Posts Tagged ‘ dropbox ’

5 ways the cloud can be better for SMB companies

Gartner, Forrester and just about every other reputable analyst, technologist or CIO tend to agree. The Cloud is good for SMB companies.

The openera philosophy is simple. Believe in the open exchange of ideas and work with good people who are willing to work hard. Focus on your strengths and shore up your weaknesses with good partners. Succeed together.

Here are 5 ways The Cloud can help SMB Companies immediately:

  1. Manage Content (Documents, records, forms, media…)
  2. customer, partners contact management (CRM)
  3. Office essentials (Email, Calendar, Tasks…)
  4. Project Management (development, marketing, human resources…)
  5. Communication (VoiP, web presentations, im, chat & social.) 

We run our company on a combination of Google Apps (email, calendar, tasks & collaborative documents) Salesforce.com (CRM & Marketing Automation) Dropbox & Box.net for content management & back-up and Skype + DimDim for VoiP, Screen Sharing, and web presentations. For a few thousand dollars a year, we can run our entire organization better than well funded multi-national companies could 10 years ago. As a small business owner, that makes me smile.

How is cloud content management different?

Differentiation is a pretty important topic. I spend a lot of time talking to people who never tell me why they are different from the rest of the world.
“What is the one thing you want prospects or investors to remember about your business?”
Try to remember that specs are not a replacement for differentiation. Good differentiation is active, intentional and well debated. Boil it down. Discover your unique value proposition. In other words, what exactly makes you so different that I will spend my hard-earned cash on you.
Oh, and make sure what makes you different is a good thing. Being the only garage that doesn’t insist their mechanics are certified is not a good differentiator.