From teleconferencing to telecommuting, universal broadband rewrites the rules on how small and midsize companies do business.
These days, just about every company enjoys broadband connections. But many smaller companies may not realize that they can leverage their broadband connections for more than just surfing the Web.
As anyone reading this might expect, even small busineses are heavily invested in broadband connections. In fact, according to AMI Partners, SMB broadband penetration is already almost 90%, and despite the recession is expected to grow to almost 95% by 2013.
SMB broadband use is high and still growing.
So, what are they doing with all that bandwidth? Ian Pennell, Senior Vice President of Cisco's Small Business Technology Group (SBTG), had some thoughts on this topic. Now, it's no surprise that Cisco would be pushing companies to use broadband and networking, but Pennell had some interesting ideas that you might not have thought of.
1. Web and video conferencing and telepresence "lets you get a few people together face to face relatively quickly," Pennell said, so you can make decisions more quickly and begin executing on them faster.
Pennell described a small Colorado kitchen-and-bath remodeling company with 14 locations but only a couple of designers in each one. It was very difficult to get the customers, designers and planners in the same room at the same time, but video conferencing now enables them to move forward on projects.
Pennell even claimed that telepresence meetings can be more productive than in-person meetings.
Don't Miss: Why YOU Aren't Using Telepresence
2. Recruit workers from different locations. Broadband conferencing options -- video and Web conferences, as well as file-sharing and collaborations applications -- make it possible for small companies to hire and contract for workers who may not be local to their area.
This can be especially important for smaller companies who work in particular niches. "The knowledge workers you need may not be around the corner," Pennell said. Even if you're unconfortable hiring full-time employees who aren't local, you may be able use broadband to hire contract workers.
And the technology is critical in this regard. I can speak from personal experience with a distributed workforce that sometimes there's no substitute for being able to point at something instead of having to describe what you mean. If you can't do that in person, you need to have a way to do it virtually.
And, of course, the technology may also be used to serve remote customers!
3. Showcase your business. Online video demonstrations let you showcase your products and services to a global audience. You can put them on services like YouTube, where they have the opportunity to spread virally, and also on your own site where they can be enhanced with online chat and other functionality to provide instant customer service and feedback. According to Pennell, video can also help bring a personal touch to a much larger group of customers - easing support costs and helping to overcome pre-purchase objections. At the same time, video also lends itself to high-impact internal company communications and training.
4. Be more productive. For example, Pennell says that unified communications (UC) can send voice mail to your e-mail inbox, giving you the ability to prioritize your messages in stead of having to deal with all them sequentially.
5. Focus on your customers. As an example, UK-based Volkswagen dealership used broadband-based unified communications to unite their two locations and letting managers route and field calls without ever having to leave the showroom floor to go to their desks.
Of course, these capabilities have advantages for businesses of all sizes, but Pennell claimed that given their meager IT budgets, broadband has even bigger benefits for small companies than larger ones.
Frankly, I'm not so sure about that. It seems to me that at this point, broadband is now a basic business utility, like electricity. The only way it's an advantage for smaller companies is if you do something new and innovative with it that larger companies can't keep up with.
And to that end, bMighty would love to hear about innovative ways your company is using broadband...
See more columns by Fredric Paul
Follow Fredric Paul on Twitter @ http://twitter.com/TheFreditor
Fredric Paul is publisher/editor-in-chief of bMighty.com and SmallBizResource.com.
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