SMB Market: Opinions

It probably won’t surprise you to know that companies in Australia are using social media as a core part of their business strategy in greater numbers every day. This includes Dell, Coca-Cola, V Australia and Toyota to name a just a few high profile organisations.

Virtually every IT organisation is feeling the impact of the global downturn. But there is a silver lining. It provides an opportunity to challenge the status quo, eliminate ineffective systems and services, and make changes that management has previously refused to consider.

I hear people talking about selling solutions all the time. What they normally mean is that they want to bundle together as many products as possible to increase the sale to the customer. That to me is NOT a solution sale. It’s a drive for revenue and ultimately not something that is good business.

Australia may have been doomed to follow the world into recessions past, but some dire predictions notwithstanding, there’s a real sense of optimism on this occasion that we can ride the storm and come out stronger than many nations.

By now the holidays are becoming a distant memory and it is either the beginning of a new financial year for some, or the run to the finish for others. Welcome to 2009, a year that will undoubtedly have its share of ups and downs – hopefully more ups if some structured channel planning is put in place now.

Since my first column on Gershon (ARN, July 23), Sir Peter has departed our fair shores and left a series of challenging and optimistic recommendations in a report laid down (presumably) with some gusto on Minister Lindsay Tanner’s table. Last week, Tanner stated the recommendations would be adopted completely in full.

In the novel From Russia with Love, author, Ian Fleming, describes the waiting platform for the Orient Express as throbbing with the “tragic poetry of departure”. Whether we are the ones boarding the train or the ones standing on the platform watching others depart, the act of departure often brings feelings of emptiness, loneliness and sadness.

Business owners and managers can expect a difficult trading year in 2009, following the turmoil of 2008. There are many things they should do to help them through the unchartered waters they are likely to encounter including updating their business plan – or, if they don’t have one already, getting one done.

At just about every meeting, client catch up or industry event I attend these days, people ask me the same basic questions: “How’s business, what’s going to happen next and when/where is it all going to end?”

Although it may seem like your computing life is all e-mail and browsing, computer users still create files, documents, spreadsheets, boring presentations and all manner of other stored information. Which brings me to the question: Where do you store your data? And are you ready to store your data online in a service hosted by a third party provider?

Small businesses converging voice, video and data traffic sometimes end up with haunted networks, but you can exorcise the demons. Affordable QoS mechanisms are available to oust the goblins that cause delay, jitter, bit-rate errors and dropped packets.

Here's a statistical downer: there will be around 40 trillion inbox-clogging spam e-mail messages delivered this year. Experts know this because there were 30 trillion spam messages last year. With this much hay in the stack, it's hard to find those message needles, and that's why some smart companies are looking beyond public e-mail.

Computers and applications stubbornly remain hard to use. Developers, from solo code jockeys to huge corporations, promise us things will be better "real soon." But if operating systems and applications aren't easier today than yesterday, at least we're seeing advances in how to support them. Take NTRSupport's new FirstHelp tool, a support portal. It combines information, drivers, tips, training, techniques, instant messaging, e-mail and even remote control software in a one-stop support shop.

Motivated to help the environment as well as their businesses, SMBs are increasingly embracing green practices. One of their primary approaches: employing green technology, according to recently released survey results from KRC Research.

Have you ever had a service or delivery person come to your home or business carrying a smart phone in place of a clipboard with pre-printed forms? You know, the ones you have to mash down hard when you write so all three copies will be completed? Outside of UPS or FedEx, I never have. But users of QuickBooks Enterprise can zoom their techs from the 1950s to 2009 with one of the add-on modules demonstrated at the QuickBooks Enterprise Solutions User conference last week.

Previous marketing-focused pieces we’ve contributed to ARN have covered managing your marketing on a limited budget and developing your brand strategy. Now it’s time to examine how to take your brand online – an often highly impactful and cost effective, but sometimes misunderstood, discipline.

With the local financial year now finished, attentions are fixed firmly on planning for the next 12 months and executing on strategies for the current quarter.

Focus. Yep, that's the answer - one simple word. You're probably rolling your eyes and saying 'of course'. But for many technology vendors and service providers it is easier said than done. They have either historically focused on the enterprise market and are looking for other revenue streams, or have targeted the small to medium business (SMB) and enterprise market together, with a bit more emphasis on the larger organisations. Either way, the SMB market is where they know they need (and want) to play but other market segments divert their attention.