Failure to understand your customers’ needs and wants could result in ill-informed marketing strategies. And when your company can’t satisfy their demands, they’ll likely turn to your competitors instead. To prevent this, deploying a customer relationship management (CRM) system can make a world of difference.

Over the previous months, you’ve probably heard about new and disruptive trends like virtual assistants, smartphones, and automation technologies. Some of these IT solutions may even be placed on top of your business priority list. However, with floods, fires, and power outages just around the corner, disaster recovery and business continuity plans should always have a place on your annual budget.

At a recent cloud technology conference, Amazon Web Services (AWS) launched a tool to help streamline data analytics in the cloud. This new tool, named “Glue,” is designed to help reduce the burden on engineers and employees so they can get down to the important elements of data analytics.

Small business marketing has often been a difficult endeavor for small business owners. Marketing involves a great deal of time, effort, and can require significant financial investment. For a long time, marketing automation was something only enterprise-level businesses and corporations could afford, but with new technology, that’s no longer the case.

The astounding amount of data that businesses create on a daily, monthly, and yearly basis is totally unprecedented. And that number doesn’t show any signs of slowing, most likely reaching 1.7 terabytes per person by the year 2020. For businesses harnessing that data, this creates a major challenge: Current data storage limitations make it nearly impossible for businesses to backup all their information in a timely fashion.

Business Intelligence strategies have been utilized by company owners for decades, but only in today's Internet-based market do they have access to all the information they need in one location. See how business owners can use their business intelligence technology to budget for the coming fiscal year.

With YouTube, Reddit, and Instagram just a few clicks away, it’s a miracle you can get anything done during an eight-hour workday. As you’re probably well aware by now, there is a huge possibility for employees to waste precious time on sites not related to your business.

Besides looking like an early version of Cyclops from The X-Men, what’s with all the hype on virtual reality? How much of a difference can be made by slipping ourselves into a three-dimensional world? For businesses, operating with the same routine day in and day out can be quite monotonous for employees.

Companies can pay a hefty sum if they ever experience any downtime. In fact, Delta Air Lines had a bad bout of severe downtime just last month. In just three days, the airline company cancelled 2300 scheduled flights and suffered $150 million in income loss.

What are the components of a good CRM software? Must it fit into your budget? Should it be easily navigable? Or must it have a simple interface? All the aforementioned qualities are vital, but none of them are important if they don’t meet all your business’s unique needs.