Expert Advice

Complicating the global financial crisis are many potential short and long-term impacts on B2B markets, particularly in the market where my own operations are based, China. From one perspective, the crisis could turn out to have been a good thing for small businesses, forcing them to become more eff...

If I wanted to hack your e-commerce business, I'd have your help. It's a fact that no one runs a business from one location (or one computer) anymore. In today's world, work gets done everywhere -- in offices, in homes, in hotels, at airports, and while sipping mocha and siphoning Internet connectiv...

Cloud is everywhere -- there is no escaping it! This is actually a good thing for companies having to deal with burgeoning storage and backup costs with no relief in sight. Internet-based cloud services provide a viable alternative for companies looking for an additional location to store their data...

As a wide-eyed 17-year-old business undergrad living in Montreal, Canada, I was given a unique opportunity to make some well-needed spending money by buying and selling liquidations of branded t-shirts. The proposal put before me was simple enough; I would purchase 1,200 t-shirts from a Quebec-based...

For any of us who grew up in the age of digital, it's starting to feel like deja vu all over again as companies large and small flock to social media darling Facebook. It's not hard to understand the allure, given that there are over 400 million members -- 100 million of which live in North America;...

Most successful companies invest in marketing. Marketing budgets are utilized differently depending on factors such as industry and company goals, and results are contingent on how well an organization understands and interacts with its customers. However, what many organizations don't know is tha...

Several years ago analysts began trumpeting the finding that operational costs had surpassed capital costs as the dominant source of expense in IT infrastructure. Despite evidence supporting this claim, many IT managers for a time continued to focus primarily on capex. However, over the past few y...

International e-commerce is poised for explosive growth in the months and years ahead. Demand for U.S. products overseas is booming due to vast selection, high-quality specialty goods and unbelievable values. The Internet is bringing all of this value, selection and convenience directly to consumers...

How we communicate has always had a dramatic impact on business. The telephone made the "sales call" possible; soap company advertising created a whole genre of radio and TV programming; the Internet enabled the "live demo." Business is about connecting with your consumer, and the earlier your compa...

The new Main Street exists anywhere thumbs can hit keys or scroll across a touchscreen. So what does your online presence say about what you have to offer those virtually strolling by? Customers regularly seek feedback on future purchases from their social circle. Conversations about your brand are ...

Most security companies are big fans of the doom-and-gloom scenario of information security. However, when it comes down to brass tacks, security is nothing more than a business function -- specifically, a business function of measuring and mitigating risk. The key motivator behind information secur...

Accountability is essential for any company that wants to be successful. Without it, there is no way to know whether what you're doing is working or could be done better. In the competitive world of Internet retailing, razor-thin margins and fickle consumers make it even more important to ensure ...

In today's economic environment, the last thing a CIO wants to hear is that the IT security product his or her organization purchased last year isn't going to make the cut moving forward. Sometimes the product simply doesn't work with existing infrastructure or doesn't integrate well with establish...

Companies have often focused on projects that save costs -- both operational and capital -- across a wide range of IT functions. The one area where companies have generally shied away from making any drastic changes has been in the area of data center buildout and operations. This area, in most case...

If I were to ask you what you thought were the main causes for business failure, what would your answer be? Lack of working capital; trying economic conditions; severe competition; obsolescence of a product? Actually, if you cited any of the preceding, you probably would be partially correct. I say ...