Software Review: New Ways Of Working And Their Environmental Benefits

Wrike is an online project management tool that enables users to manage deadlines and collaborate without using up our paper resources. In essence, it informs users of activities by other users in their work group and allows the exchanging of files while clearly tracking overall progress and eliminating the need for meetings. It can be customized to the extent of creating dashboards specific to a task.

The software is available in English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese and Russian. There is a free version with limited functionality while the least expensive paid version costs only $49 a month. The company has won a number of awards, from the Web 3 Prize in the B2B category in 2006 to its nomination as one of the “Best Places to Work” by the San Francisco Business Times/Silicon Valley Business Journal in 2015. This project management software boasts more than one million users and the company recently received $15 million in funding.

Use Wrike to run a home office

Wrike is well-suited for what have come to be known as “solo-preneurs” by assisting in the management of a home office. It achieves this by allowing better time management of someone who wears many hats within their own company. It makes the management of freelancers easier. A client will be well-aware that a project cannot proceed unless certain work is completed first.

Obviate meetings – and travel to them

By obviating many meetings and travel, Wrike is good for the planet by emitting less CO2. Tagging other users by @mentioning them in comments is a neat feature that enables businesspeople to maintain a virtual presence with questions, updates, and ideas that are recorded. This is also one way to make a workplace more attractive to millennials, of whom more than 85 percent own smartphones. Tasks can be created while chatting. With better communications, status update meetings and time spent preparing for them can be eliminated. The R&D team of Nanometrics, which has developed seismological instrumentation for more than 30 years, saved 30 hours a week on meetings by using Wrike. So important meetings could be dedicated to decision-making and problem-solving instead of mere status updates.

A better way for business

Wrike’s roster of customers includes Adobe, AT&T, Hawaiian Airlines, and Google. Its founder and CEO, Andrew Filev from St Petersburg, spoke of how the company has grown “at record speed” – 100% each year. This software has been used to complete thousands of projects which sometimes featured thousands of users. It means you always know where to look for something. There is no need to install software: Wrike can be accessed through a web browser, which in this age of wireless connectivity puts it within reach of virtually anyone. Data is stored in a world class SAS70 data center whose protection is cutting edge.

Enthusiastic customers rave about the tool. SimpleRelevance, a digital marketing agency, found itself producing client deliverables 30% faster. Another digital marketing agency, iThinkMedia, saved as much as 20% of its time by tracking task efficiency. Meetings took half as much time when Wrike was used by FSMG, an advertising agency.