The Virtual Business -
Using the Net to Leverage Your Business

The mom and pop store of yesteryear is fast becoming today's small networked business with a hand full of employees which can get up to speed fast, ramp up quickly and succeed globally because of the reach, speed and efficiency of the Net and the exponentially expanding business resources on it.

Today a small, sharp and nimble business leveraging the Net, can compete on equal footing with big businesses in many areas. A new breed of Net companies give small business access to sophisticated management support and real time business processes which go a long way towards leveling the playing field. Most of the services you need to give your company big company muscle and an impressive public image can be found on the Net at small company prices.

Marketing

The following sites let you keep projects in-house but get online and perform your own public relations, marketing, direct mail and market research at a fraction of the cost of hiring an outside agency. Companies like Constant Contact or I Contact will collect opt in names and email addresses from users of your web site and provide you with attractive templates which, with a click of a mouse, will allow you to email your tailored marketing message to each of your different market segments.

To reach beyond your current customers and expand your marketing base, AdReady offers display advertising that works for marketers at all levels of expertise and all budgets. Their platform allows you to develop custom display ads targeted to your industry, set your own budget, run them on Google or Yahoo, and monitor, measure and manage your results.

Developing and executing a successful display media plan has always required a level of knowledge and experience that most marketers don’t have time to develop, not to mention the thousands of dollars and weeks to design and build the actual ad; and, on top of that, many publishers and networks set campaign budget minimums that start at $25,000 per month. Companies like AdReady completely transform that dynamic into a simple user friendly platform that can pay off immediately in increased sales. They provide the monitoring and if the ad results are meeting your expectations you can change your ad or your ad channels in a matter of moments, less than a half hour.

Management Today on the net you can find shared applications like Basecamp which provide outstanding, simple to use online tools for project management and collaboration, which your team can access from any where in the world or on the road from a Blackberry or Iphone, allowing you to work with less expensive outsourced providers.

Workforce Need to trim your payroll but still get the job done?

Go to Elance.com is a global, online marketplace for services, with users from over 140 countries and services ranging from programming and graphic design to translation, web design or education, legal, accounting, medical and other services. Competitive bids, particularly from countries with different wage scales like India or China, will drive down the costs of your project. Guru.com or Freelance.com, also offer your pick of independent professionals willing to take on your company's tasks on a moment's notice.

Marketplaces End to end marketplaces like Ebay.com bring buyers and sellers together in one spot, simultaneously expanding the market and driving down costs through competitive bidding.

Sales Force Sales Force has become a Standard on the Net. Salesforce The automation it provides empowers companies to manage people and processes more effectively, so reps can close more deals. Their application gives the sales force fast access to data—online, offline, and via mobile devices—and links easily to popular tools like Microsoft Office and Outlook. For managers it provides visibility into the activities of their reps and insight into where they stand with their pipelines. Salesforce provides powerful opportunity management, forecasting, reporting, and customization capabilities, so sales managers can be confident their teams are producing at their full capacity.
And that, of course, is where the money comes from.

In fact, the mom and pop store of yesteryear is fast becoming today's small networked business with a hand full of employees which can get up to speed fast, ramp up quickly and succeed globally because of the reach, speed and efficiency of the Net and the exponentially expanding business resources on it. If your business needs something you can't find on the Net, just wait, it will soon be there. Or better yet, if you find a gap, fill it and the world will beat a path to your door.