New York SBDC Research Network

From The Simple Dollar : What was the last great business idea you had? Do you remember it? What did you do with it? Did you write it down? If you’re like most people, you had a great idea, never wrote it down, told a couple of co-workers or your spouse, and let the idea fade away without taking any meaningful action to pursue it. Or maybe you were worried about other people stealing your idea, so you kept it to yourself thinking you’ll pursue it later. But for most of us, that someday never comes. Maybe you even went as far as laying out your idea into a business plan. Whether you’re a seasoned entrepreneur or someone who has been eyeing a startup or side project to generate some additional income, good ideas often come and go like the seasons in the Midwest. But what if they didn’t? What if you actually took steps to pursue your ideas and see if they were good? According to sales expert and personal development guru Brian Tracy, “The average person has four ideas a yea

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