Projcollab:Know our market - Market trends

=2011 Market Trends=

50 Big Ideas, Predictions and Trends for 2011 and Beyond :


 * Virtual offices and co-working will thrive in 2011 as savvy small-business owners and entrepreneurs figure out they can have access to enterprise level amenities at a fraction of the cost. — Bobby Freeman, dominionbusinesscenter.com


 * Online training/learning will expand outside the traditional box. Not only will standardized training be delivered online, but sales and product training will be delivered online and via mobile devices. — Craig Olson, geolearning.com


 * In 2011, were going to see businesses take a smarter approach to social media. For example, instead of simply deciding their company needs to be on Twitter, business execs will consider how social media can be added to the marketing toolbox. By taking a more strategic approach to social media, businesses will achieve better results that ultimately strengthen the bottom line.— Heather Whaling, gebencommunication.com


 * Continued growth and acceptance of crowdsourcing and crowdfunding. This industry is maturing as social media venues expand and people recognize the power of the crowd and how to utilize and monetize their personal networks, as well as the Internet community as a whole. — Sally Outlaw, peerbackers.com


 * Mergers and acquisitions will be hot. I think the economy is improving more than we see in the press. I think that companies will try to acquire what they can while acquisition costs are relatively lower (coming off the recession). — Elliott Baretz, swc.com


 * I think successful businesses in 2011 will continue to use social media as a means of communicating with existing and potential customers. As more commerce continues to move online and mobile, virtual referrals, including customer reviews and recommendations from friends via Facebook and Twitter, will become increasingly important. — Tom Warthen, prositewebdesign.com


 * I'd argue that many more companies are embracing the app trend. Some are expanding their business into the space (banks, publications), others creating their businesses based on the apps (advertising agencies), while others, like us, are basing our business on the app as the anchor, while profiting from the business development. — Alex Shapiro, carbuzz.com


 * We see an improving business economy throughout Asia, including China, Japan, Korea and Taiwan, where electronics companies are budgeting for capital equipment purchases, something we haven't seen at this level in close to five years. — Lauro Rizzatti, eve-team.com


 * A powerful new trend in business is the rise of the solopreneur, highly skilled men and women who hire themselves out rather than continuing on in traditional, full-time employment. — Tony Hartl, planettan.com


 * One trend impacting service-based businesses is the role cloud-computing applications such as online appointment-scheduling are having on their overall operations. In addition to offering customers the convenience of scheduling and managing their appointments online, the technology helps businesses improve and automate their internal appointment-scheduling processes by reducing the number of phone calls and e-mails from customers requesting appointment times; this, in turn, frees up staff resources that can now be devoted to more important business tasks. — Eric Richard, stormsource.com

more...

=See also=
 * Back to Projcollab:Know our market

=References=