executing it. This distinction affects the nature and needs of both kinds of organizations.

Tanker vs Speedboat Analogy

To make it sound interesting and chalk out the differences easily, let us use an analogy of comparing big corporations to ‘the huge tankers’ and startups to ‘small speed boats’.

  • The big tanker moves very slowly, is untouched by the ocean currents and waves, and hire a lot of people on board.
  • The speed boat is agile, has a small team, and is capable of going far or be punished by the cruel nature of the sea.

Jumping off this analogy, let’s dive into the strengths and weaknesses offered by startups and big corporations.

Startups

Small team: The reason why you feel impactful in a startup is often that you are a part of a very small team. The average startup team can very well be within 10 people. So when you’re part of that team, you are going to be tasked with tasks that are very core to the survival of the entire team. It’s great to be impactful in a startup, but that also means that it can go both ways.

Always hustling: One of the most frequently heard things about startups is that they are constantly on the hustle. Such pivoting in fact is crucial for the survival and growth of the startup. For instance, Instagram which today is the most popular photo-sharing application was not one when it started. It incepted as a check application that allowed people to show people where they are.  But, a series of pivots and edits made Instagram what it is today!

This is why it’s important to know that the final products of startups aren’t always what they set off to create at the very start. There will be new challenges and opportunities that will either evolve or destroy startups.

Offering innovation: Startups normally set off their journey as an entity that is trying to solve problems through innovation. Coursera and Udemy allow people to learn anytime and anywhere via their platforms. Venmo allows people to pay each other conveniently via their phones. Discord allows people to talk to each other as a team when gaming. Point is, startups always have their eyes set on a problem and they firmly believe that their products are the keys to solving these problems.

Low cash flow: Another important but disheartening fact about startups is their low cash flow. Another thing that is most heard about startups is they are always fundraising. The longer the runway is the more likely it is for a startup to take off successfully. That is why you often hear startups actively going through a series of fundraising. Startups won’t take off without the funds necessary. It’s great to have a dream of solving problems, but there are also harsh realities that one must face when doing so.

Big Corporations

Huge Team: It is no surprise to know that big corporations are characterized by big teams. They offer more job security to people because of how big they are. Big corporations are not as likely to fail and go bankrupt compared to small startups because of their solid foundations, well-established relationships with the government and people, and board of executives that makes decisions together.

Doing similar things: As previously stated, big corporations tend to be more risk-averse. They won’t make huge pivots and conduct large scale company restructuring like what some startups may do. They focus on doing what they do best and substantially increasing profit. Companies like Walmart are still innovating, but what keeps it alive is the everyday process of selling household goods to customers.

Huge Pools of Funds: The biggest difference between startups and corporations is probably their amount of funds. Startups are always tight in cash flow and always looking for more. Corporations are always looking for profit, but a week without sales will not have as much of an impact on the company’s well-being compared to a startup. Corporations also have more funds to spend on things like advertisements, talent hiring, and opening up additional locations. Startups probably have to pick between hiring a sufficient engineer and running online ads for 2 months. That is the main difference. Startups have to be careful in every step they take while big corporations and more rebound for mistakes.

Coming back to the tanker vs speedboat analogy, you can treat big corporations as the tanker that moves slowly but never stopping. Startups, on the other hand, will be the speedboats that explore different industries, the newest trends, and disrupting industries drastically.

Uber disrupted the taxi industry without owning one car at all. Airbnb =changed the hotel industry forever by not owning any real estate. WeWork changed the traditional concept of working space through space sharing. Startups are constantly changing the traditional concept of things.

It is also a possibility that the two can work together. Startups are constantly being acquired by big corporations for their talents and unique value proposition. Facebook acquired Instagram, WhatsApp, and Oculus because it felt connected to what they were doing. Big corporations often treat startups as little R&D centers where innovation is created by constant failures and talented people.

Although startups and big corporations offer very different things, they both keep society moving and ensures progress through their constant engagement in revolutionary changes and their lookout for opportunities.

August 26, 2020 General, Startups and SMBs No comments yet
What is the difference between Low Code VS No Code

Low Code vs No Code. What’s the Difference? [Infographic]

You may hear the terms “No Code” and “Low Code” thrown around by developers and entrepreneurs. There’s a lot of ambiguity as to what these terms even mean. To add to the confusion…

At first glance, it’s easy to confuse low-code and no-code. They sound the same for one. Even the big analyst firms seem to have a hard time differentiating them. Gartner views “no-code” application platforms as part of the low-code sphere, lumping them together into its latest Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Low-Code Application Platforms, 2019 (LCAP).

But there are a number of very significant differences between low-code and no-code platforms. If you’re considering moving away from traditional application development, or even just want to try out visual application development, you’ll want to be aware of what you’re getting in each offering.

Low-code vs No-code: Decoding the difference

The key differences between low-code and no-code platforms are their target users and their output capabilities.

  • Low-code platforms primarily target developers, enabling them to rapidly build working front-end prototypes in a matter of days, or even hours.
  • This allows them to get to the most interesting part of software development much faster: customization.
  • Low-code platforms are suitable for the creation of more complex applications and processes that require integration with other application databases or systems.

  • No-code platforms target smaller businesses, those without the budget to outsource development, or hire a developer internally.
  • Using a no-code platform, a citizen developer can create and deploy complete applications without needing to write a single line of code.
  • The downside of this speed, ease, and simplicity, is that no-code platforms are only really capable of developing basic applications that don’t require integration with any other systems. They may help to simplify a manual internal process, but they simply don’t have the capabilities to develop competitive, innovative software.

Low-Code vs. No-Code: When to Use What

Both low-code and no-code platforms are built with the same thing in mind: Agility. And although at a distance they look similar, each is suitable for very different purposes.

Low-code is good for developing sophisticated applications that run important, often mission-critical processes at the core of your business. It’s also good for building standalone mobile and web apps that may or may not require sophisticated integrations. In fact, it can be used for just about anything.

Conversely, no code’s limitations mean it should only be used for front-end use-cases.

Having said this, there’s room for both, or at least a combination of both, in the modern enterprise. And for those embracing DevOps—another methodology designed to create greater agility in development—the combination of low-code and no-code could present the perfect application development environment.

In a world where everything has to happen faster, both low-code and no-code platforms can provide a competitive advantage for developers and the organizations employing them. However, unless you’re developing only the simplest applications, and require little in the way of customization, low-code will always be the better option.

Low-code offers greater flexibility and control, which means you can build more varied, powerful, and responsive apps. Yet, it still has the simplicity to get those apps up and running much faster than if you were to hand-code them. And, since low-code still requires some knowledge of coding, you know the people creating your applications will do so properly, and your new applications won’t saddle you with security risks or compliance issues.

Tigersheet for No Code Development

At Tigersheet, we acknowledge that technology is at the tip of the iceberg. Change is always more significantly more complicated than merely designing a new application or moving to a new infrastructure.
That’s why we do what we, helping organizations get the most of their technology today and tomorrow. Whether you need to replace an accounting system or develop a plan for becoming truly cloud-native,
our experts can help your experts build a plan and move ahead. And,
most importantly, we can help you manage change along the way.


Sign up to Tigersheet For Free and Leave the Rest Upon Us!

August 20, 2020 General, LCNC No comments yet
Top 10 Low Code-No Code Blogs & Resources to Follow in 2020

Top 10 Low Code-No Code Blogs & Resources to Follow in 2020

What is the perfect way to keep a tap on Low Code/No Code (LCNC) news? Follow a Blog, Head to a Digital Tech Magazine or subscribe to newsletters..

It seems like every software funding and product announcement these days includes some sort of reference to “low code or no-code” platforms or functionality. The frequent callbacks to this buzzy term over the last few years reflect a realization that we’re entering a new software era. Low Code- No Code platforms have enabled programmers and non-programmers to build application software by using graphical user interfaces and configuration rather than conventional computer coding.

On that note, We at Tigersheet have curated this list of the best blogs to follow for Low Code/No Code (LCNC) resources and news articles. We hope you can add a few of these LCNC blogs to your reading list.

The Low Code Daily

The Low-code daily is a daily curation of the most important news in the Low-Code industry Curated by Nigel Warren.

If you subscribe to the site, you’ll receive a daily digest of news and articles from “the world’s leading providers of Low-code and no-code application development platforms”.

Therefore, the low-code daily is a highly popular low code resource that regularly pops up on our screens.

http://low-code-daily.com/

The No-Code Journal

The No-Code Journal is a digital magazine that provides resources for anyone interested in learning about No Code, Low Code, Visual Development and Citizen Developer news, insights, and trends. It includes articles written by over a team of No Code enthusiasts who come from varied technology backgrounds and experiences.

https://www.nocodejournal.com/

CIOReview

This one is a popular name, you might be familiar with.  CIOReview is a technology print magazine. It provides the latest technology news, articles, insights from the industry. CIOReview stands out from others by listing articles from top CIO’s CTO’s and CEO’s in the industry. They have a huge number of audiences who read their digital magazines, news, company listing, and so on.

The Good Part: It also has an entire section just for low code relevant topics.  So, you can easily navigate to the category and get access to all the latest news on low code.

https://low-code-platform.cioreview.com

Forrester and Gartner

Ok, so these aren’t classical blog entries like others, but are renowned consulting and research firms that continue to dominate conversations on low code no code space.

Forrester is widely known for its enlightening analysis and evaluation of existing low code platforms. It is interesting to note that Forrester is a pioneer to define the term ‘low code’ in 2014 as a part of establishing it as a distinct category for evaluation.

The Forrester New Wave, a comprehensive industry report, examines the top 13 low-code solution providers in the U.S. market. These reports use a 10-category scoring process, including its user interface development, data management, digital process automation, reporting tools, cloud platform features, and many more such parameters.

On the other hand, Gartner, the second leading name in the low code world is an IT research and advisory firm, offers an in-depth look at low code’s impact on businesses. Every year, Gartner releases its “Magic Quadrant” report, which analyzes the high productivity building of applications, including mobile apps. One thing to be aware of is that Gartner utilizes its own definitions of low code and no-code, meaning its results while sharing some similarities with Forrester’s report, is fundamentally different.

John R. Rymer

Well, we know what you are thinking, he isn’t a blog, CORRECT!

However, John is such a major source of inspiration that he just can’t be left out of this list. John R. Rymer – Vice President at Forrester Research – has been the person inviting the industry and coining the term of Low-Code.

According to his Forrester bio, Rymer is an “authority on the enterprise strategies of IBM, Microsoft, and Oracle and contributes to Forrester’s coverage of low-code application platforms and business rules platforms.” Rymer’s market analysis has been featured in a number of publications including TechRepublic, VentureBeat, TechCrunch, and Fortune. Therefore, we highly recommend following him and his content online.

go.forrester.com go.forrester.com

ADTMag: Application Development Trends

ADTmag.com provides the latest enterprise application news, trends, and best practices to help readers tackle the broad range of issues that enterprises must cope with every day.

Although ADTMag is rather a fully-fledged development magazine, it has a good variety of low-code relevant blog articles in there, too.

ADTMag in general – and its low code section in particular – is definitely a blog we recommend checking regularly for new low code articles.

https://adtmag.com/pages/topic-pages/low-code.aspx

DZone

If you work in the software engineering realm, chances are high that you would be familiar with DZone. DZone is a great platform providing a broad variety of tech-related content.

With more than 70,000 articles overall, DZone has been a great resource for us many times. And while they don’t have a separate low-code section on their site (yes, looking at you, DZone), you’ll find plenty of Low-Code content. Actually, there are more than 70,000 articles alone for the topic of low code.

Simply start a search query yourself.

https://dzone.com

NoCode Tech

This isn’t a regular blog but a curated directory of resources, tools & hacks for non-techs that is purely dedicated to no-code tools, hacks, and members sharing their experiences on building applications using no code.

No Code Tech is a must-read place where you can discover more than 200+ tools and skills used by entrepreneurs, designers, and employees around the world to create the software they need – without coding.

https://www.nocode.tech/

Makerpad

Makerpad is another valuable destination to learn, share, and work together to create software—without writing code. They provide best-in-class education paired with a supportive community and accountability.

Here you find detailed reviews, product demos, how-to guides of an extensive category of no-code tools. To Sum up, Makerpad is a complete educator in the no-code space. Thousands of professionals—working from startups to schools—can use it to learn how to build projects and automation without writing code.

https://www.makerpad.co/

Tigersheet

OK – obviously we eat our own food as well. Therefore, please forgive our little self-plug.

At Tigersheet, we aim to share our low code with no coding expertise with others. Either be through our product, support team interactions and since recently also through our own Low-Code No Code blog. The blog is well updated with news, informative articles on LCNC, latest trends, product updates, and what’s buzzing in the field of software, technology, and automation.

blog – TigerSheet – Custom Software for Business

If you enjoyed this article, you might also find our blog useful.

August 7, 2020 General, LCNC No comments yet
What is Workflow and Why You Need a Workflow Automation Software?

Breaking the Buzzword: What is Workflow and Why You Need a Workflow Automation Software?

The word ‘workflow’ sounds familiar? Right?

You might have heard it in your workplace conversations, usually in conjunction with automation and business processes. But, what is workflow exactly?

Workflows are the day to day motions that make up your job. You might follow them routinely, you might document them methodically, or you might be somewhere in between. In any case, workflows make up a crucial part of your workflow life. So, let’s try to delve deeper and understand what workflow is all about.

Understanding the basics: What is a workflow and how it is useful?

A workflow can be ideally defined as a sequence of related processes, actions, or tasks undertaken to complete a piece of work. For example, A writer’s workflow can look like this:

ResearchàOutlineàWrite-àEditàOptimizeàPublish

Every business whether they are aware of it or not uses workflows. Anytime you have performed a sequence of steps to complete a piece of work, you have used a workflow. But, by outlining and structuring your workflows, you mitigate risks and unlock a host of benefits.

The Role of Automation in your Workflows

There is one big benefit of mapping your workflows: they let your opportunities to automate. The word workflow is used routinely in conjunction with automation, that’s because two are closely related in conjunction. So, what is workflow automation software?

  • Automation software allows you to make certain processes happen automatically. This means that automation will handle some of the steps in your workflows for you. In other words, you can augment your workflows with automation. This allows you to free your team from time-consuming, repetitive work that comes as part of a workflow.
  • In some cases, you can build workflows with your automation tool. Alongside automating individual processes, you can string them together to automate repetitive workflows. (But only those that don’t need human intervention.)
  • Automation can also help your workflows run smoother by acting as an IT bridging tool. This means that automation software can bridge processes across your tools and departments. So, if a workflow calls for work to cross departments or swap tools, the automation tool can join those dots.

Benefits of Workflow Automation Software

An automated workflow benefits your business in numerous ways. Here are some of the most important benefits of business workflow automation:

Better Insight into Business Processes

Mapping your processes in workflow allows you to get a more clear, consistent, and top-level view of your business.

One of the biggest reasons why workflow automation is important is because it gives you greater insight into your processes. From then on, you can use the said insights to better your workflows, and improve the bottom-line of your business: get more profits.

Improved Employee Productivity and Quality of Service

Repetitive tasks are the main reason why employees feel unmotivated. The mundane tasks not only take up time, but they also hurt the overall productivity of your employees.

Eliminating repetitive tasks allows your employees to focus on more critical business activities. It can enhance the morale of employees and improves creativity.

Businesses that have automated workflows for repetitive and manual tasks have successfully increased employee productivity by 12% to 15%.

Improved Teamwork and Communication

Workflow automation provides employees with a convenient platform where they can communicate and collaborate efficiently.

Proper communication encourages teamwork and improves overall productivity.

Most of the workflow automation systems have internal communication platforms that are designed to connect different departments and teams within your organization. It will notify individual groups when the specific phase of the project is completed, so the team responsible for the next stage can step in.

Actionable Data and Scalability

Workflow automation can help teams focus more on the organization’s growth rather than spending time on mundane tasks. The right business automation software allows you to eliminate the bottlenecks and reach a higher potential.

In addition, workflow automation software provides you with valuable insights and actionable data. This data helps you identify employee performance, overall business productivity, and the problem areas.

Improved task management and resource allocation can increase individual team performance and overall productivity of your organization.

Why Is Tigersheet Best Value for Your Business?

In addition to offering all the above-mentioned features, Tigersheet is known for its no-code environment, which offers a highly flexible and adaptable business process management, and application that users at every level can refine.

At Tigersheet, we understand that organizations are constantly evolving and growing, and their processes should, too. Being able to make processes match the reality of business operations shouldn’t take countless hours, expert developer assistance, and multi-phased functionality testing.

With a solution like Tigersheet, end users can be empowered to creating and refining their own workflows without prior coding knowledge. The intuitive drag and drop interface, web forms, one-click triggers, interactive reporting tools make business automation a much-needed breeze and everything happens in a no-code environment. Anything more than this is a waste of your staff’s time and your organization’s money.

Take the Next Step

Keeping your business ahead of the curve takes technology that is adaptable, innovative, and easy to use. Tigersheet takes the frustration out of creating, monitoring, and improving your business processes by empowering end-users while removing coding hassles. Want to see and try Tigersheet for yourself? Sign up for a free trial today!

July 27, 2020 Bussiness, General No comments yet
Automation-Quotes

Best Automation Quotes and What Can Be Learnt from Them

We are living in the age of fast-paced technology that has paved the way for Automation, to a point where human intervention has become unnecessary. If something can be done without human interaction, by just giving some sort of “start signal” (e.g. pushing a button), this can be considered automation.

Automation can save time and money, delight customers who no longer have to wait in line for a person to assist them with a transaction, and impede human error.

It might come out as a surprise for some people, but automation is already everywhere around us!

Examples of everyday automation that most people experience on a daily basis; Washing machine, dishwasher, refrigerators, bus doors, Air Condition systems in a car, turning on a complete home theater system with the push of just one button, etc. And these are just a few examples to quote.

Automation is quite broad in terms of its applications, significance, and its opportunities. This scope has long vexed the imagination of some of the world’s greatest thinkers. On that note, here are some of the finest and intriguing automation quotes to ponder upon along with insights on the lessons they offer.

In a 1994 famous science horror film, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, the protagonist creates an intelligent life using inanimate materials. However, far from the perfect artificially created specimen imagined, the result is a hideous creature that brings terrible consequences.

Takeaway: So, this very first entry in the list of our automation quotes reminds us to be careful of what we automate. Just because you can automate something doesn’t imply that you should be automating it. In fact, automating the wrong things can trigger a ripple effect of damage. Wondering what could be these wrong things? Some examples:

  • Prolonged Customer Service Calls: No one wants to be stuck in an automated phone call that lasts for all eternity. Slowly making your way through random questions while keeping patient is painful. With long automated phone calls, customers end up getting frustrated which means a bad experience and low customer satisfaction.
  • Highly complex processes: Automation software is capable of complex processes but sometimes during complex processes, one needs human intervention and decision-making. If it’s a process that demands significant human attention at many stages, it’s better not to automate it all. Instead, automate the smaller, simpler segments.

Moreover, attempting to automate everything puts you at the risk of losing the human touch and friendly face of your company. When customers can’t get support from a human, and the automation in place isn’t equipped to help them, they’ll inevitably feel alienated.

Here’s another entry in the list of automation quotes that meaningfully sums up an important message: You should not attempt to automate broken processes.

Automation is not a cure-all remedy, so it’s important to understand it will not mend your broken processes.  Automation will do only what you tell it to do. If you tell it to complete a broken or faulty process, it will. As a result, you’ll get broken, faulty results. And, they’ll be on a much larger scale, as automation efficiently replicates your inefficient operations.

So, remember the thumb rule: Automation is best for common, constant, and systematic tasks that follow a standard pattern. Always start small as it will let you identify errors and correct them as you move forward. Initially, stick to a goal followed by trimming minutes from predictable, repetitive processes, with small benefits adding up over time.

Using automation to replace humans is one of the biggest automation pitfalls. It fuels automation anxiety in your office, meaning that the remaining human team members worry about being replaced by technology. This hurts office morale and can see valued employees jumping ship.

Not to forget, automation can’t do everything a human can do anyway. Automation isn’t capable of out-of-the-box thinking, problem-solving, or analysis – you need the human members of your team for that.

It’s imperative that you find the right balance between automation and human intelligence within your business. Automation is shy; it’s great for boring, repetitive tasks behind the scenes, but not so much when it comes to the frontlines. So, leave representing your business — be that to customers, partners, or other employees — to human team members.

Business Process Automation is not Artificial Intelligence. Remember, Automation is not ‘smart’ as it will only do what you tell it to do. This means that it doesn’t learn or adapt by itself. You must instruct it. If you tell it to do something incorrectly, it will complete the task incorrectly.

So, there is no flexibility in automation. It will neither offer a magic solution to all your problems nor recognize faulty or broken processes.

Takeaway: While Automation might not be able to learn for its mistakes, Humans always Can.  And these mistakes can always be corrected. To Sum up at its best: Data is a useful tool, but human initiative and understanding remain at the heart of any successful business.

Moving next in the list of best automation quotes is a best practice curtain call. If you visualize automation as a means to cut corners or avoid certain processes, mind it but your outlook is all wrong.

Daily workflows across various business departments are loaded with small repetitive tasks. It’s no surprise that your team performs them as a part of everyday challenges. When these tasks expand and burden your team, don’t ask who should be handling them, instead Focus on how to handle them. In other words, a good automation approach will start by assessing your company’s work and how best it should be done.

Personal Takeaway: A different way to put this together: improving your business processes shouldn’t be a ‘who’ question, but a ‘how’ question.

Asking ‘how’ splits your business workflows up into the individual processes and tasks they comprise. This offers an opportunity to review the workflow from end to end and find areas both to automate and to optimize.

While this may be the age of automation, nothing can beat human touch and personalization. In fact, in many services industries, human labor is considered a mark of luxury.  So, at the same time robots are said to destroy manufacturing jobs, the demand for labor-intensive services is soaring.

The good part, we can see it all around us.

  • The rise of Etsy, an online marketplace whose main selling point is that the products are not mass-produced.
  • Then there’s the craze for restaurants with organic, locally sourced ingredients that often come from smaller, less mechanized farms.
  • In recent years, there has been an exponential rise of coffee breweries where Hand/manual coffee picking requires laborers to pick the coffees, quite literally, by hand.

These are all cases where greater automation is technologically feasible, but companies are using their lack of automation as a selling point. They’re doing this because customers like the feeling of a personal connection to the farmers, brewers, and artisans who make the products they’re buying. So, while automation undoubtedly makes products cheaper and readily available people will increasingly shift their spending to goods and services where a connection to a human provider is seen as a key benefit.

…. Choose the automation path that works for you

Each of these quotes draws on a very real element of the automation reality. Why not use them to get you thinking about how to implement automation successfully in your own business?

Tigersheet is a uber-fast modern-day no-code platform that can help automate and streamline business processes in quick and easy steps. The intuitive drag and drop interface allows users with zero coding knowledge to create workflows and share them with your employees.

Using automation quotes as a catalyst. Want to give it a try? Try a 30-day free trial of Tigersheet to witness the change in your organization today!

July 6, 2020 General No comments yet
5 Most Horrifying Excel Blunder Stories that Will Make You Rethink Your Choices

5 Most Horrifying Excel Blunder Stories that Will Make You Rethink Your Choices

Businesses all around the world have been using spreadsheets for statistical and financial analysis. Even after 30 years of its first release, Excel continues to be a driving force to be reckoned with. 

While there is no doubt that Excel can be undeniably useful, it isn’t a perfect fit for organizations that deal with mission-critical apps or sensitive data. No matter whatever be the industry, businesses that use spreadsheets (even yours) can face data quality problems that can give rise to potential vulnerabilities. 

Time and again there have been notable incidents where spreadsheets have landed businesses and individuals in a soup. These incidents have created havoc where companies have not only lost millions but their reputations have been severely tarnished. A 2008 analysis from a mixed study states, “Even the most meticulously created spreadsheets contain an error in 1% or more of all formula cells.”

Now the question that comes to our mind is why are there so many errors? …. It’s Simple. 

Spreadsheets no matter how useful-are created by people and thus are susceptible to human error and have the potential to bring real harm.  The heavier an Excel model gets; the more mistakes can happen and some with even irreversible consequences. With this in mind, we bring you top 5 of the most infamous and costliest stories of Excel Blunders from history:

JP Morgan Chase Copy and Paste Blunder

Also referred to as the ‘London Wave Incident’ that happened in 2012, the global financial giant JP Morgan Chase suffered a trading loss of $6.5 billion dollars due to a copy and paste error.  

The bank was using a Value at Risk model, wherein a financial employee made a blunder while copying and pasting information from one spreadsheet to another.  The formulas were not carefully adjusted, thus the errors never got reported resulting in the gross miscalculation of their synthetic credit portfolio. What could have otherwise been an easily rectifiable error turned out into a huge financial loss for JP Morgan Chase. 

Eastman Kodak’s ‘Too Many Zeros’ Spreadsheet Shock

This is another example of a situation that shows how excel errors can turn out to be a costly affair for organizations. 

In 2005, Kodak was forced to restate its financial results for two quarters by $2 million and $13 million respectively. An employee added too many zeroes to pension and other employment termination benefit records of one other employee. As soon as the error was made public, the company stock fell significantly and gave a further jolt to already hard times when the company was already losing more than $100 million every quarter.

Barclays’s Capital Hidden vs Delete Excel Horror

The 2008 global financial crisis that affected many countries got triggered after Lehman Brothers, once the U.S fourth-largest bank dissolved in September 2008.  However, many people know about a related incident that led Barclays Capital to buy Lehman’s Brothers 179 trading contacts due to an Excel Error! 

The detailed spreadsheet of Lehman brothers contained 1000 rows and 24,000 cells where cells containing the unwanted contracts were hidden (not deleted). When the spreadsheet was converted into a PDF to be posted to the bankruptcy court’s website, the cells appeared again. Barclays Capital filed a legal relief motion, but in the end had to swallow the losses, for an undisclosed sum.

Fidelity Investment’s Missing Minus Gaffe

In 1994, an American financial firm, Fidelity Investment’s had made an estimation that it would make a $4.32 per share dividend distribution on their Magellan fund by the end of the year and would pay its shareholders accordingly. However, the company had to cancel the promised dividend distribution after discovering that its calculation was massively incorrect. 

This happened when an employee missed putting a negative sign on the fund’s net capital loss of $1.3 billion while transferring financial records onto an Excel spreadsheet. As a result, the loss was calculated as a net capital gain which threw off the estimate by a whopping US$2.6bn.

London Olympics Excel Typo Error

The organizing committee at the London Olympics for 2012 had to face a major embarrassment and a subsequent loss due to a simple typo in the spreadsheet.  A staff mistakenly inserted 20,000 in a cell instead of 10,000 and the London committee ended up selling 10,000 non-existent seats for an event at synchronized swimming. When the mistake was realized, the organizing committee had to declare an apology and upgrade the ticket holders for major events at a loss.

Have You Learnt a Lesson?

What can businesses learn from these multi-billion dollar fails? That Spreadsheets excel at landing companies in awkward and sometimes very expensive messes! A one size fit solution adopted blindly and plagued with human error can bring catastrophic results to even some of the biggest business giants in the world.

Modern-day companies need customized solutions that can cater well to their very specific needs while providing security and scalability.  The good news is that Tigersheet lets businesses to build secure and scalable custom applications without relying on a developer. Well, now that’s indeed a happy ending!

…. Ditch Spreadsheets today and prevent yourself from being the next excel horror story! 

Want to know more how Tigersheet works, Get started on turning your Excel spreadsheets into a customized business app. Sign up for a free account today!

October 10, 2019 General, Product No comments yet
Inside vs. Outside Sales: Which Works Best for You?

Inside vs. Outside Sales: Which Works Best for You?

Inside sales or outside? This is one common debate that has been existing in the business landscape regarding which strategy is better from the other. But, speaking of the current market, the two roles are blending and have become an important part of the sales organizational structure.

While for business owners, choosing the right sales strategy could directly impact their business success on the other hand for sales professionals it could mean choosing the right job that could impact their professional life.

Before one can come to a final decision between choosing inside or outside sales, it is important to know the differences between them which we will break down in this brief piece of annotation.

Inside Sales vs. Outside Sales: Breaking down the Basics

If we speak at the most elementary level, the difference between outside and inside sales lies in the fact where the sales process is happening: Are the products being sold remotely or in-person?

Inside sales representatives identify, reach and turn prospective leads into customers remotely i.e. over phone or online, while outside sales personnel go outside to meet their prospective customers face to face.

Inside sales rely on phone, internet or email for reaching customers, it is often referred to as ‘virtual’ or ‘remote sales’. On the other hand, outside sales go beyond the doors of a formal office or team’s environment involving professionals to work autonomously, hence it is also called “field sales”.

What are the Key factors for comparing between Inside and Outside Sales?

Tool Requirements

Outside and inside sales differ in terms of the tools required for closing the sales. When it comes to inside sales, the majority of tools that are required are needed for activity automation. Hence, CRM (customer-relationship-management) software with facilities such as email management and tracking, SMS functionality, phone calling for in best to inside sale scenes.

Outside sales professionals also require CRM but do not depend entirely on it. Additional technological tools are needed by the sales team on the field that can help them pitch their clients, demonstrate product activity on-site, manage map routes and monitor and conduct field training.

Scaling Capabilities

Outside sales professionals can reach a limited number of prospects on a daily basis as face to face meeting is needed while inside sales professionals enjoy a huge advantage over scaling capabilities as they can reach multiple prospects with the help of technology such as email automation.

So it’s not obvious to understand that while an outside salesperson is busy pitching clients and dining prospects to move towards the closing deal, an inside sales could have already closed multiple deals.

Quantity vs. Quality

Since inside sales professionals spent most of their time pitching clients over calls, emails and other similar modes of virtual communication, they do not face challenges of travel and logistics. 

Moreover, being on call for hours, their price point is lower hence they don’t have to focus on the same level of quality that outside sale professionals have to do.

This is perhaps the reason there are a higher number of successful demos completed and one-call closes in case of inside sales.

Outside sales tend to involve greater cost and more expensive products and services which is the reason why field reps meet clients and explain the functionalities with more detailing and intricacy. While outside sales team might have fewer meetings daily, it is likely to have well-targeted ones i.e. accounts for 30% higher closing rate than inside sales.

Sales Cycle

The sales cycle for an outside sales team is longer and more complicated as there is a constant requirement of face to face communication with more focus on volume, unlike inside salespeople who mostly rely on virtual communication for pitching clients and thus have comparatively shorter cycles.

Moreover, field sales can be intense requiring a lot of preparation beforehand.

For example: selling directly at retail stores can mean visiting the store, doing product displays and ensuring a constant supply of products and services.

Skills Needed

While inside and outside sales professionals have a lot of skills in common such as great communication skills, ability to play with words, being result oriented and driven to customer problems, there are some key differences that define the best skills required for each set:

Inside Sales Skills   Outside Sales Skills  
Should be good with words
and understand the
terminology		 Should be comfortable to enjoy
working alone in the field  
Should enjoy working with
teammates and
collaborating with
managers		Should be capable enough to manage their own appointments  
Should be able to manage 100+ calls a day   Should be able to manage their schedule
effectively  
Should be able to accept and adapt to a high level ofchange   Should be adaptable and flexible with spontaneous changes, new environments they are set into

Benefits of Inside Sales

  • Lower Cost
  • Higher Communication and Collaboration involved
  • Higher Quota Attainment
  • Shorter Sales Cycles

Benefits of Outside Sales

  • Higher close rate
  • The deal size is considerably larger
  • Greater salary (10-12% higher approximately)
  • Freedom & Flexibility to manage schedules and territory

Wrapping Up

While there can be no readymade manual to find the answer as to which is a better business model to consider: Inside or outside sales, having both systems mutually in place sometimes can benefit in the long run especially when one knows what one is selling. Keeping in mind factors such as business structure, product requirements, prospective customer base and market, one can definitely make a better choice as to what works best for them!

May 20, 2019 General No comments yet
How to Avoid Procrastination And Be Super Productive With The Pomodoro Technique

How to Avoid Procrastination And Be Super Productive With The Pomodoro Technique

The workplace is fueled by a constant need and desire to work more and to work better.

Employees and employers alike use a variety of time management tools and software to help them achieve desired results in the least amount of time.

And in this distraction-prone world, you need them, too. You probably do not need definite numbers and statistics to prove that this is the age of distraction. Look no further than yourself and your co-worker at the adjacent desk. There’s the distraction of your Instagram feed, a stock quote, the latest tweet by Elon Musk, and your own thoughts when you see any of the above. The world and your mind are set up to aid you in achieving less it seems. You end up feeling helpless, scattered, overwhelmed, and like you could be doing so much better.

There is a productivity technique for this distraction-prone culture- a very simple one- that will improve your efficiency manifold. It’s called the Pomodoro technique.

What It Means To Be Productive

While a straightforward definition would be ‘getting the most done in the least possible time’, there is another way to look at productivity.

You get the most done in the least possible time, in a manner that feels satisfying and maybe even a little bit (gasp!) fun.

If this hasn’t been your definition of productivity, the Pomodoro technique might make it so.

The Pomodoro technique

Developed by Francesco Cirillo in the late 1980s and inspired by the tomato-shaped timer he used during his university days, the Pomodoro technique works by breaking down tasks into 25-minute chunks and separated by short breaks.

Each interval is called Pomodoro, which is Italian for tomato. Below are the 6 steps for trying this method yourself:

  • Select a task that you want to complete, big or small; monotonous or scary.
  • Set a timer (for 25 minutes traditionally).
  • Work on the task.
  • When the timer goes off, check off the completion of your 1st slot.
  • If you have less than 4 check marks, take a short break of 3-5 minutes. Then begin from step 2.
  • After 4 pomodoros, take a longer break of 15-30 minutes. When you return to the task, start from step 1 again.

The Pomodoro i.e. the 25-minute time slot during which you are working is uninterruptible and indivisible. If an interruption arises, you either say yes to it and abandon the Pomodoro to begin again, or you say no to the interruption and attend to it later.

The first signs of positive effects will be visible in just 2-3 days. For a completely new relationship to your work and tasks, try the technique consistently for a month.

Why the Technique Works?

Supports flow and focus

Yes, in our stimulus-heavy culture, the focus isn’t a strong point for many. Even our brain isn’t used to the act of being 100% immersed in a task. But when you only have 25 minutes in which to focus, distractions melt away on their own. There is the promise of a break at the end of 25 minutes, and when you focus solely on the task at hand during those 25 minutes, you enter into a juicy state of focus and flow. Yes, you are sprinting.

Makes that one dreaded task doable

We all have that one dreaded task on our to-do lists which we can’t get around to finishing.

The Pomodoro technique helps us to overcome resistance and get the task done by breaking it into manageable, realistic, doable 25-minute chunks.

Before you know it, the monster is off your to-do list. Hurray!

Gets you sprinting

There is something about seeing a timer tick away that makes your fingers fly fast over a keyboard.

When you are in the flow and you know that after 25 minutes, you’ll have to take a break (please don’t break the rules), you’ll work much faster to make the most of those 25 minutes.

The result? You’ll finish 2-3 tasks in a day which would have taken you 2-3 days previously. Once you begin using the technique consistently, you’ll be able to see how long it actually takes you to complete tasks and craft your to-do list accordingly.

Gives regular doses of accomplishment

After every 25 minutes, you have a fair and clear idea of what you have accomplished in that chunk. If you completed a segment of your task, yay! You don’t need to wait 2 hours to give yourself a pat on the back. Each component of work completed in the span of 25 minutes is an accomplishment and gears you up for the next 25-minute round.

Gets you to the washroom

And gets you to drink water + pace around your office for a short walk. Most people are prone to working for 2-4 hour chunks with not even a single bathroom break or walk in between. Which, admittedly, isn’t that great for your health when repeated for more than half of your lifetime.

Because you know you have to be back at your desk within 3-5 minutes and you are in the flow of things, you’ll resist getting caught up on your screen. If you are susceptible, save those check-ins for the longer breaks and use the shorter ones to do some breathing exercises, stretch your legs a bit, or go to the loo. Anything that isn’t work-related.

Summing up

Productivity and efficient time-management do not have to be far-fetched dreams and traits that are reserved for your CEO, your manager, or the colleague who gets the Employee of the Month award. These qualities are possible for you, too. And with the Pomodoro technique, you can make that possibility a reality very quickly for the long-term. 

Drumroll, please. It’s time to welcome The Era of a More Efficient and Productive You.

April 12, 2019 General No comments yet
Succeed at Work with These 57 Rules of Business Etiquette

Succeed at Work with These 57 Rules of Business Etiquette

An oft-ignored area when it comes to career success is the area of business etiquettes and manners. Everyone takes the time to up their resume, increase the size of his or her skill set, or spread out their network as far as possible. Few professionals, however, focus on learning about the behaviors and mannerisms that mold one into a civil and dignified personality, capable of inspiring everyone’s respect and (easily) climbing up the success ladder.

If you have made the same mistake at some point, take heart for all is not lost. Implementing a few new behaviors and principles will work wonders at your workplace. Then you will stand out, yes, but for the right reasons and as someone who is ‘most likely to succeed’.

The Essential Etiquette Guide

The guide has been broken down into three sections.

The first deals with communication-related etiquettes that you need to be aware of whether you are talking to someone in person, over the phone, or over email. Your word is your identity. This also includes non-verbal communication like body language and the way you dress. When trying to make first impressions, they become all the more important.

The second deals with etiquettes at the office. Your behavior is a huge determiner of how your co-workers respond to you and see you. How courteous are you with them? How open and approachable are you? Can you listen well?

Finally, we move on to etiquettes while eating. Whether the occasion is entirely professional, semi-professional, or not at all professional, how you eat and behave with your co-workers at the table does matter and either adds to or subtracts from your image in the long-term.

Communication etiquettes

The basic principle to consider here is: which is the best way to communicate for the message I want to convey? Figure out the nature of your message and then choose the appropriate medium.

For messages where you would want a written record and the thoughtful use of words, email would be more appropriate.

For a quick check-in, a text message or even a phone call would be good.

For something extremely urgent, you pick up the phone and make a call again.

Over the phone

  1. When the phone rings, pick it up on the second or third ring. Greet the person at the other end with a ‘hello’ or a good morning/ afternoon/ evening as is appropriate for that time of the day.
  3. Put in a little smile on your face so that it reflects in your voice and gives off a welcoming and warm vibe.
  4. After the greeting, say your name followed by the organization’s name.
  5. Throughout the conversation, maintain a pleasant tone of voice, giving the caller ample time to say what they want without any interruptions.
  6. Your voice should be neither loud nor low. The words are spoken clearly in a calm, unhurried tone so that the caller doesn’t miss out on crucial information.
  7. If a return call has been promised, make it a point to keep the promise and return the call in said amount of amount.
  8. In case of transferring a call, first, inform the caller that you are going to check whether the required person is available for a call or not. If he/ she is, inform them about the caller who wishes to speak to them and for what purpose. As quick as possible, get back to the caller with an answer.
  9. If you are the caller who has called to speak with a specific someone, introduce yourself before asking for that person.
  10. If you are calling about a technical or operative glitch in the product or service of the company, maintain a courteous tone. It can be hard to keep the frustration out of your voice when no matter what you have done, the washing machine won’t spin properly, but be patient and realize you are speaking to a human at the other end of the line.

In person

  1. Use your full name when introducing yourself. You never know when they might want to look you up on LinkedIn or track you down later for collaboration. If you have a common name, using your full name becomes even more important.
  2. Alternately, when meeting someone, pay attention to their names. If you didn’t catch it in the first go or have trouble pronouncing it, ask them; they won’t mind. This would be a lot better than calling them by some name which isn’t theirs.
  3. Then use their name at appropriate places in a conversation. This will help you to remember the name and also warm the other person to you.
  4. Greet, make conversation, and be pleasant. The simple looking man could be the CEO of a major finance corporation. When you greet someone and endeavor to talk to them, it makes you appear pleasant and approachable in the eyes of others.
  5. However, be attuned to your surroundings and the person at all times. If someone seems to be in a rush, don’t hold them up to talk about how great the party is. Be present and gauge whether the opportunity to converse is ripe or not.
  6. Don’t interrupt. Do not become the person who cannot listen to others because you always want to put forward your opinion or tell your story. Be respectful and listen when the other person is speaking. Nod, smile, and put your phone away to denote that you are present with the other person.
  7. If you have a friend or colleague with you whom the other person doesn’t know, then introduce your friend/ colleague to them. Tell them what role they play at your company and how they are related to you. This will put the entire group at ease.

Body language

  1. Smile. A smile can immediately lighten up your mood as well as those of others. It makes you appear friendly, attractive, trustworthy and puts the other person at ease. Prefer a smiling face over a straight one when meeting colleagues and professionals. Don’t overdo it, though, as very happy individuals are often considered to be more naive than moderately happy ones. (Doesn’t mean you can’t be happy. Just keep the expression of it to generous levels).
  2. Sit up straight. This one has a profound effect on your mood, your confidence, and the aura you give off. To use a single word: it’s all positive. Keep your feet flat on the floor when you sit and ground through your heels when you stand. You’ll experience a sense of subtle power whether you sit or stand.
  3. Handshakes are in the business world what a ‘namaste’ is in households- a tradition. As you introduce yourself, shake hands and look the person in the eye. This counts for a confident handshake which sends a positive message about you. No bone-crushers or dead-handshakes, please.
  4. Use consistent eye contact for an engaging conversation. This denotes that you are paying attention to the person and makes them feel more connected with you. However, do not overdo it (a.k.a staring) otherwise you might come off as creepy or a weirdo. Use more eye contact when you are listening than when you are talking.
  5. Be mindful of the volume of your voice. Make sure you aren’t too loud or too low. Both can be inconvenient when sharing space with others.
  6. Don’t stand too close. Respect people’s personal space and keep a respectful distance.

Over email

  1. Be extra careful when writing emails and avoid humor (can be mistaken for acidic sarcasm). Also, never send an email when you are angry or pissed off.
  2. Use a professional email id. ‘iammessi16@gmail.com’ is not acceptable. Preferably, use the company domain name for sending emails as it adds tonnes of credibility.
  3. Write the most direct subject line ever. Time is precious in the business world. Your manager or colleague shouldn’t have to scroll to the end of the email to know what you are emailing about. ‘Urgent meeting at 3 pm’ is totally welcome.
  4. Use professional greetings even if the relationship is friendly. ‘Hello’ is neutral and works equally well for everyone.
  5. Proofread all emails always. Typos are common and you accidentally don’t want to write ‘sued’ instead of ‘used’ or ‘tot he’ instead of ‘to the’ because of your fast typing speed.
  6. NO CAPS. (Yes, this rule is so important that it had to be put it in caps itself). It’s akin to shouting and is considered rude in business settings.
  7. Double check the email address. Even a small mistake can send your email off to an account that exists but isn’t used and delay the closing of a deal.
  8. Acknowledge emails in a timely fashion. This is one of the most effective ways to appear professional.
  9. Know when to use emails. For topics that require a lengthy discussion or have too many nitty-gritty details, avoid emails and make a phone call. Emails should only be used for clarifications, cancellations, informing a large group etc.

In case of disagreement

  1. Choose the right place and time. Starting a fight with a colleague over something he/ she did at an office party is not the way to do it. Address the issue during after-office hours or bring in your manager for a peaceful resolution.
  2. Modulate your voice. It is easy to scale up to a high tone when you feel you have been wronged in some way. Do your best to use a calm and rational voice to avoid premature or unnecessary hostility.
  3. Agree to disagree. No two persons can agree on everything under the sun. accept this fact and move on.
  4. Empathize. When someone- a disappointed manager, an ignored coworker, a snubbed junior- is telling you how they feel, listen to them and try to see the situation from their POV. Say you are sorry for the way they feel and endeavor to make amends wherever possible.
  5. As much as possible, steer clear of volatile situations. Pick your battles wisely and know when to speak and when not to.

When dealing with those from a different culture

Take some time to learn what people consider disrespectful or disrespectful in other cultures.

For example, in China, you shake hands as a common form of greeting but you start with the oldest or most senior person first.

Likewise in Japan, senior people tend to lead the conversations and you sit across from those who have the same experience level as yours.

In Italy, everyone shakes hands but kissing on the cheek by simply pressing the cheeks against each other is also acceptable once a relationship has formed.

Germans have a direct communication style which might be mistaken for rudeness but isn’t.

Small talk seldom happens and when it does, it is still impersonal and focuses on topics like sports.

Office etiquettes

  1. Be punctual. Tardiness is seldom tolerated d at the workplace and casts a negative light on your professionalism. If you are going to be late, inform as soon as you can. Still, always set out early taking into account traffic and other unforeseeable factors. Arriving 5 to 10 minutes early is acceptable.
  2. Dress appropriately. Putting in the effort to appear smart and professional, will speak volumes about your attitude towards your job. Even if it is acceptable to work in your flip-flops, avoid wearing them. When you dress professionally, the same comes out in the way you talk and behave, too.
  3. Keep your workspace tidy. If you are a manager or a team leader, not keeping a tidy space around you will definitely raise eyebrows and annoy a few people. If you can’t keep your workspace clean and manage the post-it notes, notepads, and pens in 3 different colors, how will you manage a team? Make sure that this question never crosses the minds of people by tidying up your workspace on the regular- perhaps every Friday evening before the weekend.
  4. Practice good hygiene at your workplace. No matter how much a person claims to be a slacker when it comes to cleanliness, secretly, everyone is turned off by it. This is even more so at the workplace. You sure don’t want to be known as ‘David with the Dirty Fingernails’ or ‘Sophia with the Smelly Socks’ whom people would rather not sit with. There are much better things to be known by. Make sure they are your good hygienic habits.
  5. Be extra careful when using shared space or items. If there are utensils that are used for making tea for everyone, make sure to clean them after using them. If there is a shared printer, make sure to restock the A4 sheets for the next person. If everyone sits at one table for lunch, clean up your area of the table before leaving. This shows that you are a responsible individual who can be trusted.
  6. Know how much to share. Your wild weekend getaways where you and all of your friends crashed a wedding and then came back to your house to drink and smoke would be great for retellings among friends but not at the workplace. Even if you are comfortable relating to all of your adventurous exploits, everyone might not be comfortable listening to them. Gauge which topics are appropriate and to what extent and follow along.
  7. Do not keep to yourself only. Offices are great places for working towards achieving something and being in the presence of varied individuals. Interact as much as possible, but keep in mind whom you are talking to. That colleague who bad-mouths everyone to the boss is not the ideal partner for sharing how you are struggling with a particular project. Know what to say and to whom.
  8. Keep phone usage to a minimum. You are the office to work so don’t slack off by scrolling through Instagram. It conveys to your co-workers and especially to your boss, that you aren’t particularly serious. Use it for a while during lunch breaks or when you get up to stretch your legs in-between tasks.
  9. Be considerate of how others work. Some like to work while listening to music. Others like to work retreat style, all by themselves, for a solid hour or two. Yet others prefer to work in blocks and then chat with their neighbors. No matter the working style, be sure to be mindful of how everyone works. Use earphones, only put on music on speakers when everyone has agreed to it, and do not interrupt someone when they are sitting in the corner on a bean bag and typing away furiously.

Table etiquettes

  1. Put away your phone. When you know you are out with colleagues (or even your friends and family), keep the phone off the table unless it is a very urgent call that you need to take. This sets the scene for everyone to engage with each other completely and enjoy the meal. A no-phone meal always has a way of turning memorable.
  2. If you invited people, you pay. No questions about this. If you invited others to go for coffee with you, you pay the bill. Do not even look at the other person to see whether they are thinking about paying or not.
  3. Wash your hands before you start to eat. If you do not, people take notice and wonder about your hygiene.
  4. No shouting at the waiter. Make eye contact and use silent, respectful hand gestures or nods.
  5. Do not start until everyone is seated and served. If you have been invited, do not begin until the host has begun.
  6. Avoid placing elbows on the table while eating. It’s alright to bring them up when you are talking, though.
  7. Converse. Do not simply sit and be the grumpy, silent eater.
  8. Pass salt shakers and the likes. Do not get up and stretch to take them yourselves.
  9. Fork in left, knife in right. The handles are in the palm of your hand, forefinger on top, and thumb underneath.
  10. Don’t talk or laugh with your mouth open or full of food. Wait till you have swallowed it entirely and then speak. No one likes to see spit or food particles flying out of anyone’s mouth.
  11. No licking absolutely. Either the plate or your fingers. No picking your teeth either.
  12. After you are done, place the spoon, knife, and fork on the plate.
  13. Thank the host before you leave.

Summing up …

The above pointers are seemingly simple and intuitive, but it is surprising how many people fail to put them into practice. If you have the ambition and laser sharp skills, don’t let an ignorance of business etiquettes stand in the way of your professional success. Turbocharge your way to the top. You got this now!

February 5, 2019 General No comments yet