Using the Net to Leverage Your Business.

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.

Management Today on the net you can find shared applications like Central Destop which provide 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?

At Guru.com or Freelance.com, you can have your pick of independent professionals willing to take on your company’s tasks on a moment’s notice.

Or 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.

Marketplaces End to end marketplaces like Ebay.com bring buyers and sellers together in one spot, simultaneously expanding the market and Fdriving 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.

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.