Larry Alton

By Larry Alton Small business owners are no strangers to cash flow problems. Money is notoriously tight, and conserving wherever possible could mean the difference between staying in business and joining the 50 percent of small businesses that go out of business within five years of opening their doors (PDF). While many small business owners […]

By Larry Alton Your small business is probably buried under more data than snow in the days that follow big holiday sales, but have you figured out what to do with all of it yet? Now that it’s time to get your post-holiday marketing strategy in gear, business analytics comes in very handy. Here are […]

By Larry Alton As a small business owner, you’ve invested a huge chunk of your time, money, and energy to make your business work. Do you really want to risk losing it all simply because your employees failed to use basic security measures? Small businesses often fail because of security breaches that put their data […]

By Larry Alton Startups come in all shapes and sizes, but their success rate is always low. More than 80 percent of all startups fail, according to Forbes, and many factors contribute to this poor success rate, including deficient planning, imperfect business ideas, and limited capital in the market. Some startups fail miserably, like Zillionears, […]

By Larry Alton While most small businesses run to the bank when they need a new line of credit or working capital, it’s not always as simple as setting up a meeting and getting a pile of cash. In the wake of the recession, many banks still hesitate to give small businesses money. If that […]

By Larry Alton Business both large and small will never be the same again thanks to big data. It continues to revolutionize business processes with more insights and deeper intelligence shared across all business avenues. One of the areas where this data has the most influence is in supply chain management. However, despite the many […]

By Larry Alton Small business startups may fuel the economy, but that doesn’t mean that they always succeed. In fact, according to a study published by Bloomberg, 80 percent of businesses fail within the first year and a half, which is a pretty dismal outlook for aspiring entrepreneurs. The reason that so many businesses fail, […]

By Larry Alton Technology and business are so intertwined that it’s often difficult to analyze them independently. This is particularly difficult when you’re trying to decide whether it’s time to invest in new small business technology. The fact that there are so many new technologies, tools, and resources only compounds the problem. How do you […]

By Larry Alton Many people still regard Apple computers and mobile devices as immune from virus and malware infection. This mistaken belief is a holdover from back-in-the-day when the company implied that only Windows users had to worry about security issues. Remember this I’m-a-Mac-I’m a-PC security ad? Today, security threats affect every operating system, and […]

By Larry Alton As the owner of a website and a small business, you probably didn’t put much thought into choosing your Web hosting company. Be honest: can you even name it off the top of your head? Many domain registration sites double as Web hosting companies, since it’s an easy upsell. Once you buy […]