Way to Grow

Affordable Technologies for Small Businesses

Something to check out:

Anita Campbell's Small Business Trends notes that, "Small businesses wield significant buying power and collectively make an attractive market. Large tech companies know that, and market leaders put their R&D money where their mouths are. One example is HP, which this year has made a major initiative to introduce new products and services designed just for small businesses."

Anita admits she was sent a press release by HP and acknowledges that she does try to follow up on these.  However she has rules about whether or not she'll blog about them, and I quote:

1. Does the vendor really understand the needs of the small business market?
2. Is the small business market an important part of their business strategy so that they will invest in product development for the SMB market?
3. Has the offering been intelligently designed from the ground up specifically with small businesses in mind (rather than something half-heartedly slapped together to respond to senior management's call "we need an SMB offering, people!")?

"On all three questions I am impressed...While I have not used any of these particular offerings, at least from the descriptions it sounds as if HP has attempted to make the products (1) easy to implement and (2) affordable -- two keys for small businesses." [Italics added]

Fast Start Technologies

How fast you get up and running is key to success in a highly competitive market. In a recent issue, Business 2.0 featured start-ups that had each successfully grown millions in revenue in their first year. These companies achieved overnight traction by using innovative product development technologies, outsourced design work, manufactured offshore, and created marketing buzz using non-traditional methods. The entire article, “The Instant Company”, is a must-read for new entrepreneurs. I was intrigued by several Web-based technologies mentioned that all new businesses should consider:

Arena Solutions – A product life-cycle management application that tracks every design change.  Fritz Morgan, Engineering VP of Color Kinetics says they can execute design changes in just 24 hours using this tool.

Basecamp – A collaborative application that allows team members to share and manipulate files. Kidrobot’s founder Paul Budnitz figures he was ready for manufacture in 1/3 the time the established companies take with traditional methods. 

Basecamp sounds like a winner, too, for small consulting businesses. It can streamline management of any project or program where team members are geographically disbursed.