Local Businesses: Outsourcing Helps to Focus on Core Activities

It’s challenging for local business owners to focus on core activities when they have to juggle a hundred different balls at the same time. How can you focus on networking when you’re wrapped up by IT requirements? What about local partnerships and social media? As local businesses operate with smaller workforces compared to corporate giants, staff members are pushed all the times, and the growing demands of business can often make you lose track of core business operations. Fortunately, there’s the option of outsourcing.…

The Top 10 Fastest Billion Dollar Startups

There are many ways to measure the success of a startup. Profitability, value, how many people use the service or buy the product. One club that includes the cream of the crop is the “Unicorn Club,” those startups that are valued at over a billion dollars. But what about the speed in which startups get unicorn status? While it doesn’t mean they will remain successful for life, it does prove that at one point they caught the proverbial lightning in a bottle.…

Should Your Business Invest in Green Commercial Property

The most recent UN Climate Summit has many business owners wondering about the best ways to incorporate green ideas into their own businesses. For those currently looking to invest in new commercial properties, you may be wondering if limiting your search to those with green technology built-in is worthwhile. Here’s what you need to know about both the advantages and disadvantages of the situation. What Are the Advantages? When buying a property that has been built with its green credentials in mind, whether it be from installing solar panels or improving its cavity wall insulation, you should expect the annual utility bills to be heavily reduced.…

Why You Should Review Your Web Hosting for 2016

Your website is potentially the most important way that customers or prospects can engage with you as a business. If you don’t have a physical site or shop that people come to, it may even be the only public facing aspect of your business. You therefore need it to perform reliably and support all of the people who may want to be using it at any given time. Even if your website is not the friendly face of a business, but a blog or other online-only venture, it still needs to be well managed and maintained, and of course up all of the time, to win you the visitors and readers you want.…

10 Low Budget Marketing Techniques that Actually Work

When it comes to marketing you probably believe that you need to take out a hefty chunk of your annual budget to account for all those paid ads and sponsorships and giant banners that scream the name of your brand at passers by. Fortunately, it doesn’t have to be that way. Here are 10 low budget marketing techniques that deliver real results – branding-wise and profits-wise. 1. Create great content If you’re an expert in your industry, it’s time to get typing up blog posts that feature informative content about things your customers are searching for.…

How to Get your Online Business’ Terms and Conditions Right (Infographic)

Running an online business, especially if it’s an eCommerce site, is very challenging, especially when it comes to return and refund, goods delivery, and everything that’s related to order fulfillment.  While we want our customers happy, we can’t always do that, for one reason or another; moreover, not trying to point our fingers to our customers, some of them are using the ‘loopholes’ in the T&C (Terms and Conditions) – e.g. returning purchased products after the deadline, claiming for flaws in products even though they are caused by careless handling of the customers, etc.…

How To Keep Your Workplace bang Up To Date

Trying to keep up with technology is a bit like try to run next to a bullet train. While you might be able to for a small while, you’ll very soon be eating dust as it speeds away from you. Although that isn’t too much of a problem for your personal life, a lack of hi-tech equipment could prove disastrous for your business. In only two decades we’ve entered an information age which is almost entirely reliant on the most modern technology.…

What to Consider When Setting Up Your Own Franchise

It is the dream of millions of business owners to one day turn their company into a global franchise, a name known in every country throughout the world. Evolving into a franchise is a great opportunity for any business to grow and there are countless examples of those which have become incredibly successful. However, franchising doesn’t guarantee success for every business and there are many ways in which it can fall through. Consider all the following factors first if you’re thinking about starting up a franchise or turning an existing business into one.…

How to Plan for an Overseas Expansion

If your business is booming you may well consider overseas expansion. This can be a great way to break into new markets and to increase your turnover. However, it also comes with a level of risk and major expenses. Therefore, it’s worth doing some careful research ahead of time to ensure the move is successful. The first step is to assess the availability of viable office space and to weigh up the associated costs in-country to see if the idea is viable.…

Will your Business Benefit from Outsourcing?

Outsourcing is becoming a more common practice in the business world, especially when it comes to smaller and medium sized enterprises. For those that aren’t familiar, outsourcing refers to the process of enlisting third party services to carry out tasks that are traditionally done internally. Thanks to advances in technology, outsourcing has become a more practical and in many cases more cost-effective and efficient than handling all of your processes yourself. The increase in this process means that many smaller businesses can routinely outsource things like the payroll and accounting to cut costs.…