The SMB Group’s latest survey, 2012 Small and Medium Social Business Study, examines how and why small and medium businesses (SMB) are using social media in their businesses today. The study also provides trending analysis based on comparison wi...
Tag: SMB
The Progressive SMB: Customer Stories are Worth 1,000 Analyst Words
I attended SAP’s SAPPHIRE NOW 2012 several weeks ago and am finally getting a chance to share my thoughts on the customer meetings I had at with Big Byte Corporation and KEEN Footwear at the event. These two customers are very “real” SMBs. BigByte has 52 employees; KEEN has 130. Neither is a Silicon Valley venture capital startup, which let’s face it, are a different breed. W...
SMB Tech Tidbits: Focus on Social Collaboration!
This week I had a chance to attend the 2012 Enterprise 2.0 conference in Boston, which focuses on social business and collaboration solutions. This edition of Tech Tidbits features a roundup of some of the more interesting collaboration and social apps aimed squarely at small and medium businesses (SMBs) that I was able to speak with at the show. ...
Report Card: 2011 Top 10 SMB Technology Market Predictions
--by Laurie McCabe and Sanjeev Aggarwal, SMB Group Before developing our 2012 predictions, we wanted to assess how we did on our Top 10 SMB Technology Predictions for 2011. Here’s our take on how we did--let us know what grades you would have given us! And st...
Highlights from the 2011 SMB Group Collaboration Study
The SMB Group and CRM Essentials recently completed the 2011 SMB Collaboration and Communications Study. We asked more than 800 SMB (small business is 1-99 employees; medium business is 100-999 employees) decision-makers and influencers how they collaborate, what t...
Smarter Commerce for the Midmarket: An Interview with IBM’s Ron Kline
Here’s an edited transcript of the podcast series that Brent Leary of CRM Essentials and Sanjeev Aggarwal, of SMB Group recorded with Ron Kline, director of marketing for IBM’s midmarket division, about IBM’s Smarter Commerce solutions for SMBs. If you’d like to listen to the recorded podcast series, select below. [soundcloud url="https://a...
My Love-Hate Relationship With Twitter
If you're in the IT industry, tweeting has probably become a regular part of your day, like brushing your teeth. I know it has for me, as an industry...
Are You Ready? Transforming Your Business for the Smarter Customer
—by Laurie McCabe, SMB Group In conjunction with IBM's Smarter Commerce initiative, the SMB Group and CRM Essentials are working on a series of posts discussing how technology is empowering today's customer, and why companies have to change their approach in order to build strong relationships with them. This is the secon...
The Bank of IBM: Open for Small and Medium Businesses
SMBs comprise nearly 65 percent of global GDP, account for more than 90 percent of all businesses, and employ over 90 percent of the world’s workforce. As such, SMB growth is crucial to the global economic recovery. But, as anyone that’s every run a small business knows, lack of financing often gets in the way of business growth. In fact, the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) indicates t...
Key Themes from SAP TechEd 2011–How Do They Relate to SMBs?
As the name implies, SAP TechEd offers technical education, such as hands-on workshops, deep-dive lectures and sessions with SAP technical experts about all things SAP. That said, TechEd isn't for everyone, and it’s no wonder that most of the 6,500+ attendees at SAP TechEd 2011, held the week of September 12 in Las Vegas, were SAP partners and technology specialists from the vendor’s large ente...