Sunday, August 5, 2012

The New Economy Entrepreneurs and Small Business

My friend and I wanted to address a hot new business model that is sweeping the country by storm. In fact, it is not just another trend that occurs in small business, medium size business or even enterprise business. The term "New Economy" is quickly becoming a way of thinking as much as it is a game changing way of actually doing business. Before I dive into too much detail, let me clarify one thing. There are several broad spectrum definitions of the term new economy and how it applies to the business world. We are trying to focus our conversation on the typical small business, home business or even medium size corporation. We can certainly take this topic far outside this niche and speak to global economies but that is not our purpose here today. If you were to look up new economy in Wikipedia you would get some terms that describe the new economy and the new economy entrepreneurs as those that focus on the areas of operation that are most important and have core value to the bottom line of the company. Other non-critical areas are often left to outsourcing firms. Certain core elements of a business may be branding, web design, digital marketing and other technical capabilities. Many people are under the impression that the majority of the core technical, business development, and day-to-day general operations of small businesses today are attempting to outsource these tasks. Savvy business owners that are current with their education are not going down that path. There is a place for outsourcing, but it is not what one may think. You need to be educated to outsource correctly.

In fact, extremely up-to-date firms are bringing the work back in-house. The primary building blocks of the company, which certainly include modern web technology projects, are not being sent out to India or China as often as you may think. Examples of this may include custom blog design work, custom website design work, social media marketing, pay-per-click marketing, SEO, SEM and media buying. Some extremely advanced small businesses are even doing their own in-house video production. Technology has become more of a commodity. Technical skills are becoming more common with everyday business owners. The old school concept of outsourcing everything is actually not the smartest path for many small business owners. It does not save them time, it does not give them the control of a project they need and it does not allow them other advantages like speed to market. Communication and language barriers are common, and often projects are delayed due to poor management skills on the outsourcing side. There are other areas to be concerned with, like security, which we will address on another article. This may seem completely strange to many educated people, but I assure you the New Economy Entrepreneurs and the New Economy Small Business owner will find extreme value in exercising these new models.

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