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Jeff and Rich Sloan, founders of StartupNation, are inventors and entrepreneurs who provide entrepreneurial advice through their nationally syndicated radio program. They also are authors of StartupNation: Open for Business. Discover Financial Services is the issuer of the Discover credit card, which has a resources page for small businesses on its website.
There are plenty of technophobes left in the business world. But a small business really can't afford the luxury of that particular fear anymore. Computers and other technologies help a business compete and serve more effectively and allow entrepreneurs to spend more time on the core business and less on important nuisances such as bookkeeping, billing and inventory.
In an article for Discover Financial Services, Jeff Sloan and Rich Sloan, who advise entrepreneurs on starting up and building a business, lay out the basic computer and software needs for a small firm. "If you're usually office-bound, get a desktop computer with as much power as you can afford," is one tip they suggest. "You'll need it as you grow and, if demands outstrip your desktop's capabilities, it's much easier to add more memory, more speed and other hardware enhancements in this bigger box."
Given the considerable confusion many have over technology, this is a two-part article. In the second part, coming in a week, the Sloan brothers look at how to set up and monitor an effective website for your business as well as other technologies that make it easier and faster for a business to communicate with customers and employees.
POSTED BY: KT (March 02, 2008 01:13 PM)
Good comments and suggestions but I would like to see more specifics. On CRM or Inventory, what programs would you recommend we look at. We all know MS Office but moving beyond that is where we get lost.
POSTED BY: Jon Frandsen (March 04, 2008 11:07 AM)
This is Jon Frandsen, the editor of the Kiplinger Recommends section. I don't have the expertise to steer you toward specific software, but if you search for "crm" and "customer management" on our site, you'll find several Recommends articles on the topic.
Another source is silicon.com. At the bottom of their homepage is a listing for white papers. Go to the section on "enterprise applications," which includes CRM and various other applications.
Bitpipe.com has an even more extensive listing of white papers on a variety of software and tech issues. The only drawback is that registration is free required when you download copies and you can get sales calls from the given company. I've never had a hard sell, though, and they were always polite when I told them I was just doing research.
Thanks for asking, KT.
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