Going Global: No longer a question of how, but rather, how soon?

Posted on December 14, 2012 03:13:26 PM

By Nino Valmonte

THINKING “out of the box” is such a cliche. But in today’s world of constant communication fueled by an amalgamation of ideas, “out of the box” has to be the standard. This is perhaps what drove Reed Hastings to use the Internet to sell DVDs and turn Netflix into one of the world's pioneers in e-commerce; or Jeff Bezos to sell books online and eventually turn Amazon into the largest online retailer in the world. With a mindset that reaches out into uncharted territory, we can discover new ways of achieving business goals beyond the four walls of office.

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An enterprise's borders, much like those of a nation’s, were much better defined a few decades ago. But with the wave of development in information and communications technology (ICT) in recent years, these walls have become mere picket fences that we can just cross over in an instant. Taking a small business to a global market was not even an option in the past. Now, going global is an opportunity waiting to be taken.

With trade barriers across nations and continents constantly opening up, it only makes sense for companies to operate with the mindset that they are indeed part of the international business community. By choosing the right tools and strategies, local enterprises can now easily reach out beyond its geographic location and cater to global markets.

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Clouds cover the world

With social media practically bringing people within arm’s length of each other, entrepreneurs now have various channels and avenues to promote and sell their products globally. But what about operations? Can a local company transcend to being a truly global business with offshore operations, as easy as they can sell their products over the Internet? The answer is a resounding Yes.

The possibility has been turned into reality, through enterprise cloud computing. Backroom functions like Human Resources, Supply Chain Management, Customer Support and many others can now be mobilized from multiple sites using cloud-based monitoring and productivity applications.

You can do a quick search online and you’ll find various business applications that suit various operational requirements. Need a cloud-based application to handle payroll for you? It’s there. How about a cloud-based customer relationship management (CRM) tool? It’s there too. Yes, the popular line “There’s an app for that” applies to the enterprise as well. What makes all this even better is that these applications are cloud-based, and are able to deliver the same (or even better) results as traditional premise-based software that large corporations have been using. The difference is that cloud apps are much more cost-efficient and can be expanded as your business grows, as opposed to buying an expensive system with behemoth capacity that’ll be underutilized until the company achieves its growth objectives.

Cloud solutions can be easily implemented in your company and deployed on a global level in a matter of days. Organizations can hire or send an employee offshore and once the person is on the cloud-based system, reporting, monitoring and collaboration become standard operating procedures very easily and quickly.


Cloud a boon to SMEs going global

When a local enterprise reaches a certain level of success, going global is the natural next step. It is no longer just an option in today’s borderless world, and the rise of the cloud couldn’t have come at a better time. Never before has it been this easy to start a business and take it to a global level. Small and medium-sized enterprises are now empowered to aim higher, more than ever before, through highly efficient communications tools and business applications that enables faster time to market, and wider market reach.

By automating non-core functions such as payroll management and data archiving, and “outsourcing” these to the cloud, enterprises are able to focus on their core business without having to worry about the fulfillment of these tasks. And because these are cloud-based and are charged on an OPEX basis, companies reduce CAPEX significantly and save on IT spend.

Many service providers have recognized the demand SMEs have created and have begun creating special cloud product bundles specifically for small businesses aspiring to expand quickly, in very affordable packages. A business owner doesn’t need to look far to find the services and packages to help achieve operational efficiency, even on a global scale. We are lucky to live during a time where everything we need to grow a business is within reach.

In the same way that most of the brands we patronize locally come from all over the world, our homegrown products and services should cross over internationally just the same. Competition is no longer just on a local scale. It’s now on the world stage. With the right business tools and services, a business owner can easily grow his small enterprise into the fast-moving, multi-national, trend-making empire that he always dreamed of. Big things come in small packages, and the time to go global is now.





Nino Valmonte is the Marketing Director of IP-Converge.

IP-Converge™ is an Internet data center, telecommunications and cloud services company, providing local and regional enterprises with managed data services and business solutions at international standards. For more information, visitwww.ip-converge.com, like its Facebook page, or follow IP-Converge onTwitter.