10 Best Apps for Enterprise Employee Productivity, Collaboration

The corporate world is always looking for apps and tools of all kinds that will increase productivity. After all, helping employees work more productively should go straight to the bottom line, resulting in higher revenue and profits. But finding the right apps to make employees more productive isn’t necessarily easy. With that in mind, this slide show highlights 10 productivity apps that have been generally well-received among companies both large and small. From the natural choices, such as Slack and GoToMeeting, to some lesser-known tools such as the Clarizen project management app, here is eWEEK‘s take on some of the best productivity-boosting apps for companies of all sizes.  

Slack is one of the more popular—and appealing—productivity tools in this roundup. Slack allows users to communicate via text, photo and video and has both public and private channels for team collaboration. It’s also a file-storage platform that helps cut down on email. Slack is a handy app for companies regardless of their size.

Microsoft Teams is the cloud and software giant’s answer to Slack. Like Slack, Microsoft Teams has channels and enables users to communicate both in private and in public with others. Microsoft Teams is baked into Office 365, however, so companies not using that platform will need to look elsewhere.

Microsoft’s Yammer has proven to be one of the workhorse apps in the company’s broader Office 365 ecosystem. The tool enables employees to communicate and share files and folders. And because it’s integrated in Office 365, sharing files internally is a cinch. Yammer isn’t as comprehensive as Microsoft Teams, but it’s ideal for companies that need a simpler productivity solution.

For companies with an increasingly telecommuting workforce, GoToMeeting can be exceedingly useful. The service enables voice and video calling, and its collaboration features means employees can work together even when they’re half a world away. Best of all, GoToMeeting works on a range of devices including computers, tablets and smartphones.

Clarizen doesn’t have the biggest name in this roundup, but this cloud-based tool is one of the more powerful project-management services on the market. Teams can create projects, manage them in real time and share files over the web. Clarizen also comes with impressive security features to keep company files safe.

Basecamp is designed for companies that don’t want all the power and features of Clarizen and instead want a simple interface for getting work done. With Basecamp, employees can collaborate on projects, share files and stay on top of tasks, all in the same pane. Basecamp’s secret sauce is its simplicity, which makes it easy for companies to create teams and projects and keep employees on task.

BrightIdea is a tool designed for companies that want to drive innovation in the workplace. The app includes a host of tools designed to foment ideas, including discussion areas for brainstorming and problem-solving, and as a place to develop and incubate business opportunities out of the concept stage. Tools built into BrightIdea let managers monitor the evolution of an idea from concept to implementation.

Although big companies might require higher-end accounting tools such as Quickbooks, FreshBooks is a lower-end alternative. The cloud-based accounting tool helps companies track their revenue and expenses, create invoices and facilitate payments with customers. FreshBooks also includes time-tracking and reporting features.

Asana is another project-management tool aimed at making it easier for companies to determine what needs to get done and assign the right employees to do it. The tool, which works both in the cloud and on mobile devices, includes a chat feature and tracking tools for updating managers on task progress. Individuals have their own portal to see what they need to get done and when.

Trello is a workflow app that helps keep companies organized. Companies can create different boards that are populated with task cards that can be assigned to others. Trello allows employees to grab tasks and inform managers when they’re complete, as well as create their own task cards to let folks know what they’re working on. Trello also can be integrated into Slack.