In a damning poll of UK Small Business owners 88% of 29 small business owners polled say they would not Trust Royal Mail to deliver by Christmas if posted on 23rd December*
http://www.ukbusinessforums.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=182972
*Figures based on result of poll at 17:49 – 25/11/2010
It would be interesting to know how much google pay the BBC each month?
Does anyone know if the figures for are in the public domain?
Online CRM Solutions
7 years ago most CRM programs and systems where not much more than contact management systems that required businesses to purchase expensive software and host them on location. This also meant the need for more expensive computer networks and expensive and often unreliable IT ‘professionals’. While they offered value and much needed organization to companies these CRM systems and software programs where rough and sometimes difficult to implement. However the birth of online CRM solutions has meant a great reduction in direct and associated costs. It has also made transitions for relocating companies much easier than in the past. Today most CRM providers offer both options for their potential clients.
Driving Factors
Today there are many driving factors besides cost and ease of implementation that spur the need for online CRM solutions. Most notably the root factor behind this has been the recent economic crisis and global credit crunch. This has forced businesses to cut costs, relocate and outsource more than ever before. And online CRM programs have enabled companies to do this with increasing ease. Having a good CRM program alone can assist you in streamlining your business processes and reducing both hard costs and labour. Online CRM options have made moving office locations or launching into new markets a breeze. Outsourcing and remote workers have become a necessity for many businesses to survive and this would not be possible in many circumstances without online CRM.
The Online CRM Business
With an estimated $11billion to be spent on CRM this year, clearly a large portion of that will be online based CRM solutions. More and more business are going virtual and will require the use of online CRM to operate. Among these online workers are at least hundreds of thousands of freelancers and outsourced employees spread across the globe. Two of the top freelancing and outsourcing websites are oDesk and Elance. Elance boasts recent provider earnings at over $256million with over 105,000 freelancers. While oDesk is home to over 227,558 remote workers. Another similar site boasts almost 1.5million such workers and over $52million in earnings with numbers growing rapidly on a daily basis. Most of the companies using these services are new start ups that will obviously require expanding.
Clearly it is safe to say that this industry is still in boom and is likely to experience an ever bigger surge over the next couple of years at least. This should mean even lower cost options for businesses needing these services as well as new tools and applications being added to increase value. However the winners from the boom will be those who are able to provide fast service and the easiest to implement systems and tools.
Adeline Grosrenaud
Freelance Blog Writer
Since starting my business mobile phones website I have often been asked which is the best mobile phone for small business or which mobile phone plan would I recommend for small business users.
A lot of people say they like BlackBerry mobile phones for business use, but more recently the latest Nokia and HTC handsets have gained popularity too.
To be honest I don’t really think you can say which is the best mobile phone for small business as it all depends on what it is to be used for.
On saying that I like the look of the new HTC HD2 at the moment and their appear to be some really nice deals with it on T Mobile at the moment, well worth a look Click Here fo best business deals
Are you a small business with big goals? Are you frustrated by the speed of your company’s growth? Would you like someone to inject some energy into your trade?
Optomen Television, creators of award winning television, including BBC2’s Mary, Queen of Shops are aiming to address these questions by producing a major new series for Channel 5. We will tackle the issues that small businesses face on a daily basis in today’s recession soaked world with advice from one of Britain’s most successful entrepreneurs. We will help investigate everything from controlling cash flow to increasing your profit margin and with an innovative plan of action to further your business we’ll help you get on the road to success.
Further Information….
The long awaited UK small business (UKSBD) Conference is looking very likely to run in Birmingham in August 2010. The UKSBD now has over 100,000 members registered and a huge turn out is expected for this much anticipated event.
A spokesperson for UKSBD said the event will run over three days and a number of keynote speakers and business mentors are already outlined for next year. It will be a good opportunity for small business owners to have a very strong say in how they are supposed to trade through this recession. Our members are anxious to send a clear message to Parliament on their issues.
The conference planning contract has been awarded to Morris Conferencing against stiff competition. Mike morris MD said,
“With 1000-1200 delegates expected each day there is a enormous amount of cordination on transporting the delegates from their various hotels and the costs have to be low. We have done this number several times abroad with everyone there on time.”
Visit their site on www.uk-conference-venues.co.uk. Tel 08701624909 email info@corporateconferences.co.uk
The Stage Production is going to be the very latest hi tech plasma presentations with interactive polling using mobile sms systems that keep the room buzzing. The planning and installation will be done by www.supereventsman.co.uk Contact them direct on 0114 255 4008
A spokesperson for UKSBD said,
“Morris Conferencing are finishing the tender process for the selection of the venues and we look forward to an announcement in December on the website.”
There will be smaller regional meeting planned for next year as well and details and registration will by on www.conference-centres.net
Tel 01608 6824909 or email info@corporateconferences.co.uk
Mediaroots produce training DVDs for multimedia software, covering programs from software manufacturers such as Adobe, Quark, Apple, Smith Micro and Autodesk products.
Mediaroots use only presenters sourced from the British, having identified a dislike amongst British audiences for strong American accents.
The training DVDs are an affordable alternative to onsite training centres which can often charge upwards of £800 for 2 day training courses.
You can find a list of the company’s products here:
http://www.mediaroots.co.uk/products.html
Over the past months I have had problems with other directories and marketing companies abusing my data and taking advantage of the small businesses who register in my directory.
The other day I set up a honeypot listing using fake details and my own telephone number. Within 5 minutes of registering I had received my first cold call and by the end of the day had received 3 other calls.
To make life harder for these cold callers I came up with an idea of no longer displaying telephone numbers and adding a pop up box to reveal the number, whilst doing this I had an idea, I set up a unique statcounter just to reveal how many people were clicking to find telephone numbers.
At the end of the day I went through my stats chacking for the same IP numbers regularly clicking on different numbers. From this, it looks like I have at least 3 big companies regularly scanning my directory, a couple of smaller companies, and a well known marketing company, who I cannot name.
I have now removed numbers temporarily to stop the cold callers harrasing people, and will be emailing all businesses registered to warn them about the tactics these cold callers are using.
I have recently found a nice site that offers small business advice and is especially useful to those who have recently started a small business or for those who are contemplating starting up.
It has various business articles, the one that caught my eye was talking about Marketing Ideas for New Businesses and how new businesses can overcome the problem of attracting initial customers.
It is well work a look at, and is a site that I will be keeping my eyes on.
During the day I spend a lot of my time on Usenet or visiting SEO Forums and Business Forums, rather than just bookmarking the ones I regularly visit I set them all up on a page within UKSBD and just go to them from there.
This gave me the idea of creating my list of Top 10 Business Forums which I did about 12 months ago. After a recent discussion in one of the top UK forums UKBF I have now updated my list to include more details about each forum. I now provide a brief description, stats about members, threads, posts etc. and a few other details.
I will also be expanding the list and are accepting requests from forum owners to be listed, all those that meet my approval are listed completely free of charge.
Income Shifting – Will income shifting mean UK small businesses have to increase profit margins by up to 10% just to stand still?