New York SBDC Research Network

From The Balance : The end of the calendar year means a lot of things for small businesses. It's time to start thinking about what you want to achieve next year and work on your formal goal setting process. Your are probably in the midst of holiday shopping for your employees, vendors, clients and colleagues. And, of course, it's time to start closing out your books for this calendar year. In fact, right now is the time to check-in with your accountant to see if there is anything you should be doing to make sure your business ends the year fiscally healthy. A few small changes can make a big difference in your total income and tax liability for the year. To get you started, here are a few important year-end tax preparation steps you can take in order to close out the year financially and take advantage of additional deductions.

From Bplans : Emotional Intelligence , also known as EI, is the ability to control personal emotions under extreme duress, as well as the ability to empathize and understand the emotions of others. Studies were first being done on EI in the workplace in 1998. Now, almost 20 years later, it is gaining traction as one of the most important traits for an employee to have... The reason? Employees, managers, and company leaders all benefit from a high EI. They are more likely to communicate their needs, understand each other’s preferences, and feel welcome and engaged at the office. Emotional intelligence is not just “wearing your heart on your sleeve,” but adjusting your behavior to make everyone feel comfortable and confident. When effectively integrated into business, EI is shown to increase profits by over 34 percent for some businesses, and increase employee positivity by nearly 58 percent. The question then arises: How can a business hire for emotional intelligence?

From Marketing Profs : Agile companies want to be able to rapidly adjust on all fronts, including Marketing. Companies are interested in marketing that's agile because they believe it will help them deploy the right elements of the marketing mix at the right time to influence the specific outcome they want to achieve. Scenarios to Facilitate Agility Scenarios are postulated sequences of events or other developments. Creating scenarios helps you consider a range of possible outcomes and drivers of change. Accordingly, scenarios are a powerful tool for understanding potential situations and then developing appropriate strategies for each of those situations. In short, scenarios help you anticipate. They help you ask better questions and prepare for the unexpected. They increase your readiness—thus setting the stage for agility. And scenario analysis is an essential part of creating agility. Creating scenarios that will be useful in helping to make marketing agile requires

From Entrepreneur : At the mid-market level, many decision makers believe they lack time and resources and so must prioritize certain aspects of the business over others. Often, the supply chain is not seen important enough to merit scarce resources. However, having a supply chain strategy is equally important for midsize companies as it is for enterprise-level firms. The most important aspect of a robust supply chain strategy is that it meets the current and future needs of the customer. Customers are more sophisticated and demanding than ever, and understanding them—will inform your long-term supply chain strategy. Talking to them directly is the best way to find out what they need. Technology can help provide end-to-end visibility across all supply chain channels, and it can speed up process steps. But it’s crucial that mid-market businesses don’t just adopt the latest technology just for its own sake. A solid supply chain strategy will place the customer’s needs front and center wh

From NOLO Thinking about starting a business? You're not alone. Every year, thousands of Americans catch the entrepreneurial spirit, launching small businesses to sell their products or services. Some businesses thrive; many fail. The more you know about starting a business, the more power you have to form an organization that develops into a lasting source of income and satisfaction. Learn how to evaluate and develop your business idea; decide on a legal structure for your business; choose a name for your business; and much more.

From IoT 2016 : The rapid advancement and ubiquitous penetration of mobile network, web based information creation and sharing, and software defined networking technology have been enabling sensing, predicting and controlling of physical world with information technology. Every business process can be empowered, and therefore, various industries redesign their business models and processes along Internet of Things (IoT) paradigm. To maximize the social and economic benefit of the technology, issues of interoperability, mashing up data, developing open platforms and standardization across technology layers have to be addressed. From Business Insider : Many industry experts and excited consumers have pegged The Internet of Things (IoT) as the next Industrial Revolution or the Next Internet. Because it will be the future of the way businesses, governments, and consumers interact with the physical world. From Forbes : IoT is centered on the idea that there is a tremendous amount of sensor

From: Bplans Whether you’re a startup or an up-and-running business, you should know what your total potential market opportunity is for your products or services. Assisting many companies over the years, as well as judged several business plan competitions, and it's surprising how most business owners can’t confidently tell you their total market potential. They say things like, “My market is everyone who eats dessert,” or, “Everyone in my community who drives a car,” or, “Anyone in the world who uses social networks.” You may think these are your markets, but you need to drill-down and get more realistic and specific about the true size of your market, or lenders and investors will question your credibility. That leads us to TAM —Total Addressable Market. When looking at TAM, you need to know how to calculate it, what it’s used for, and why it’s important—but all three numbers can be helpful to reference while you’re writing your business plan.

From Bplans : Bplans loves SaaS (or “software as a service”). It also loves SaaS businesses, subscription businesses, and the subscription business model in general. So, the company has made an effort to create resources to help you learn more about what running a SaaS or subscription business actually entails, and give you the tools to start and run one successfully. Here, you’ll find all of the best SaaS and subscription business resources, starting with a detailed definition of a SaaS business (so if you’re still unsure what it actually means, don’t worry—it's covered), all the way through how to grow your SaaS or subscription business, and inspiration from some truly bizarre subscription products out there.

If you are a company that may qualify for a waiver of the one year in business requirement (typically licensed professionals going into business for themselves who can meet all the qualifications, are generating revenue, etc, but haven't been in business for a full year), here are updated guidelines from the ESD Certification Help Desk on how to make that request and what's required as support documentation: A one year waiver for a business entity requires the following documentation before it can be forwarded to the Executive Director for final approval: 1. A letter requesting the one year waiver for the business entity in question to the NYS ESD Division of Minority and Woman Business Development explaining the services or products you provided leading up to the start of your new company; 2. The majority owner(s) current resume(s) typically listing training, and dates of employment history with brief explanation of role and responsibilities; 3. If applicable, any re

The Small Business Administration increased its guarantee percentage for bonds issued in the Preferred Surety Bond Program from no more than 70 percent to no more than 90 percent, per Public Law 114-92 of the National Defense Authorization Act of 2016. SBA guarantees will be 90 percent if the original contract is $100,000 or less, or if the bond is issued on behalf of a small business owned and controlled by socially or economically disadvantaged individuals, veterans, service disabled veterans, or qualified HUBZone and 8(a) businesses. In all other cases, the guarantee will be 80 percent. The increase will be effective Nov. 25, 2016. The new guarantee limits will expand bonding opportunities for many small businesses. For more information about the Surety Bonds Guarantees Program, please visit https://www.sba.gov/surety-bonds .

From the US Department of Labor : It’s a fact: our workforce is aging. By 2024, nearly 1 in 4 people in the labor force are projected to be age 55 or over. This is a big change from 1994, when people ages 55 and older represented only 11.9 percent of the labor force – a share smaller than those held by other age groups: 16-24, 25-34, 35-44 and 45-54. But by 2024, their projected share will be the largest among these age groups. There are two reasons for this trend. The first is an aging population: baby boomers − those born from 1946 to 1964 − are moving into older age groups. By 2024, the youngest will be 59 years old. The second reason is an increasing labor force participation rate among older workers. Research shows many older people are remaining in the labor force longer than those from previous generations. According to one study, about 60 percent of older workers with a “career job” retire and move to a “bridge job”; that is, a short-term and/or part-time position. Ano

Looking for assistance for a specific type of business NOT showing up in the very useful Business Wizard license center website? There is a "contact us" link on the license center website, on the page where all of the drop-down menus are for the type of business. One of our NY SBDC has called often and has found the representative to be very helpful in helping to determine how to categorize certain business entity types. Sometimes it ends up being in more than one category. For instance, our advisor had a taxidermy business, which does not show up as a choice. After several calls, the representative found the one person in the state who knew about the one law that applied to taxidermy!

From Fast Company : Our axiom when we set out to build our list of the World's Most Innovative Companies has always been that whatever challenges may be buffeting business--political uncertainty, market instability, international unrest--there are always pockets of extraordinary achievement. We partnered with data-analysis outfit Quid to help us identify a broader pool of candidates; that breadth reinforced our conviction that a new wave of business practices is increasingly taking hold across the world. And we were inspired by what we found.

From: SmallBusiness.com Small Business Saturday is the Saturday after Thanksgiving in the U.S. In 2016, Small Business Saturday will be November 26. The day is intended to encourage American shoppers to consider small retailers and merchants as they think of their holiday shopping. It comes as an answer to the Friday after the U.S. Thanksgiving Day (4th Thursday of November) called Black Friday and the following Monday called Cyber Monday. Both of those days have come to be associated with discounts and promotions at large retail chains and ecommerce businesses. Small Business Saturday is a promotional effort intended to encourage consumers to support local businesses that create jobs, boost the economy and preserve neighborhoods around the country.

From: Forbes Being a small business has its advantages. For example, it is generally easier for small or mid-sized companies to embrace social causes than it is for big companies.Interestingly, many of these socially-minded small businesses are finding that “doing good” also helps their bottom line SaraBella was designed with a social agenda in mind. The underlying premise was that it was possible to change the fly fishing industry while simultaneously making a difference in the local community. The results have been astonishing.