Social Business: Why Having a Plan Matters

Co-authored by: Laurie McCabe and Sanjeev Aggarwal, SMB Group, and Brent Leary, CRM Essentials
Good plans shape good decisions. That’s why good planning helps to make elusive dreams come true. Lester R. Bittel, The Nine Master Keys of Management
This seems to be especially true when it comes to getting business value out of social media. [...]

Salesforce’s Dimdim Acquisition–Adding to a String of Collaboration Pearls

The SMB Group has followed (and used!) Dimdim, which has provided innovative, easy to use Web conferencing services in a freemium model with very liberal terms of use, for a couple of years. In January, Salesforce.com acquired Dimdim for $31 million.
Immediately after the acquisition, Salesforce announced that while Dimdim would remain “fully operational during the [...]

HubSpot: From Breakthrough to Breakout

I’ve been very impressed by HubSpot, which helps small and medium businesses (SMBs) optimize and streamline their inbound marketing programs (see my 2009 interview with HubSpot Marketing VP Mike Volpe) for a while now. Looks like others are impressed too—as evidenced by HubSpot’s announcement that it has raised $32 million in a Series D funding [...]

SMB Group Top Ten 2011 SMB Technology Predictions

Here are the SMB Group’s Top 10 SMB Technology Predictions for 2011! A more detailed description of each follows below.

1. Mobile Commerce Lifts Off
2. SMBs Demand that Vendors Bring Order to Social Media Chaos
3. App Stores Become a Key Information Source and Channel for SMBs
4. The Shift to Cloud Computing [...]

Zoho Support: Big Business Customer Service for Small Business Budgets

Zoho, one of the pioneers in cloud computing solutions for small and medium businesses (SMBs), has added a new customer support management application to its line up of 20-plus cloud-based collaboration, communication, business and office productivity solutions.
Zoho Support helps streamline the process to create, capture, process and manage support tickets. Zoho has combined its own [...]

Four Top Technology Solution Trends and How They Can Help Your Small Business

A couple of weeks ago, I was a presenter at Ramon Ray’s Small Business Technology Tour in Cambridge, MA. My presentation focused on top technology trends, and how small businesses can take advantage of them. A few people have asked me to post the presentation, so I’m providing it here.

At the event, I prefaced [...]

Are You Ready to Move Beyond Email? Warning Signs and Key Considerations

(Part 2 of a 3 part blog series “Are You Ready to Move Beyond Email?” which focuses on Online Collaboration Suites for SMBs. Click here for Part 1, which provides an overview of the online collaboration suite area.)
Effective collaboration can make the difference between business success and failure. While point collaboration solutions can help us [...]

Are You Ready to Move Beyond Email? Assessing Online Collaboration Suites for SMBs

(Part 1 of a 3 part blog series “Are You Ready to Move Beyond Email?” which focuses on Online Collaboration Suites for SMBs)
Collaboration is probably the only activity that everyone in every company engages in every day. Whether a CEO or new hire, an accountant or a construction worker, everyone needs to share and manage [...]

Dimdim–A Bright Light In the Web Conferencing Market

With the recession stubbornly lingering, many small and medium businesses (SMBs) are still pinching pennies and looking to trim expenses. Dimdim, which provides free Web conferencing for up to 20 users, and charges just $25 per month for Dimdim Pro (which supports unlimited meetings for up to 50 users) gives SMBs a way to eliminate [...]

What is Business Intelligence, and Why Should You Care?

(Originally published on July 30, 2010 in Small Business Computing)
What is Business Intelligence?
Business intelligence (BI) is an umbrella term used to encompass the processes, methods, measurements and systems businesses use to more easily view, analyze and understand information relevant to the history, current performance or future projections for a business.  Other terms that people often [...]