With increasing access to, and demand from, overseas markets, today’s SME’s are ideally poised to realize the immense opportunity and lucrative potential that lies in exporting their products. Typically, though, small and medium-size businesses don’t have the resources – financial, operational or otherwise – to move beyond their own locally established domestic markets and meet with compliance needs, no matter how great the prospect of new international market expansion. READ MORE

According to a recent study commissioned by Blur Group, 87 percent of U.S. decision makers in procurement and vendor management agreed that they would like to partner with new service providers, though 71 percent felt they had little freedom to develop new partnerships. READ MORE

Welcome to Partnerships Matter, our column on businesses changing lives and growing their operations through strategic partnerships and collaboration. In this edition, we highlight the advances being made in big data analytics through the collaboration of leading Hadoop advocates Cloudera and Cask. READ MORE

Welcome to Partnerships Matter, our column on businesses changing lives and growing their operations through strategic partnerships and collaboration. In this first edition, we explore how Ayla Networks and REGEN Energy are collaborating to help businesses save on energy through the Internet of Things. READ MORE

Partnerships are a major growth tactic for businesses of all sizes, but 45 percent of senior executives struggle to keep what partnerships they have active and mutually rewarding. How is it that partnerships that were so carefully planned in the beginning often fall by the wayside after some time? Contrary to popular belief, too much attention to developing “smart” goals is often the culprit. READ MORE

2014 saw a shift in the way businesses around the world experience growth. Namely partnerships and alliances are leading businesses, both SMBs and enterprise alike, to expand cross-border, shorten their supply chains, strengthen their local economies and more. Industries like technology, education, healthcare and more have all benefitted and innovated through alliances between businesses – and in some cases, even between competitors. READ MORE

Buyer-seller relations can take on many forms, but it’s when they evolve into partnerships that they allow for the leanest supply chains and the highest profits. Such alliances, called channel partnerships, allow buyers and sellers to work together to find distributors and add the most value to their supply chain. READ MORE

Strategic partnerships are vital to business growth – 85 percent of business executives agree. While partnerships are traditionally thought of as alliances between businesses with complementary, but not identical, services, partnerships between industry competitors can be just as effective. READ MORE

85 percent of executives feel strategic partnerships are important to their business. How are you utilizing partnerships to fuel your business’s strategic growth? Early last month the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) Council and the Business Performance Innovation (BPI) Network released the groundbreaking Grow from the Right Intro report sponsored by Powerlinx. READ MORE

The average business spends less than 5 percent of its revenue on research and development (R&D). As vital as researching the development of new products and services is to long-term success, the costs and risk involved in such initiatives often limit businesses from investing in their longevity. READ MORE