When is it Time to Move to SaaS?
Know if SaaS is Right for Your Business

 
A relatively new concept, known as Software as a service (SaaS), allows organizations to take advantage of critical technical functionality and services without building, expanding, operating, or managing underlying systems.  At its most basic level, SaaS allows a small and medium business to take full advantage of leading edge technology, software, and business processes without having to own or operate it.  You get the advantages that have been largely the domain of large businesses, without the investment.
 
While the benefits are many, SaaS may not be right for your business.  To help you evaluate whether or not SaaS is right for your company, we’ve put together a specific list of things to consider.  The more you can answer ‘yes’ to any of these, the more you need to consider SaaS for your business.

1. IT systems management and optimization are not core competencies central to your business:  Unless one or more of the terms “IT,” “computer”, or “systems” are in the name of your company, it’s unlikely that IT infrastructure management and optimization are your core corporate competencies.

2. IT capital and/or staffing expenditures are rising/continuing to rise at your organization company. If one of the reasons you invest in IT is to increase organizational efficiency, shouldn’t IT costs go down, not up, as the business becomes more IT-dependent?  If your technology costs keep going up, then it may be time to consider SaaS.

3. There are physical limits to your organization’s ability to grow and/or improve its IT resources: Even companies with well-designed, incredibly efficient server closets or data centers are increasingly running out of space, or requiring more power and cooling, or are seeing increased utility bills.  SaaS can eliminate all three of these problems.

4. User demands for IT systems and support are growing faster than your company’s ability to meet them: Rapid growth in demand for IT resources has many causes. Examples include new or expanded web commerce, employee turnover, new customers or partners requirements, added support for mobile-networked device users, mergers, acquisitions, or organic organizational growth.

5. Licensing and/or support costs for business-critical software applications are exceeding available budgets in your company: This is a pervasive issue that just doesn’t seem to go away.  The more technology a business procures, the more budget is consumed on renewing licenses and keeping the systems running.  On average, 63% of all IT budget is spent on maintenance (Gartner & Forrester).  SaaS can eliminate these license maintenance and support costs.

6. IT support requirements are draining limited resources away from your company’s core business activities: You need to spend your $$ on core business activities, not on buying, implementing, upgrading, managing, and optimizing technology.  SaaS can solve this problem, quickly and effectively.

7. Your organization needs to deploy new applications or services quickly, without operational disruption, and with limited or no capex budgets: Business responsiveness and competitive advantage demand a flexible and quickly adaptable business infrastructure. If your systems take weeks or months to adapt, you’re not at an advantage. SaaS-based solutions can be up and running much faster than traditionally licensed options.

8. You need to move critical IT resources to fewer, more modern platforms to improve business performance and reduce dependency on increasingly scarce and expensive support resources: How about getting rid of all your platforms and support resources in one decision?  If you’re at a point where its time to consolidate, upgrade, or if you’re just challenged at attracting and keeping key IT resources, consider SaaS alternatives.  You can solve all three of these challenges, right away.

9. The business needs do not require extensive or frequent customization of critical software or services: If your business requirements don’t require many modifications of technology or if your business needs to take advantage of ‘best practices’, SaaS is the ticket.  SaaS solutions can easily accommodate your general business requirements without the need of significant modification and associated costs.  And, the best SaaS environments automatically build in the best practices you need – right out of the box!  You get the best-of-both-worlds, all without capex expense.

10. You understand and have, or seek to acquire, expertise in process management necessary for business success: Business and IT processes form the backbone of a company.  SaaS doesn’t eliminate the need for such.  However, the very best SaaS providers also have the expertise you need to prepare, adapt, roll-out, and support your critical business and IT processes within your company.  They take on the ‘heavy lifting’ of making sure your business has what it needs while you concentrate on running your business and investing in your core competencies.

Is your business ready to move to SaaS? You can make theTransition easily and quickly.  Get back to managing your business and not technology.  Take full advantage of functionality and benefit that is ‘beyond your budget.’  All with one call.  Accomplish all this with the SMB Suite.  A full solution set bringing you all the outsourced technology advantages you need to lead. The SMBSuite is your answer to technology confusion, lowering It costs, and delivering the tools you need to run the business. Visit: http://www.getsmb.com or call 1-800-525-6398.

So, what are you going to do now?  Maintain the status quo and continue to grow your internal IT budgets? Or, learn more about how to get off the ‘technology train?

Making sure your CRM solution is a success…

Choosing and implementing Customer Relationship Management (CRM) solutions can be a resounding success or an unmitigated disaster.  Big businesses can ‘afford’ the shock of failure.  Small and medium businesses can’t.

To achieve success in selecting and implementing CRM in your small and medium business, pay attention to overcoming the following:

1.     You’re Not Sure What You Need:  Each CRM solution is different.  To make sure you identify and choose the best solution for your business, prepare a brief summary of ideas, requirements, or objectives that you wish to be solved or delivered by the solution.

2.     The Solution Can’t Adapt to Your Business:  Is there something unique about how you manage your customer relationships?  If so, does a particular vendor allow you to ‘customize’ the solution to your unique needs?  If the solution can’t adapt, look elsewhere.

3.     An “Uh Oh” Cost/Expense Moment:  From up-front ‘investments’, to customization/consulting fees, to monthly or annual licensing costs, or subscriptions – each solution costs something.  Make sure you uncover all the costs before you get started.  Choose to work with solutions with simple fee structures and no hidden costs or additional expenses.

4.     An Inexperienced Vendor:  CRM is not ‘accounting.’  CRM is not “technology.”  Make sure that your solution vendor is deeply experienced in customer relationship management processes, best practices, solution implementation, and support.

5.     Information Security:  Your customer information is a key, strategic business asset.  The information, communication, terms, services, and products you sell to your customers must be secure from intrusion, theft, virus/trojans, or other external threats.  Make sure your CRM vendor is skilled at protecting you and your assets.

6.     The Solution Doesn’t Expand:  Your business and customers can’t be held back by an inadequate CRM system. Choose a solution that easily expands with your business and always provides fast, anytime/anywhere access – no matter how many customers you have.

7.     The Solution is an Island: Your business is integrated to deliver the best customer experience possible.  A CRM solution must fully integrate with your business processes, your environment, and your customers.

8.     Little or No Connectivity:  Your business uses common productivity and communication tools. Things like personal computers, software, email, fax, and mobile devices.  You need the flexibility to have each of these devices act as communication tools and access points into your customer information to and from your CRM solution – even if you’re out of the office.

9.     Can’t Get Fast Information:  Make sure the solution you choose allows for ‘real-time’ reporting and analysis.  Also ensure that you have access anytime, anywhere, from virtually any type of device.

10.   Can’t Get Help When You Need It Most:  To maximize the benefit of a CRM solution, it must be used fully and across all relevant parts of the business.  As such, training and support/help desk is mandatory.  You need to have people and information ready to help, when you need help.  Your business can’t be left to ‘figure it out.’

By NextCorp, Ltd., Dallas Microsoft Dynamics GP and CRM Partner

CRM has always been the domain of big business.  Until now…

Managing customer relationships is key to current and future success.  Unfortunately, as a business grows or as more salespeople are hired, customer relationships can suffer.  After all, while you have more customers, you don’t have the detailed knowledge or understanding of each one as you did when you had fewer customers.

Enter Customer Relationship Management software (CRM).  A solution designed to overcome customer relationship challenges.  Previously the domain of large business, CRM is now a must for small and medium businesses wishing to grow steadily and predictably. The ability to understand product and services demand, to weed out unprofitable sales efforts and customers, to capitalize on emerging trends, and to market more intelligently, is important to small and medium businesses.  Why?  More revenue, faster.  It is that simple.

Here are ten reasons why your small and medium business needs CRM, right now:

1. Generate More Leads:  Pretty simple.  You can turn information into leads by understanding conversations and uncovering needs that you can fulfill.

2. Qualify Prospects Faster:  It’s what you and your salespeople are struggling with, right? To quickly evaluate contacts and leads and uncover needs or issues you can sell into.  Stop wasting time where you have no chance of success.

3. Close More Deals: A key to growth – more deals more often!  Because you actively manage the sales process and have unique insight into customer needs, your sales team will increase their success at closing more deals.

4. Higher Average Invoice/Deal Size:  Getting more dollars every time you sell.  Through customer and product/service insight your business will be in the unique position of being able to more effectively cross and up sell your products/services.

5. Margin Preservation:  Virtually eliminate discounting or leaving dollars on the table.  Each sales engagement and customer can be evaluated to discover nuances and need that allow you to solidly position and defend your value and price.

6. Improved Customer Service: Having the right relationships, processes and capabilities ensure that you can capture and resolve small issues before they become big ones.

7. Tighter Customer Loyalty:  Through closer relationships, better customer service, and anticipating needs, your customers will choose to do more business with you, more often.

8. Business Customer Continuity:  A historical customer relationship ‘memory’ is always retained in the business, should salespeople leave or be replaced within the company.  And, new salespeople get up to speed more quickly, minimizing customer relationship or service interruptions.

9. Increased Marketing ROI:  Quit throwing good money after bad.  You’ll know how each marketing piece, campaign, or promotional item – from placement to revenue – contributes to the business.

10. Profitability:  This is what really counts – more profit to your business.  The business becomes more ‘intelligent’ when it comes to the most important and expensive drivers – sales, marketing, and customer management.  Get in control of all three, driving new levels of profit to your business.

By NextCorp, Ltd., Dallas Microsoft Dynamics CRM Partner

Make sure 2010 brings new advantage and profitability.

2010 is squarely in everyone’s sights.  Many are looking forward to 2010 simply to put the last two tough years behind them.  Others are taking a more optimistic view to 2010, as the economy appears to be stabilizing.  While even others see 2010 as the ‘breakout’ year for their business.

Whatever your perspective, there are a few strategic actions that every business can take to drive new value and advantage in 2010.

In a recent McKinsey survey (700 CEOs, 11/09), the top priorities for CEOs for 2010 are:  innovation to create new value; drive costs down even more; and, further tighten relationships with existing customers as a key to profitability growth.  Perhaps these are chief among your priorities as a small and medium business as well.

What can you do to achieve these priorities, quickly and inexpensively?

1. Research Buying Habits:  Take a peek into past customer invoicing, and identify any trends.  Look at specific, repeat customer invoices and see if you can identify any shift in purchasing habits toward new value areas.  Once discovered, work to align and package your services and products in a way that will attract more business.

2. What is Most Profitable?:  Often a business will continue to operate in a ‘business as usual’ manner.  That is, they offer the same products and services and even expand their offering as a mechanism to attract more revenue.  Within every business there are a few products/services and customers that drive the bulk of the profit while the rest are nominally profitable or are losing propositions for the business.  Identify the most profitable products/services and customers and determine how to serve or find markets that need more of your most profitable items.

3. Where are You Leaking Cash?:  In times of abundant demand and revenue, sloppy habits become common within the business.   Sloppy habits create cash ‘leakage’ that drains profitability – thereby reducing capital to sustain or grow the business.  Look across the entire business and undertake a ‘profitability analysis’ of business processes, customers, and hard and soft assets.  Find where cash is leaking out of the business and quickly plug any holes.

4. Get Out of the “Technology Business”:  Unless your enterprise is a technology-oriented in nature, significantly reduce your acquisition, upgrade, and management of technology within the business.  Do this by eliminating your in-house ‘IT department.’  Sound crazy?  It’s not.  In recent years it has now become strategically and economically wise to ‘outsource’ computer-based technology to experts – eliminating capex spend, salary and benefit costs, and driving new flexibility and advantage to the business.

5. Expand Your Markets:  If you haven’t done this already, you’re already behind the curve.  Your nearest competitor is a block, mile, or click away!  Exploit technology to reach and serve new markets and customers.  Your competition already has – why not you?

6. Communicate to Your Customers:  It is fascinating that most ‘conversation’ with a customer occurs when a business seeks revenue; or, if there is a customer service problem.  Otherwise, the normal business habit seems to be ‘no news is good news.’  Customers want to hear from you about your business, new value they can derive from new products/services you offer, and how they can gain advantage from having a relationship with your business.  Make sure that your customers hear from you regularly and with impact.

7. Collaborate Everywhere:  Gone are the days when a business can stand on its own, going it alone.  Today, new opportunity and profit is created by working together with upstream suppliers and downstream customers – across your ‘value chain.’  Identify those businesses with which you need to partner and collaborate on new efforts that are sure to drive differentiation, advantage, revenue, and profit.

8. Real-time Business Management:  No longer is it possible to manage the business to monthly income statements and balance sheets.  Things move too quickly and require fast, real-time adaptation.  Managing the business through traditional financial statements is like driving by looking in the rear-view mirror – a certain recipe for disaster.  Instead, fully utilize various ‘real-time’ reporting tools that give you the business information you need, where you need it, and when you need it.  Manage the business daily, or hourly in some cases.  Sometimes advantage and opportunity have short windows.  If you wait 30 days, you’ll miss that opportunity and many more.

10 Things Small Businesses Need to Ask of their Financial Software

Operating a small and medium business is hard work.  Juggling strategies and day-to-day needs seems almost impossible – especially in light of greater competition, customer expectation, and economic change.

Forward-thinking businesses have recognized that technology can help them improve the speed, accuracy and effectiveness of their financial processes. By using the right financial tools in conjunction with best business practices, these organizations are better able to:

·         Plan:  See where and how much to invest dollars, time, and energy into the business.

·         Execute:  Smooth product/services delivery, lower costs, increase customer satisfaction, and drive new competitive differentiation

·         Measure: Understand where to optimize the business for opportunity and profit.

To get these benefits, what questions should you ask of your financial software?

1. Will this technology help me integrate my business processes? The optimal solution will allow you to integrate your purchasing, sales, inventory, customer management, communication, and productivity processes such that you gain the advantage of speed and accuracy.

2. Will this software automatically notify me of business problems and opportunities?  The tool you adopt must be able to help you see financial problems before they occur through advanced reporting and notification capabilities.

3. Will the financial system help me quickly focus on what is important and gain insight?  Small businesses should demand the same capabilities that large business has – insight into expenses, profitability, customers and satisfaction, productivity, new opportunity areas, and the like.

4.  Is it easy to use; will my employees use it?  Financial solutions should be as easy to use as traditional technology-based productivity tools.  Find out about training and help desk options available to you and your employees.

5.  Will the software enhance period/year end closing, tax planning, and audits?  Small businesses never need to compromise on being fully GAAP compliant with full audit capabilities.  The solutions you choose must speed up closing, easily transfer information to your accountant, and provide full transactional audit tracing.

6.  Can I collaborate with my peers?  The finances of a company don’t stand in isolation from the business or financial peers.  A financial system should easily integrate with existing email and collaborative tools allowing easy transfer of information, updates, and accessibility to employees who use the system.

7.  Can it grow with my business?  Small business has a history of being held back by their ‘systems.’  Financial software has evolved such that now there are solutions that are easily able to scale up/down with your particular business needs.  You don’t have to ‘overpay’ or ‘underpay’ at any time.

8.  Is the financial system secure; is my information protected?  With the realities of spam, viruses, trojans, internet intrusions, and disgruntled employees, the financial system you choose must counteract each of these and more.

9.  What happens if the system ‘breaks’?  Unfortunately, technology will occasionally fail. The keys to ensuring your business never stops, due to technology failure, are having the right redundancy, fail over, backup and recovery capabilities.  Also key is making sure that your workers have immediate access to needed help, no matter when.

10.  Will implementing the system disrupt my business?  Adopting new technology and software is not for the faint of heart.  Make sure that the system you choose will easily ‘slipstream’ into your existing operations without disrupting, defocusing, or taking away necessary energy from running the business.

By NextCorp, Ltd., Dallas Microsoft Dynamics GP and CRM Partner

Insanity is defined as, “doing the same thing over and over again but expecting different results.”  If this holds true, then there are some logical steps that SMBs can take to avoid insanity.  Because of their daunting nature, SMBs often ignore business challenges and continue to conduct business in the same manner as they always have.  Partaking in this behavior is strangely similar to the definition of insanity.  So, consider the following steps... and keep from joining the ranks of the SMB insane:

1. Leave technology to the experts:  Businesspeople trying to become technology experts often ignore their business. Stick to what you know – your products/services and business.  Leave the rest to technology experts.

2. Don’t hesitate to take a risk first: Taking a ‘wait and see’ approach seems prudent, but it will frequently put you behind your competition.  Often innovation and new solutions usher in higher levels of performance and result in cost savings.  Don’t wait for your competitors to test the waters, allowing them to reap the benefits while your costs escalate and business performance slows down. Take the dive yourself.

3. Focusing on the profit, not the contract:  SMBs work hard at finding, closing and keeping customers.  In this rush, many choose to run from one contract to another, never really measuring the costs associated with a product/service, a market, or a customer.  In this rush, SMBs tend to overlook the need to measure their desired profit growth.  SMBs need to assess where they should spend their time by how much profit is created.  This can be accomplished through automated financial and reporting systems, which put owners in control of their information, allowing for the informed decisions to be made.

4. Supply your employees with the best productivity tools:  In the quest to manage costs, SMBs will often hold back on utilizing new and innovative productivity tools, the result of which is decreased productivity, a higher volume of errors and customer dissatisfaction.

5. Be accessible to your customers, vendors and suppliers at all times:  Many SMBs forget that their customers are a large part of their business success and future growth. A lack of collaboration can lead to a communication breakdown and your relationships with your customers will ultimately suffer as a result. Staying out of touch with your vendors/suppliers can keep you from negotiating better prices or terms.  Integrating your ‘value chain’, from suppliers to customers, will open up communication and can result in unprecedented growth.

6. Stay ahead of your competition:  It is hard to become a leader in your market or in your customer’s eyes if you always take your cues from the competition.  SMBs should strive to become leaders in their own right. This is achieved through a clear understanding of the market including their products/services, the competition and customers.  Information available through industrial-strength financial and collaborative solutions will help you to understand these areas of your business and keep you ahead of the competition.

7. Invest your time in seeking new opportunities:  Leading SMBs invest their time in constantly creating new opportunities in order to grow their business and stay ahead of the competition. Many SMBs make the mistake of investing their time into protecting their markets and existing customers while the competition speeds past them.  Rule of thumb: it’s better to play offense instead of defense.

8. Cheap and inexpensive are not always the right way to invest:  We all want to conserve costs, but often SMBs will expect the best, while only willing to pay the least.  Adopting new technologies or solutions that are inexpensive can keep your business from growing at full speed.  Avoid considering opportunities based upon price alone, and instead make wise investments that will return new opportunity, revenue, productivity and profit.

9. You can’t do it all:  At some point we all learn this lesson. SMB owners will often try to handle every problem area of their business on their own instead of surrounding themselves with the best talent and tools to help. It is important to capitalize on the strengths of these experts and put them to work.

10. Don’t forget about hidden costs:  Technology industry analysts and seasoned business executives have difficulty putting a hard figure on the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) of today's traditional SMB application solutions. In computing the cost of software, businesses tend only to focus on the purchase price, yet even when fully operational, software requires additional expenses. Don’t forget to budget for costs associated with support, maintenance and upgrades.

NextCorp, Ltd. Dallas Microsoft Dynamics GP Partner

You love QuickBooks.  QuickBooks may have been good to you.  But maybe it’s time to move up.

Your business has been using QuickBooks for years to manage customer accounts, keep track of inventory and business finances, create forms for your business use and store information on your customers, vendors and other contacts. You’ve purchased all 20 concurrent licenses, you’ve set into motion aggressive growth plans, and you’re ready to formalize the financial management of your company.  Now is the time to consider why you need to move beyond QuickBooks:

1. Industrial-strength Information Security:  Small and medium sized businesses have the same information security needs as a large business.  You need the peace of mind that your company financial, customer, inventory, payroll and reporting information is proactively managed, backed up, has redundancy/failover capability and protected from external security intrusions. 

2. Full/Tighter Business Integration:  In the global marketplace, it is critical that you consider tools that allow you to integrate your business to save money and integrate to your suppliers and customers for additional responsiveness and profit.

3. Greater Productivity and ROI:  You want all of your employees using the best tools to manage sales order processing, inventory, customer relationships, payroll, and the like.  If you have more than 20 people who need access, it’s time to move up.

4. Special/Unique Business Requirement:  Your customers and business are unique.  You need to have a financial system that adapts to your business, bringing you the greatest benefit.  Small and medium businesses should never have to compromise on taking care of business.

5. Better Business Planning/Reporting:  To compete today, small and medium businesses need to have the best planning and management tools.  You need to understand where your business stands at all times, where your customers are and have access to information to make faster, more informed decisions.

6. More Transaction Capability:  A small and medium business should never be held back by their financial system.  Being able to handle more customers, vendors, inventory items, internal and external customer requirements - and all at greater transaction volumes and speed - are key to your businesses growth and success.

7. Tighter Internal Controls:  Waste and internal process costs rob profitability.  Having tighter internal controls gives you the visibility to reduce or eliminate waste, drive out costly processes and create new incremental profits to your business.

8. Full Financial Accountability:  Small and medium businesses need full audit trails, double entry accounting, rich business reporting and automated processes just like large business.

9. Business Differentiation and Advantage:  As you compete and grow, you need tools that directly contribute to creating advantages that your competition doesn’t have and differentiation that your customer recognizes.  Your fully integrated financial system can provide new levels of responsiveness, customer satisfaction and profitability to your business – making you and your business stand out from the crowd.

10. You Want Help NOW!:  When a problem hits, you want it to go away right now.  Don’t spend time ‘browsing’ for answers or waiting for a support ‘call back’ or get charged by the minute for every problem.  Rest easy by getting the best, immediate application and technology support possible, right now - no waiting!

By NextCorp, Ltd., Dallas Microsoft Dynamics GP and CRM Partner

Transaction detail codes in FRx are useful for organizing and displaying GP transaction details in a report, but not all of the available codes work with GP.  DynamicAccounting.net has this useful post on which codes work with GP.

Transaction detail codes are useful in FRx for organizing and displaying GP transaction details, but not all of the available codes work with GP.  DynamicAccounting.net has posted this helpful entry on which codes to use with GP.

In the rush of every day business, small and medium businesses often forget to consider key, important issues that affect their business future and success.  We know this as we’ve been there and know the challenge to keep up with today’s business and customer demands while keeping an eye on the future. We’ve assembled the top 10 financial challenges that small and medium business owners face:

1. Starting Everything at Return on Investment:  Often small and medium businesspeople undertake initiatives or actions based upon what feels right or takes care of the issue/problem at the moment.  Instead, focus on the ‘return on investment’ a product, service, market, technology, or customer bring to the business.  Pay special attention to those that bring the greatest return on investment and driving out low ROI efforts.

2. Understanding, Weighing, and Communicating Risk:  It seems that the pace of business gets faster and faster.  Decisions come more quickly and more frequently.  It is critically important to understand, evaluate/weigh, and communicate business risks associated with investments, markets, customers, partners and all efforts expended in the quest for growth.

3. Choosing the Right Innovation to Help the Business:  Having the right tools to conduct and optimize business is a key to responsiveness, growth, and profitability.  The choices are many.  Having an advocate that knows the business advantages and disadvantages of various technology and operational choices is important.  Making the right choices can propel your business to new levels.

4. Adopting ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) as a Backbone to the Business:  Enterprise Resource Planning solutions ensure small and medium business is on top of their planning, customers, revenues, costs, profitability, and decision making.  Adopting such solutions creates new and vital advantage to outpace the competition and drive new levels of value to the market and your customer.  Notwithstanding providing the platform for accountability and execution excellence.

5. Being Tyrannized by the Urgent, to the Exclusion of the Important:  An age old problem that requires assiduous attention is focusing on the important issues that drive the business forward.  Issues of growth, strategy, customers, revenues, products and services, and profits drive the business.  Eliminating the ‘noise’ through automated business processes and systems returns substantial advantage by allowing you to focus on the important.

6. Chasing the Deal Instead of Building Long-term Value:  In the search for the next deal, businesses often miss driving long-term, sustainable value.  Your business is an asset that grows or declines in value over time.  To create and grow long-term value the business owner/manager must have the ability to see ‘beyond the deal’ to necessary strategies and activities.  Business decision support systems, designed for small and medium business, keep you focused on value over ‘the deal.’

7. Forgetting that the Customer Drives Business Success:  Business survives on profit.  Profit fuels operations and the future.  The key to profitability is ‘mining’ existing customers for new opportunity in the form of new business.  Understanding customer purchase and payment history, your cost of selling, and customer characteristics enables you to identify new revenue opportunity to pursue.

8. Focusing on Revenues Instead of Profitability:  All businesses, including small and medium, want to see all the numbers trends going ‘up and to the right.’  Unfortunately, growing revenues may not mean growing profitability.  Having a view of the cost of doing business, down to the customer and individual product can go a long way toward understanding how to preserve profits while you focus on revenues.

9. Maintaining the Status Quo Instead of Moving Forward:  A common perception is what made a business successful in the past is what will make it successful in the future.  Unfortunately this isn’t true becausethe market, the customer, and competition change the rules every day.  It is imperative that small and medium businesses keep on top of the trends and their business, making required changes in underlying strategies, systems, and processes to stay ahead of the competition and to keep customers satisfied.

10. Empowering People to Do Their Very Best Possible:  The employees of small and medium businesses are critical to the business success.  Make sure employees have the best financial, collaboration and communication tools increases productivity, morale and customer satisfaction.