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.
IVE YEARS AGO, CEO Kirk Hoaglund would routinely perform as a juggler while running his Minneapolis-based IT consulting company, Clientek.
In one hand he’d hold a stylus; in the other, his personal digital assistant (PDA). On his shoulder he’d precariously balance his cell phone. Next came the finale: He’d use the stylus to scribble data into his PDA, while simultaneously talking into the cell phone pinched between his ear and shoulder.
Hoaglund has since retired the act. The emergence of so-called smartphones — sleek, full-featured mobile phones that go beyond PDAs by offering almost all the functionality of a personal computer, from e-mail to scheduling — have precluded him from literally having to balance two electronic devices at the same time. His brand of choice is the Motorola Q.
New technological products are streamlining the way small-business employees and owners do business. Smartphones have replaced PDAs. E-mails have replaced faxes. And instant messaging — terrain occupied almost exclusively by teenagers just a couple years ago, says Hoaglund — has been embraced by companies looking for even speedier communication with clients and colleagues.
Costs coming down
What might have been cost-prohibitive to small businesses just a few years ago has become easier to afford, say consultants. But many base their buying decisions on pragmatism, not simply on what is popular or in fad.
“Most small businesses – mine included – once they’re convinced that an expense gives them something in return, they’ll spend the money,” says Hoaglund. “But first, they have to be convinced it does anything for them.
“The ones that help them, they instantly use. The ones that don’t, they never use.”
In some cases, a company’s market demands its use of leading-edge software. Sarbanes-Oxley and HIPAA, financial and health care regulations, respectively, have forced many small businesses to highly secured and automated systems for saving and securing important documents.
“Many companies are adjusting their standards,” says Val Hector, principal consultant with All Covered in Minnetonka. “A lot of these regulations drive some of what small business has to do.”
Here’s a selected list of some of the technological products and services that small businesses are using these days, according to local technology consultants.
• Microsoft Exchange Server 2007. The latest messaging and collaborative software developed by Microsoft offers employees a single inbox to access all of their important communications — including voice mail, fax and e-mail — while avoiding the cost and effort of maintaining separate systems, according to Microsoft’s Web site. Like all software, price largely depends on the size of a company’s employee base; for a small business, the cost would probably run into the thousands of dollars.
Microsoft Exchange Server makes it easier to find and share data, documents, and schedules from anywhere. Employees, for example, can get information on upcoming meetings by accessing their calendars from a phone at the airport, says Hector.
• Microsoft Windows Small Business Server 2003. Tailored for small businesses, this slightly older system provides file and printer sharing, a secure Internet connection for all of a company’s personal computers, access to data away from the office, an internal company Web site and a full-featured messaging system that also enables employees to access e-mail from mobile devices, according to the Microsoft Web site.
Companies can expect a tab in the thousands of dollars.
Dave Koeller, a business technology consultant with Best Buy for Business, part of Richfield-based Best Buy Co., says multiple employees nationwide can remotely access company information using Microsoft Windows Small Business Server. So it’s is a good fit for small businesses with a lot of off-site employees, as well as those companies thinking about pursuing that route.
“I know that the new trend is really people wanting to work from home, which would be a huge advantage for a small business to offer,” says Koeller.
• VoIP. Small businesses with multiple locations can also benefit from VoIP (Voice-Over-Internet Protocol), which routes voice conversations over the Internet or another data network.
Vonage is the most widely recognized brand, says Koeller. Vonage’s Small Business Premium Unlimited Plan, according to Vonage’s Web site, costs $49.99 a month, which includes unlimited local and long distance calls anywhere in the United States, Canada, Puerto Rico and select European countries. LightEdge is pricier, but more sophisticated and “more reliable” than Vonage.
By using VoIP, a company — especially one with a lot of off-site employees — avoids a lot of the expense that comes with long distance charges.
VoIP is also a boon to independent contractors. Tim Murphy, an independent Minneapolis-based marketing executive, says it makes the most sense for him since he works remotely for Melaleuca Inc., a large wellness company based in Idaho Falls, Idaho. He calls leads all over the country, so VoIP keeps down his costs. “It costs me literally half what I would pay with my local provider,” says Murphy.
Another feature for those needing to be readily on call for their clients is a special manner of call-forwarding that VoIP offers, says Koeller. It can forward an employee’s office calls to his or her cell phone. If he or she isn’t available to answer, a company can set up calls to roll to a second employee’s cell phone, and after that, a third employee, and so on, until eventually the call is picked up, he says. VoIP users can also get voice mail sent to their e-mail.
But VoIP may not be feasible for many small businesses today. Companies that don’t have enough bandwidth or a sophisticated-enough internal network could encounter problems. They may find their VoIP conversations to be choppy, just like they used to be in the early days of cell phones, says Marc Agar, CEO of CA Communications, a telecom company based in Wayzata.
Common problems include high or low voice levels, known as clipping, and exorbitant noise or echoing caused by poorly configured data networks. Users may also discover a delay before they hear the other person’s voice, he says.
VoIP “is not a fad. It’s definitely the way that the industry is moving.” VoIP access in the U.S. will rise to 19.2 million lines by the end of 2007, says Agar, referring to statistics generated by The Telecommunications Industry Association and Wilkofsky Gruen and Associates, a New York-based telecom consulting firm.
“But it’s one of these things where the buzz word is out there so people think they just need to have it.”
• Integrated T1. An integrated T1 line is a high-speed digital telephone line, used for voice and Internet connectivity.
“The reason that they’ve become popular is because they’ve come down in price so dramatically,” says Agar. Five years ago, companies paid between $1,000 and $1,500 a month; now they can pay as little as $400 to $450 a month, he says.
Integrated T1 line has a consistent speed, whereas DSL (digital subscriber lines) fluctuate at times.
[contact] Marc Agar, CA Communications: 952.473.3100; ma***@**************ns.com; www.cacommunications.com. Val Hector, All Covered: 952.912.5414; www.allcovered.com. Kirk Hoaglund, Clientek: 612.379.1440; ki***********@******ek.com; www.clientek.com. Dave Koeller, Best Buy For Business: 877.393.1038; www.bbfb.com. Tim Murphy, dba Comhar: 612.788.1766; mu***@****de.net; www.comhar.biz
