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How to Choose the Right Energy Company to Power your Business

If you happen to live and/or start a business in part of the country where you have the advantage of choosing what company you get your energy from, you need to take this decision very seriously. If you take your time and do the necessary research, you can save yourself a significant amount of money on your future energy expenses.

An electricity company worker installs an energy meter

Do not simply start using the first energy company you come across. You owe it to yourself to take a hard look at all of the available candidates to find the one that gives you the most value for your money.…

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How the Right ERP Tools Can Help Scale your Business

The idea of deploying an enterprise resource planning solution might be daunting for small businesses, especially given cost considerations. For one, the more popular ERP vendors such as SAP, Oracle and Microsoft, among many others, are often perceived to have a focus on enterprise clients. And even if the SME were to get enough funding to subscribe to an ERP license, it can be expensive to customize these solutions according to their needs.

Cloud ERP

In some cases, even enterprise clients will be stuck with legacy systems that are rarely updated. Given these barriers and preconceptions, ERP utilization may not always be adequate.…

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Is Your Business Ready for the Cloud?

Information technology (IT) decisions at the small business level can be very challenging; traditional server-client models are often a poor solution for small businesses that need flexibility, scalability, convenience, and support at a manageable price. Cloud-based services are great alternatives for many, but the proliferation of these services can be overwhelming. Here’s how to know if your small business is ready for the cloud.

Business cloud

Types of Cloud-Based Service Models

The three service models on the cloud are infrastructure as a service (IaaS), platform as a service (PaaS), and software as a service (SaaS). Each shifts the responsibility for managing the technology to the service provider, freeing up the business owner to focus on his or her own operations.…

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Is WixStores the Best Ecommerce Platform for Small Business Owners?

The answer to that question is a resounding yes! In fact, there is a recently-launched platform with the small business owner’s needs totally in mind, WixStores.

WixStores homepage

WixStores is Wix’ new online ecommerce store builder. If you haven’t heard of Wix – the company have long been known for having the most feature-rich, hosted site building platform online, allowing for much more design and interface-tweaking flexibility for “non-coder” types who don’t like the generic and rather limited nature of most WordPress themes.

Their new ecommerce CMS has the smoothest drag and drop site-building interface I’ve ever seen, and they’re definitely equipped to compete with the likes of other more expensive hosted shopping cart solutions like Shopify.…

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4 Reasons Why Events and Exhibition Stands Go Hand in Hand

Tradeshows and commercial events are gaining steam in every vertical market because the fight for limited corporate spending budgets has been gravely intensified by uncertain markets.

Busy trade show

New and old companies alike will often visit trade shows and their ilk to scope out the competition; silent sharks swimming through a current of vendors and exhibitions, passively observing their competition take another bite out of the market.

Just kidding. There’s nothing predator-like about being a silent observer. You might feel like James Bond scoping out your competition, you might even engage with them and act like a customer undercover to learn more about their strategies but as you engage them – you’re standing inside the most powerful tool in their arsenal: their exhibition stand.…

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How to Crowd-design your Way to Entrepreneurial Success

You don’t need to seek out the services of a fancy design firm, or risk wasting hours of time communicating with an online freelancer to get the best logo, website and other graphics you need for your business.

Logo design samples

In fact, after using an online design marketplace for the first time, you’ll soon realize that the traditional method of requesting samples (which can easily be copy/pasted – ie., stolen) to attempt to identify if a designer has the skill-set you’re looking for – then picking a designer or firm you think might work out – then going through the hassle of waiting on delivery and revisions – potentially ending up with something that you’re not happy with, but which you’re so often expected to pay for nonetheless!…

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Increase Consumer Engagement with Video Conferencing

One of the keys to building a successful business or brand is capturing long-term consumer interest. The best brands in the world know this. Uniqueness plays a huge factor, of course. Finding a need in the market and fulfilling it in a way no one else can or will ensures there will be a long line of customers beating down your door.

Video conferencing

But unless your company is Google or Facebook, then you might be in for some stiff competition. The minute you launch your business, you’re already competing with a ton of other companies doing the same thing you are, with all of you trying to win over a larger slice of the consumer pie.…

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Is It Time to Expand Your Business?

When a business is doing well, it is often tempting to leave things well alone on the basis that if it isn’t broke, why make changes. But this is somewhat short-sighted and many businesses will benefit from expanding in order to grow. So how can you tell when the time is right to embark on a business expansion programme and what the best way to go about it is?

Business growth and expansion

Build Your Customer Base

There are lots of different ways to expand a profitable business but the most obvious one is to build your customer base. Firstly, look at ways to keep your existing customer base happy, perhaps by offering new products and services.…

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How Comindware Process Change your BPM

Business Process Management (BPM) is all about making sure that business processes and workflow is executed in a more effective and efficient manner. BPM also concerns about your company’s capability to adapt to changes.

Business Process Management

With that said, you need BPM software (BPMS) that is reliable and easy to setup to help you manage your currently active business processes.

The problem is, not all BPMS is created the same. And many BPMS fall short under the “integration” category: While those software are perfect in managing business processes, integrating them with, for example, project management is a painless experience, if not impossible.…

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LinkedIn – Time Waster or Time Saver?

LinkedIn is positioned as a social media site geared towards working professionals around the world. Anyone who is serious about a professional image in the twenty-first century has a professional profile on LinkedIn. Though its credibility is established worldwide, it has over 300 million members, some people still question if LinkedIn is a time waster or a time saver.’

LinkedIn

LinkedIn Promoting Success

LinkedIn promotes success through multiple on-line networking tools. Members have access to no-cost to industry helps, career options, updates, informative news, and more. While it does take time to understand how to best market your skills and set up an eye-catching profile, LinkedIn has proven to be worth the time in the long run.…

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