|
Randi Smith-Todorowski's
business was in the wrong place
at the right time.
Atlas Martial Arts, the business
she co-founded in Scottsdale,
Ariz., was thriving. But the
local economy wasn't. "The
enthusiasm was there," she says.
"But people were cutting back on
luxury items, taking second jobs
and traveling for work."
So with the end of their
five-year lease imminent, Smith-Todorowski
and her partner did what an
increasing number of businesses
are doing: they took their
business virtual.
Into the cloud
It's hard to say precisely how
many businesses are giving up
bricks-and-mortar storefronts
for Web sites, or moving "into
the cloud" in tech parlance.
Counting them is inherently
difficult, says Daniel Meyerov,
the chief executive of Los
Angeles-based OnlyBusiness.com.
But there's anecdotal evidence
from Meyerov and other experts
that more businesses are taking
a path into the cloud.
"It hit me when I got something
in the mail from my alma mater,
the University of Florida, about
a complete online MBA," says
Smith-Todorowski. "The world is
really ready for the online
Black Belt."
That's when she had the idea of
turning Atlas (www.atlasmartialarts.com)
into a "virtual" academy. For a
monthly membership subscription
fee, students would have access
to Kung Fu and Tai Chi videos,
and could learn their chosen
martial art at their own pace.
In addition to saving on office
rent, Smith-Todorowski and her
partner have managed to
dramatically expand the reach of
their business. "We've been able
to enroll members nationwide and
internationally from as far as
Spain," she says.
Is your business ready to head
for the cloud?
Here are nine questions to ask
before you do.
1. Is your business viable
online? "You'd be surprised
at how many people jump in
without doing research," says
Angela Jia Kim, co-founder of
the Web site
www.SavortheSuccess.com.
Have a clear understanding of
what you do, what you offer your
customers, and most importantly,
if you can still make money
doing it online. Some businesses
won't cut it online. Better to
find out now before you give up
the store.
2. Are your employees ready? If your people
aren't on board, you may be in
for a rough ride into the cloud.
"This can be a real challenge,"
says Karri Flatla, an
Alberta-based Internet marketing
consultant. "It takes a shift in
thinking. They're not just
logging in to fire off a random
e-mail or surf the Web." Being
virtual means leveraging the Web
for sharing, learning and
interacting as a team.
3. Do you have a plan? Making a virtual business is
more than giving up a lease or
creating a Web site, say
experts. Andy Abramson, author
of the book "Working Anywhere"
says the three most important
pieces of advice for a company
contemplating a move to a
virtual space is: Plan, plan,
plan. "Know what you're about to
do and what working virtually
will be like," he says. For
example, make sure you tell
family members, especially
children, that the workspace is
not a play space, and that
interruptions are a distraction.
4. Are your vendors up to the
challenge? Selling a
product or service online is
easier said than done. Even if
your research suggests that
going virtual can be done, a
bigger question is: Can it be
supported by your vendors?
Scott Kinka, a senior vice
president for network services
at Evolve IP in Wayne, Pa., says
vendor selection is the single
most important issue when a
business looks to the cloud.
"Many providers can't or do not
ensure any kind of quality on
services available over the
'Net," he says. "So your virtual
users will be in the position of
supporting their own technology
in the event of issues. Or
they'll have to suffer poor
quality."
5. Are you ready to grow? Taking a company virtual can
translate into lots of
opportunities. Chief among them,
the opportunity to grow. "Many
businesses forget to consider,
'What if we're hugely
successful?" says Mitzi Montoya,
a professor of marketing and
innovation at North Carolina
State University. "This seems
like a great problem to have.
But it's not necessarily." Some
businesses suddenly find
themselves facing a fire hose of
customer demand that they can't
serve. The solution? Manage the
scale of your virtual business
before it becomes an issue.
6. Do you have the right team? Employees who have
worked in an office their entire
career may have a difficult time
adjusting to life in a virtual
company. If they can't be
retrained, they may need to be
replaced.
Maureen Miller, president of the
virtual marketing firm Total
Marketing Concepts, describes
the right "virtual" team as a
group of people who can work
independently and require "very
little" oversight. "If I can pay
someone to do it for less than
my hourly billable rate, I
outsource it," she says. That
includes technical support,
receptionist services, her
executive assistant and
bookkeeper.
7. Do you have a good
consultant? Don't try to go
virtual without a competent
adviser. David Rice, the chief
executive of Phoenix-based
technology consulting firm
TrueCloud, says you should pick
someone with "a proven track
record" who can guide your
company to its goal. "There are
lots of small partner or VAR
consulting firms that can help
you easily put together a
blueprint for the services you
require," he says. (There's a
list of accredited Microsoft
Small Business Specialists here
.)
8. Do you have the right tools? A virtual business
often requires a new set of
tools and applications. For
example, when Daniel Guillory
closed the physical office of
his consulting firm, Innovations
International, he had staff
working from their homes in San
Francisco and Salt Lake City.
"Our old premise-based phone
system could never have met our
business needs," he says. So he
opted to use RingCentral (http://www.ringcentral.com/)
which offers corporate phone
services. He also discovered a
service called Elance (http://www.elance.com/)
that has a cloud-based platform
to handle project management.
For company-wide file sharing,
he used a service called Egnyte
(http://www.egnyte.com/).
9. Do you really want this? Having a physical
office, an actual store, is
comforting to both customers and
employees. Are you ready to do
away with that?
"Breaking away from how business
is done can be frightening,"
says Curt Clinkinbeard of the
Famee Foundation, a Topeka-based
non-profit that offers customer
management and marketing
training. "We tend to hold onto
the old ways of doing business,
because we don't want to appear
foolish." But today's technology
lets you move away from it
quickly and less expensively
than ever. So really, the
question is: Do you have the
guts not to do it?
"Doing business on the Internet
is definitely the way to have a
global reach," says
Smith-Todorowski, the martial
arts instructor. Indeed,
businesses owners who have
successfully gone "virtual" say
they're happy they did. Their
costs are lower, their profits
higher, and they're better
prepared to meet the challenges
of a globalized economy.
|
