Decoding the new economy

On April 29 I’m helping Flying Solo with a webinar on how small and single operator businesses can future proof their businesses.

During the webinar we’ll be looking at how businesses can adapt and profit from a rapidly changing economy.

Some of the things we plan to discuss include the trends driving the changing marketplace, some of the tools businesses can be using to harness a rapidly evolving workforce and methods to attract mobile consumers.

We’ll also have a look at some of the ways canny business owners can use social media, cloud computing and other online services to make their businesses more profitable and flexible in a tougher business world.

The webinar itself is free and you can sign up at the Flying Solo website. Hope to see you there.

Similar posts:

I’m presenting View From The Cloud this afternoon where we look at the results of SmartCompany’s technology in business survey.

The results are interesting, with nearly half the respondents saying they don’t use any cloud services.

Almost certainly, those respondents are wrong – they don’t realise many of the things they do on the web are cloud based. The 9% who nominated “they don’t know” are closer to the truth.

Those “unknown unknowns” are the big challenge for business managers and owners – those who think cloud computing isn’t being used in their organisations don’t know what their staff are up to with their laptops and smartphones.

Of those who are knowingly using cloud computing services, over two-thirds said they did so for the flexibility while just under a half appreciated the cloud services’ ability to grow with their business.

An encouraging aspect of the survey is how only a quarter of the respondents nominated price as being the reason for adopting cloud services.

This is an aspect of selling cloud computing services that has worried me for a while, that companies are commoditising their market by giving away free – or insanely – cheap services.

As always, price doesn’t drive the good customers and this survey illustrates that. Provide a good service at reasonable price points and the customers will come.

Business respondents also illustrated a mature attitude towards risks with cloud service with 61% concerned about data safety and half of that number worried about access issues.

An interesting part of the threat response was that 17% had other concerns about cloud technologies – including being tied to one vendor.

This is an interesting attitude which indicates people don’t understand the degree of vendor lock in that already exists in the computer world and why the majority of businesses are using Windows computers running Microsoft Word. If anything, cloud services are far more open than boxed software.

Vendor lock in though is a real concern and something that all cloud computing users should check before they, or their business, becomes too dependent on any one software package, consultant or online application.

Overall, the SmartCompany business technology survey is an interesting snapshot of where business is today with emerging trends and services. Join us at 12.30 to discuss the results.