Jay Sachetti joined Jeff O’Brien, partner at Husch Blackwell and Dyanne Ross-Hanson, president of Exit Planning Strategies talked about the market for mergers and acquisitions, exit planning opportunities for companies that don’t end up for sale and how companies can maximize their eventual sale price during an early October panel at the first Upsize on Tap event at Summit Brewing Co. in St. Paul.
When the state Legislature passed a law requiring employers to provide paid leave and safe time for employees, Justin Bieganek started hearing differing details from friends, colleagues and peers.
Somehow, during the 12 weeks it took me to emerge from my blissful postnatal fog, business leaders everywhere were entering into a different kind of clarity, focused on and around the Internet.
The change itself is no surprise. Web and industry experts have long predicted the maturation of the Internet into a definitive business platform. But what’s surprising is how quickly and completely the switch was flipped.
When I returned to work, clients who just months before had simply wanted to build Web sites were speaking a different language. Suddenly, the CEO was at the table.
“Our site needs to do more than represent our brand. It needs to be a 24/7 salesperson, recruiter, customer service rep and industry resource. We need trackable results and high Google rankings. By the way, we also need a better way for our project teams to share information with our clients.”
The revolution is underway. Executives everywhere are making the Web a central part of their business plans, tying every function, strategy and measurement to the Web. No other platform can deliver the flexibility, integration, efficiency, connectivity, tracking or agility that the Internet provides.
And the best news for small businesses? The Web is the great equalizer where strategy, speed and execution beat size. Consider some of the ways growing companies are curb-jumping the competition by putting the Web to work.
Marketing campaign management: Imagine a world in which every marketing campaign can be tracked for actual response rates and total revenue gained; where every new lead is captured within that campaign and every opportunity tracked for why it was won or lost.
Not only does this allow businesses to evaluate the effort’s effectiveness and return on investment, but it also provides underlying insight into the rationale for success or failure and opens the process to future improvements.
With integration between tools such as Google Analytics, your public Web site, and a Web-based Customer Relationship Management (CRM) tool, this scenario becomes reality.
Operational efficiency: Walk through the operational side of your business on the Web, beginning with recruiting. Joe Job Candidate does a Google search for “engineering jobs Minneapolis”, and lands on your well-crafted recruiting home page.
His online application is captured by your Web-based human resources database, from which all screening, interviewing and hiring steps are documented and managed.
Once hired, Joe’s information integrates into an employee Intranet, through which Joe will have total access to the templates, documents and tools he needs to do his job.
The Intranet has a client-facing extranet, so that Joe’s clients can easily exchange and review files, see project status and correspond with Joe and his team.
You get the picture. Streamlined. Efficient. Centralized. Accurate. What is the result of a well-planned Web strategy for operations? Productive employees and happy customers. Not to mention incredible cost savings and increased profits.
The social Web: When it comes to matchmaking, today’s Web is far more than an online dating engine. Savvy networkers are using the Internet to forge high-level and meaningful relationships that in previous eras would require weeks to network into.
Take the social Web site www.linkedin.com, for example. This powerful online engine will hold your professional biography, as well as the names and titles of your network contacts, uploaded directly from your Outlook database.
Then, as you accept other trusted LinkedIn contacts into your online network, they can review the connections in your community and ask you to help make introductions. You can do the same with their network.
Powerful? Absolutely! The key to maximizing the connections available through sites like linkedin.com, myspace.com, facebook.com and others is to focus on building a quality network. More is not necessarily better.
Authentic, trustworthy and personal relationships are just as important online as off-line, so as you make the move to network on the Web, it’s OK to turn down someone’s invitation to connect. The business result of using the Web to network is quality leads, more quickly.
Software as a service: The business world is quickly moving away from installed software in CD-ROM format, requiring expensive server support, heavy-duty installation and customization. The Web has become the universal platform, and software developers everywhere are moving their tools and technology to this flexible environment.
Software as a Service (SaaS) first became known in the form of Web-hosted CRM. Initial concerns over data security, monthly licensing fees and Internet up-time reliability soon receded as the Web proved that it could provide the security and stability businesses required.
As an added benefit, companies found increasing cost-savings as they moved their IT staff away from managing software to proactively serving the business.
Today’s Web offers software and tools for every business function: marketing, human resources, inventory, accounting and project management. And the tools continue to improve at warp speed.
Imagine running your entire business off of one system that is automatically maintained and upgraded, with total integration capability, all on one monthly licensing fee.
Now that you’re seeing the Web through rose-colored glasses, a point of caution: Making the Internet really work for your business takes a lot of preparation and hard work, along with strategic (and often phased) execution. There are no magic formulas or one-size-fits-all plans.
It starts with a fresh look at your business plan; factors in your priorities, people, partners, budgets and short- and long-term goals; involves ongoing measurement and re-tooling; and requires focused commitment.
But if you’re serious about being in business, the question is not “if” but “when” will you make the Web your central platform. Your competition is asking itself that question right now. Who will answer first?
