Open source software (OSS) vendors are reporting spectacular growth in a year when many businesses are offering excuses about the economic downturn. So, how does it matter to you as a SMB? A well known quote from investment guru Warren Buffett is “One of the lessons your management has learned – and, unfortunately, sometimes re-learned – is the importance of being in businesses where tailwinds prevail rather than headwinds.” As a small business, you want to take advantage of the tailwind, whenever you can, so that you sail faster towards your goals.

xTuple ERP Doubles Customer And Partner Base

Norfolk, VA based xTuple is a vendor of Business Suites, also known as Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software. xTuple announced a very successful 2009 despite tough market conditions. They doubled their customer base by gaining over 100 new commercial customers and doubled their partner base as well. The free OSS PostBooks edition has been downloaded over 320,000 times and they have seen a dramatic acceleration of their global user community to over 20,000 active members. This is the prospect pool from which their paid support customers will emerge.

GroundWork Increases Customer-base by 105 Percent

GroundWork Monitor Community Edition is free OSS for monitoring the data center, suitable for small medium businesses. Groundwork reports outstanding growth in 2009, increasing its customer base by 105 percent.

Sugar CRM Adds Over 2000 Customers And 50 New Partners

Sugar CRM recently announced that it enters 2010 with record momentum across revenue, community partnerships and international growth. They reported adding over 2,000 commercial customers and securing over 50 new partnerships. They also expanded their international reach during 2009, conducting transactions in over 75 countries. In addition, Openbravo, vendor of open source Business Suites (ERP) as well as Point of Sale (POS) software, announced successful growth of its global partner community, which includes over 100 partners across more than 40 countries. Also, in early 2010 they reported reaching 1.5 million downloads. JasperSoft, a vendor of open source business intelligence solutions, expect to reach 60% growth despite the down economy.

Take Advantage Of This Open Source Tailwind

It is fairly obvious that the wind is blowing in the direction of using more OSS for cost saving, have flexibility in modifying the software to the special needs of your business and in automating your operations for better customer service. Isn’t it time you leveraged this open source tailwind to reach your revenue and profitability goals too?

We know that generating business is a very competitive and herculean task for every business developer of an organization. The question arises as to what are the other processes through which we can make this competition easy. Actually I am not talking about the well established organizations, but it a matter of concern for small organizations which are putting their feet in the World market and want to be successful in business globally.

These day’s company websites are a good way to describe their business, but how can the small organization websites be made popular globally. The questions arises as to how can we be popular globally, the simple answer to this is through SEO (Search Engine Optimization) of the website. SEO Promotes your site on all the major search engines and shows your websites popularity and ranking on the search engine.

There are so many process related to search engine that are generating the business lead for the organizations.

Post classifieds:

The Newsgroups also Known as Press-Release Sections on the Internet are vital areas online, where people discuss their interests concerned with the business. There are over 16,000 newsgroups so just about every special interest is represented. One can register their sites and blogs, offer information via e-mail, even post classified-type advertisements in the available business groups. In these groups subscribe services are made available. Through mail you can get daily update about the related topic after subscribing. There are so many classifieds sites from where people get good responses like craiglist gumtree, cracker etc.

Post classifieds and announcements to Online Service Classified areas:

There are many best places to generate a fair number of qualified and responsible leads. Actually these are the paid sites but they also have free sections. Some sites are AOL and CompuServe etc.

Post classifieds in Commercial Sites:

There are a few online commercial sites that accept classified advertising. They allow one to directly link the advertisement with their web site. The search engines optimization, Yahoo and InfoSeek can be used to find them. Few sites are imall and imallglobal.

Post lead generating Articles:

Articles are beneficial in many sense if you are putting a unique content inside them, it helps in generating lead, increase traffic in your site. There are many unique sites where one can put the articles for publishing like EzineArticles, dashboard , 1articles etc.

Obtain reciprocal links from similar sites:

Always obtain links with similar sites and similar PR sites. It helps to make your site popular in all search engines and also helps in increasing the PR of your website.

Purchase links from proven traffic Sites.

There are many sites which are very popular on search engines, if one links with them then it will lead to popularity among several already linked sites with them. These sites provide paid links but some also show reciprocal links.

Create Press Release.

There are several sites which publish free news on their sites; actually main objective behind them is to publish the news and get attention of the people towards their organizations through the website.

Submit the website with leading Search engines:

Then one can also submit the site in all directories list just by putting the sites information in few major sites like dmoz, Lycos, Alexa etc.

Use e-mail Marketing:

This is not a good method and is ignored by people mostly .But if you want to get the attention of the people make an attractive mail heading it should not be alluring.

These are the few methods to be kept in mind to do better business. Besides these there are some conventional methods those cannot be ignored like-holding Business cards and letterheads, Printing and display advertising, Broadcast advertising like radio and TV, Press and publicity releases.

One of the biggest myths of entrepreneurship is that there is a one-size-fits-all structure for writing a business plan. Business plan books and software may provide you with a formalized structure, but it’s up to you to make heads-or-tails of which of those aspects apply to your business. Do you need to fill out all of the details? What if you don’t know the answers or if many sections don’t seem to apply to your business?

Business Planning Fundamentals

If you aren’t looking for investors or funding, consider writing up an informal business plan and modifying it as you go. When you first start out, you will need to do some planning to evaluate whether you have a solid business ideal that will become profitable in the near future. Some of the questions to ask include:

Is there a market for your products and services? Which types of customers and clients are most likely to buy what your company offers? How will you differentiate your company from your competitors? Why should prospects do business with you over all other options out there? How much revenue can you bring in next month, in six months, in a year? What are your startup costs? What are your initial monthly expenses? Do you have or can you get the appropriate resources (money, technology, equipment, expertise) to start your business? Will you need to hire partners, employees, vendors, or contractors to help you? What will their job functions be? Who will be responsible for day-to-day business tasks?

Why You Need a Written Business Plan

If you are starting a sole proprietorship, initially, you will handle everything yourself. It’s up to you to keep track of all the details, deadlines, and financials so your company can thrive, so having a written business plan that includes each of those sections can help you keep everything organized.

If you find yourself saying, “But I’m too busy getting things done to plan,” then it’s time to put some time aside to sit down and create a plan. If you are always putting out day-to-day fires and dealing with emergencies, you can easily lose focus on the big picture – where you want your company to be long-term. A plan will keep you moving in the right direction, help you focus on the most important tasks that make the biggest impact on your business, and get you to your destination much faster.

As your business grows and evolves, things can become more complicated. If you hire employees or need to apply for a business loan, you will need to share your business information with outsiders who don’t know the company as well as you do. At that point, you may find it helpful to create a more formal document that anyone can pick up and understand what your company does and how well it is doing. You will probably need to expand your business plan to include information such as an analysis of the market, industry and your financial projections and descriptions of your company, management team, and operation logistics.

However, don’t fall into the mindset that you need a completed, formal business plan before you start your business. The only time a business plan is complete is when the company is dead. Your business plan should be a living document that grows with you, so start with what you need and build it out as you need it.

Whatever type of business you intend to start, whether for profit or non-profit, you have to have a business plan. You need a detailed description and clear objective of how you intend to operate your intended business. This is an essential step for every business that intends to succeed. Furthermore if you have one, you may have an easier time especially if you will require funding.

You will need to appear professional and capable when looking for money for your non-business. A solid business plan will help you cover various areas if you are trying to access funds through a grant application. Since it already has all the necessary information required, it will be easier and faster to process your application. This type of business mostly gets its money from donors.

When you decide to write a non-profit business plan, you have to include a mission statement plus the experience of the staff. In addition an in depth description of what the business is all about the services that you will be offering to the public will be required. A description of the challenges and prospect that the business may face in the first years is also a necessary aspect that has to be included.

As the business continues to grow, the business plan continues to change. This is vital because the needs of the business keep altering and may need more financing along the way. Perhaps you are shifting to a different location or the need to expand. The not-for-profit business plan can be used as an effective management tool. It benefits the business as the team members will be compelled to think in the long term. This will help the business progress in the right direction.

The format of a Business Plan is something that has been
developed and refined over the years and is something that should
not be changed. Like a good recipe, a business plan needs to
include certain ingredients to make it work.

When you create a business plan, don’t attempt to recreate its
format. Those reviewing this type of document have expectations
you must meet. If they do not see those crucial decision-making
components, they’ll see no reason to proceed with their review of
your business plan, no matter how great your business idea.

Executive Summary Section

Every business plan must begin with an Executive Summary section.
A well-written Executive Summary is critical to the success of
the rest of the document. Here is where you need to capture the
attention of your audience so that they will be compelled to read
on. Remember, it’s a summary, so each and every word must be
carefully selected and presented.

Use the Executive Summary section of your business plan to
accurately describe the nature of your business venture including
the need that you plan to fill. Show the reasons why people need
your product or service. Show this by including a brief analysis
of the characteristics of your potential market.

Describe the organization of your business including your
management team. Also, briefly describe your sales and marketing
plan or approach. Finally include the numbers that those
reviewing your business plan want to see – the amount of capital
you seek, the carefully calculated sales projections and your
plan to repay the loan.

If you’ve captured your audience so far they’ll read on.
Otherwise, they’ll close the document and add your business plan
to the heap of other rejected ideas.

Devote the balance of your business plan to providing details of
the items outlined in the Executive Summary.

The Business Section

Be sure to include the legal name, physical address and detailed
description of the nature of your business. It’s important to
keep the description easy to read using common terminology. Never
assume that those reading your business plan have the same level
of technical knowledge that you do. Describe how you plan to
better serve your market than your competition is currently
doing.

Market Analysis Section

An analysis of the market shows that you have done your homework.
This section is basically a summary of your Marketing Plan. It
needs to show the demand for your product or service, the
proposed market, trends within the industry, a description of
your pricing plan and packaging and a description of your company
policies.

Financing Section

The Financing section must show that you are as committed to your
business venture as you expect those reading your business plan
to be. Show the amount of personal funds you are contributing and
their source. Also include the amount of capital you need and
your plan to repay this debt. Include all pertinent financial
worksheets in this section: annual income projections, a
break-even worksheet, projected cash flow statements and a
balance sheet.

Management Section

Outline your organizational structure and management team here.
Include the legal structure of your business whether it is a
partnership, corporation or limited liability corporation.
Include resumes and biographies of key players on your management
team. Show staffing projection data for the next few years.

By now you’re probably thinking that you don’t need Business Plan
just yet. Well you do, and there is business plan building
software that can help you through this immense project. These
software packages are easy to use and affordable. Use one today
and produce a professional-quality Business Plan – including all
critical components – tomorrow!