As the long shadow of the pandemic retreats, the jury is out on exactly what the future of work holds. Remote working dominates the conversation, although it is the most divisive aspect of the changing employment landscape, with companies often receiving push-back when insisting workers come back to the office.
What is clear is the emphasis on online collaboration is essential for all companies, with hybrid, global working patters becoming the norm. Beyond this, companies of all sizes are constantly looking for ways to outsource or minimise time spent on tasks such as HR, design, legal and admin costs.
With that in mind, here are nine tools for your business which can save you time and money, and often optimise growth through their data collection or streamlined processes. Whether it’s rapidly hiring global teams whilst ensuring compliance with local laws, pre-approving employee expenses or just taking the formality out of inter-company comms – these tools are well worth a look.
Lano: One smart platform to grow global teams
Lano wants to allow users to employ the best talent anywhere in the world, without an entity. Specific features include being able to automate global payments for all employee types, and consolidate payroll for multiple entities on a single screen. Below, we’re highlighted four of its main capabilities that best encapsulate the seamless experience that aims to transcend the bureaucracy of borders.
Hiring global employees. With their Employer of Record network, your company doesn’t need to set up entities to hire full-time talent abroad. Lano will help you to hire in 150+ countries and ensure 100% compliance with local laws.
Simplify global payroll. Lano allows access to local payroll partners around the world, meaning your company can consolidate payroll for your global team by integrating your existing payroll providers.
Hire contractors. The platform allows you to hire and pay freelancers and contractors in full compliance with local regulations. Streamline invoice approvals and automate payments to reduce your workload.
Pay anyone, anywhere. As a user, paying your team in 50+ currencies and profitting from the lowest exchange rates around will be open to you. Also - sending international mass payments in one click, and tracking your transfers in real-time are also possible.
airSlate: No-code document workflows
airSlate is the first holistic no-code document workflow automation platform. It combines e-signing, contract negotiation, document generation, no-code robotic process automation and web forms into a single business automation platform. This means users are able to configure and automate any business process, and integrate it into multiple systems of record without writing a single line of code.
For companies with disparate document workflows, airSlate enables the design, integration and automation of these workflows using a single platform. From document generation to contract negotiation, eSignatures and payments ‒ configuring an infinite array of business workflows in minutes with an all-in-one, no-code solution is now possible. Whether they are a small, mid-sized or a large business – in any sector – interested in no-code automation, users can combine documents generation and e-signing and contract negotiation into one comprehensive workflow.
airSlate describes the ease of use as follows: ‘Start any process with a single click directly from your system of record. Automatically pre-fill and extract data, route documents based on real-time updates, and archive them once completed
Canva: design anything
Before Canva, creating a professional looking design was a complex process - you had to purchase expensive software; learn how to use it; purchase stock photography and fonts for the software; decide on a layout; slice images; receive photos and content via email; design something; upload and email the pdf only to find revisions needed to be made … and then finally be able to prepare your design for web or print.
Since launching in August 2013, Canva has been changing the way in which we communicate. Today their design tool has attracted over 60 million users across 190 countries, who have collectively created more than 7 billion designs.
With an integrated marketplace that has both free and paid stock photography, fonts, illustrations, and thousands of templates; a paid subscription that offers the ability to set up a brand kit so users can save their brand colours, fonts and assets, and ensure consistency across their designs; and a print service that gives our users the ability to produce professional prints in a variety of formats and sizes, delivered straight to their doorstep - Canva is disrupting the way we design.
Airalo: the eSIM store
Ever received a high roaming bill after travelling? Lost phone service or connection abroad? Wasted time anxiously looking for a local SIM vendor at the airport? The founders of Airalo experienced all these issues, and did something about it.
Airalo is the world’s first eSIM store that solves the pain of high roaming bills by giving individuals access to eSIMs (digital SIM cards). With eSIMs from Airalo, you are able to download and install a digital data pack from 190+ countries/regions and be connected anywhere in the world the second you land.
Airalo’s mission is therefore to provide global data connectivity for all travellers. To quote their founder, Abraham Burak, in a recent article with Maddyness ‘[A]iralo allows the users to download an affordable plan directly to their phone without the hassle of needing to exchange a SIM card, resulting in a seamless and contact-free experience. In doing that, we are saving the customer’s time, money and promoting ecological sustainability by cutting out unnecessary plastic from physical SIMs.
1st Formations: the company formation service
1st Formations is a leading provider of online company formation in the UK. They offer various company formation packages, setting up companies limited by shares, limited by guarantee and limited liability partnerships. Founded in 2014, they have formed over 1 million companies and assisted many thousands of clients to grow their business with expert advice on limited companies, reporting requirements, and corporate governance.
As an authorised Companies House eFiling agent, they offer quick and simple online company formation – for both customers from the UK and overseas – with the majority of new companies registered within just 3 to 6 working hours.
Complementing their early ‘formation’ services, 1st Formation also provides service address, business address and registered office services with our prestigious location in London's Covent Garden.
signNow: the eSignature platform
signNow is an award-winning eSignature platform used by millions to electronically sign, send, and manage documents: it allows users to sign documents online, generate agreements, negotiate contracts, and accept payments with legally-binding eSignatures.
signNow aims to build tools that empower individuals and businesses to digitise their approval processes, eliminate errors, create productive teams and easily integrate eSignatures into the apps and systems their customers are using. signNow has integrations with Salesforce, SharePoint, Office365, Google Apps for Work, and many other platforms. In addition, signNow offers SaaS, public cloud, and private cloud deployment options with the same underlying API. This flexibility enables customers to leverage the power and usability of the signNow eSignature platform, while meeting their particular security and compliance requirements.
This enterprise-grade eSignature solution therefore allows you to scale your workflow. With over 20 million users, signNow is a trusted, full-featured, easy-to-use tool.
Emburse: A unified platform to optimise spend management.
Emburse is a single platform which allows spend management from SMEs all the way to big corporates. Emburse recognises that the way we spend is changing. Through Emburse, you can: optimise your travel and expense management, invoice, and payment solutions to deliver deep insights. Central features include: automatically creating reports for employees, streamlining approvals, and make reimbursement and reporting effortless for accountants. They hope this means you will be able to ‘outpace the competition’.
Another key benefit of using Emburse is that you are able to streamline manual tasks, while increasing visibility and control over your organisation's spend. Emburse Certify – one of the principal features – saves time and money. Other key offerings are the issuing of virtual cards with built-in controls and subscription management systems. Emburse hopes that this means it will free up your finance team to focus on more strategic work.
Emburse Spend therefore is aiming high: it wants to be the next evolution in card management.
Slack: the instant message app
Slack is a messaging app for business that connects people to the information that they need. By bringing people together to work as one unified team, Slack transforms the way that organisations communicate. Slack has arguably transformed business communication and is the leading channel-based messaging platform, used by millions to align their teams, unify their systems, and drive their businesses forward.
Slack makes it easy to contact your colleagues – you can message anyone inside or outside your organisation and collaborate just as you would in person. People can work in dedicated spaces called channels, which bring the right people and information together.
Slack offers a secure, enterprise-grade environment that can scale with the largest companies in the world. It is a new layer of the business technology stack where people can work together more effectively, connect all their other software tools and services, and find the information they need to do their best work.
Notion: the all-in-one workspace
Notion blends your everyday work tools into one. Product roadmap? Company wiki? Meeting notes? With Notion, they're all in one place, and totally customisable to meet the needs of any workflow. It's an all-in-one workspace for each individual, team, and whole company.
In essence, Notion is an online work collaboration platform designed to boost productivity between teams. The company's platform is an all-in-one tool that guides users to write, plan, collaborate and organise their workflow and is designed for task and project management, enabling teams and individuals to systematically manage workflow and improve productivity at work.
In their own words: '"W]e humans are toolmakers by nature, but most of us can't build or modify the software we use every day — arguably our most powerful tool. Our team at Notion is on a mission to make it possible for everyone to shape the tools that shape their lives."
