Gooroo targets SMEs with cloud-based business apps

Gooroo offers a web-based online business management suite

Gooroo, an SME-focused software-as-a-service (SaaS) developer, has launched a range of hosted applications and a dashboard designed to help small businesses better run their operations.

The web-based online business management suite costs £25 per user per month, and provides business functions such as accounts, sales, stock control, customer relationship management, and supplier, task and people management.

Gooroo also provides partners with data migration tools and a single browser-based dashboard view to help managers access an overall idea of how the business is doing.

"Our business suite has strong appeal to smaller companies because it lets them focus on building their business without the hassle of buying, deploying and managing software and networks," said Dean Miles, general manager of Gooroo Software.

"We recently surveyed small businesses' plans to adopt SaaS and cloud solutions, and there is real demand out there. SMEs want the same software tools that are available to enterprises, and Gooroo puts these benefits within easy reach of any size of business."

The company's survey of small businesses across the UK in March found that four out of 10 directors and senior managers had already changed their plans to buy or update business software because of the economic climate, and 21 per cent planned to postpone spending on software until the situation improves.

Nearly half (46 per cent) of respondents added that they would 'definitely consider' replacing their current business software with a system costing around £30 per month per user, with no extra hardware or software costs.

Similarly, a handful were already using cloud or SaaS applications for core business functions, and more than half plan to be using some form of cloud-based service by the end of next year, citing an overall reduction in IT costs as the main reason for the move.

Gooroo currently offers modules for managing sales, customers, suppliers, products, accounts, reporting and general company management. The company intends to expand the portfolio with enterprise resource planning and accounting systems later this year.