B2B Connection

Corporate learning management systems allow companies to effectively train new hires, maintain compliance, and provide professional development opportunities. Given that SaaS products at the enterprise level come with an extremely hefty price tag, selecting the right one is vital. Enterprise companies need to ensure that the corporate LMS they select is equipped to handle their needs across departments and at scale from day one.  We’ll break down the most important LMS features for enterprises, as well as evaluate some of the most popular LMS products. For more details about the features and benefits of a corporate learning management system, check out our previous blog post. What do Enterprises Need From an LMS? Enterprises generally have employees in several geographical locations, each with their own labor laws and compliance standards. These companies also have more complex professional development needs than their smaller counterparts. For example, many enterprises have a large number of entry-level employees. Enterprises can utilize an LMS to offer learning materials and online courses prepare these employees for more senior roles. Standard Training for All Employees A corporate LMS helps enterprises make sure that their new hires come in with the same knowledge baseline. This saves HR from having […]

Social media is essential to building brand awareness and increasing sales. This is especially true for smaller businesses. Social media analytics is indispensable for improving social media performance and business growth. If you’re a small business or eCommerce merchant, free social media analytics tools can boost your social marketing strategy.    Even if your company has a bit more spending power, using a free tool can help you test the waters before committing more resources. Free tools with paid versions make it easier to scale at reduced risk by allowing you to test how well they integrate with your tech stack. Social media analytics tools are designed to gather insights, metrics, and KPIs for websites and social media accounts. This helps you optimize how your product or service is positioned within your niche market.    Best Free Social Media Analytics Tools in 2022 Over the past couple of years, many of the best social media analytics tools with free features have been acquired by other companies. This was the case with Socialbakers, which is now part of the Emplifi social media management platform. Other popular products, like Cyfe, now only offer paid plans. Though mergers and price hikes have been on the […]

Social Media Analytics has become indispensable for digital marketing. Whether you’re looking to increase sales or raise brand awareness online, social media is more important than ever. Social Media Analytics refers to metrics and key performance indicators (KPIs) used to track user activity. This activity can be anywhere from websites, blogs, review sites, or social media accounts.  Consumers everywhere are spending an increasing amount of their time on social media. A business that leverages analytics can improve customer outreach, brand recognition, and profits.        The Importance of Social Media Analytics Social media analysis can help you understand how social media users interact with your website and social accounts. It allows you to track website performance and reactions to social media posts, and also make campaign adjustments. This process allows you to gauge consumer sentiment around your product. You can also keep tabs on competitor activities and the impact they have on users online.  Common use cases for social media analytics include:  Audience profiling Competitive benchmarking Content optimization Building brand awareness Key metrics include conversions, demographics, impressions, click-through, engagement rate, comments, shares, or retweets.  With as many as two-thirds of consumers doing their shopping on social media, companies are now using their […]

If you’re still using a static content management system (CMS) for digital content delivery, you’re getting left behind. Digital experience platforms (DXP) allow you to create the seamless, personalized experiences your customers expect. The best DXP solutions help you elegantly align content, user data, and analytics. As useful as DXPs are, their cost can be prohibitive. We have selected three products with free, open-source options that give you the benefits of DXP on a budget. Depending on your needs, you can work within these limitations to get the benefits for free. You won’t need to rely on vendor-led demos or free trials, which push you towards the paid product. Product Pros Cons Notable Features Best For Pimcore All core DXP features for freeExtensions add extra features You may have to search for or build the extensions you needCommunity extensions aren’t guaranteed to stay up-to-date Flexible and modular, able to fit many different use casesFree demo available online Managing and using lots of product data alongside customer data Jahia DXP Lots of templates and guided tutorials30-day free trial of full platform Free edition excludes personalization and A/B testingFree edition is limited to 1 site with 25 concurrent visitors Out-of-the-box support for […]

Small businesses will go far if they have amazing customer communication. If you want to keep fostering strong customer connections you need an online presence, starting with a reliable phone and messaging system. One great phone solution for small business owners is voice over internet protocol (VoIP), which is essentially a virtual phone system. VoIP phone systems can often be cheaper than traditional phone landlines and offer important business communication features.  You can improve call quality, use mobile app versions, and take advantage of team collaboration features. A VoIP service provider could satisfy your business needs in unimaginable ways. What is a VoIP? VoIPs are software that essentially allows you to talk, message, and video call over the internet. They can provide you with more convenience if you’re a remote or hybrid team that doesn’t want to be tied down to a landline. For startups and small teams, VoIP phone services expenses can often be lower than your traditional phone plan.  For more information, you can see our definition article that explains how a VoIP works and its general benefits here.  VoIP Systems For Small Businesses The most common VoIP business phone services include unlimited calling, unlimited video conferencing, and […]

Help desks are a vital tool for companies to make a good impression on customers when its most important: when things aren’t smooth sailing. Your product or service can be sensational, but everything made by, run by, or sold by humans will go wrong. Enter your help desk system and software.  Help desk tools have to be as changeable and responsive as the industries they serve, which is to say, most of them. As a result, the most up-to-date information is essential for buyers, sellers, and employees in the sector. We have compiled some of the most important stats for you, in the following categories: Industry stats Customer Service Usage Impact of Help Desks Inside Perspective on Customer Service The Impact of Covid-19 on Customer Expectations Overall Customer Expectations We also touch on some essential trends to be aware of, including: A Focus on User and Employee Experience Help Desk Proactivity Automation is looking Different First, here are the stats Top 26 Help Desk Statistics  Help Desk High-Level Stats Only 28% of customer experience teams offer a knowledge base. (Salesforce 2020) The help desk software market share is projected to reach $11 billion by 2023. (Transparency Market Research, 2021) The […]

The progress of the modern world increases the power and necessity of the internet with each passing day. Businesses use the internet for commerce, connection to consumers, and spreading information. Web accessibility evens the playing field for those that would otherwise struggle to use search engines, open social media apps, and buy goods over the internet. Everyone deserves equal access to the same opportunities, and that includes websites on the internet. What is Web Accessibility? Website accessibility means that web platforms need to provide alternative solutions so that those with disabilities can use their services. This can be basic things like navigating a website so that they can buy shoes, groceries, or new phones. One way to do this is by adding alt text to all your images. Those with visual impairments like low vision and color blindness use alt text to interpret what a product is. You can also make your site compatible with keyboards for those with low mobility to use the tab key to navigate pages. Most importantly, your site should have the functionality to be used with assistive technology. Assistive technology is any tool a disabled person would use to make the web more perceptible and […]

When you create a website as an individual, startup, or small business web accessibility isn’t always at the top of your to-do list. Major corporations hire experienced developer teams and have their own legal teams and policies set in place. Small teams not so much, which leaves you exposed to lawsuits if you don’t have an accessible website to people with disabilities. We’re going to explain the laws around web accessibility and tips and tricks to answer the question, is my website accessible? What is Web Accessibility? Web Accessibility is the practice of making digital content accessible for people with disabilities just as it’s accessible to everyone else. The World Wide Web Consortium, better known as the W3C offers an amazing introduction to web accessibility, as well as resources to meet accessibility requirements. For an in-depth exploration of web accessibility see our enlightening article here. The Americans with Disabilities Act and Rehabilitation Act of 1973 The ADA is a law that has been around for 32 years, since July of 1990. It’s based on the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and is enforced by multiple different federal agencies. There were amendments (ADAAA) made to the law in 2008 (in effect […]

Web accessibility is a concept that can revolutionize your company’s connection with consumers in unfathomable ways. Web accessibility standards can have a reputation as something you’re forced to abide by because of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). Instead, you should see it as a powerful solution to optimize user experience, brand reputation, and visibility Web accessibility is built on the concept of equal access for everyone. The more effort put into creating accessible content, the more demographics you can reach. Web Accessibility Explained Web accessibility means ensuring that everyone whether they’re blind, deaf, or neurodivergent, can use your website/web platform. This includes necessary accommodations for those with disabilities that would otherwise lose out or misunderstand the content on your site. There can be nothing hindering potential consumers and their connection to your product/information.  There are 4 principles of web accessibility, which are sometimes referred to with the acronym POUR. The principles are as follow. 1. Perceivable  The way people see the world changes for each individual. This means making your website “seen” through all possible senses relating to the virtual world. They should be able to see it, hear it, and touch it (i.e. mobile phones and tablets). Perceivable […]

Whether your business is large or small, marketing intelligence can give you a leg up in an increasingly competitive business world. Marketing intelligence refers to the insights, stats, or data that help businesses position products and services within their niche industry. Let’s take a closer look at what marketing intelligence is and why it’s important.      Why Marketing Intelligence Matters Marketing intelligence is all about seeing the big picture, while also exploiting specific data sources to gain a competitive advantage over rival firms.  By following market intelligence best practices, businesses can gain actionable insights into their existing market. They can also acquire the necessary knowledge to break into a new market, whether that means rebranding or expanding overseas. For larger companies with several product lines, marketing intelligence will be more complex and even more indispensable.         Benefits of Marketing Intelligence In general terms, we can break the benefits of marketing intelligence down into a knowledge trident that involves self-discovery, market understanding, and customer understanding.    Self-Discovery It’s hard to excel at anything without knowing what you do best. Identifying strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT analysis) will help you develop business strategies that play to your strong points. These strategies will help you […]

If this is your first foray into the world of call centers and contact center technology, a critical first step is understanding which software products are available.  For new contact center businesses, nothing’s more frustrating than investing in an inbound call center solution only to realize your agents need an outbound contact center platform. Worse still is realizing your new on-premise software will need to be replaced with a cloud-based solution within the next year.  There are a range of different types of call or contact centers that may be more or less appropriate for your business:  Call Centers Contact Centers Inbound Centers Outbound Centers Cloud-based Centers On-premise Centers Multichannel Centers Omnichannel Centers Before investing the time and money into searching for, purchasing, and implementing software, make sure you’ve found the contact center product that will best match your current and future needs.  If you are looking for the hottest stats and trends in the contact center world, we have you covered. Click the button below to learn more. 4 Comparisons to Consider Before You Start Taking Calls Not all contact center technology is equipped for the full range of call center activities. Conversely, software that has an exhaustive list […]

Organizations in many sectors use cloud management to optimize data, infrastructure, and services on the cloud. Cloud management techniques also help leverage cloud resources to develop and deploy software applications through APIs. The ultimate goal is to enable growth at scale and provide more flexible data storage, all while reducing cloud costs. Let’s take a look at the main elements of cloud management, and how your organization should approach it.          Elements of Cloud Management  Optimizing data use and app deployments on the cloud requires a combination of special management skills. This includes making important decisions about user responsibilities, team building, software tools, as well as data governance and security. Here are the 5 most important elements of cloud management that any organization should consider when working on the cloud.     Choosing a cloud environment Businesses need to consider three types of cloud environments: public, private, and hybrid clouds. Most private companies operate in the public cloud, through cloud service providers like Google Cloud, AWS, or Azure. Enterprises can choose to set up their private cloud architecture, with an exclusive data center and on-premises hardware. Banks typically go the private route, to provide extra protection for sensitive financial information.     The hybrid cloud […]

Software organizations and IT staff are some of the most skilled and avid users of cloud technology. This doesn’t mean they don’t need an upgrade. Powerful automation and monitoring tools can revolutionize their workflow. There are cloud management solutions for all kinds of cloud computing services: private clouds, public clouds, hybrid clouds, and multi-clouds. There’s software that’s separate from your cloud services, but there are also many solutions within Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft Azure that you can use to manage your cloud as well.  We go over the different benefits of cloud management platforms. If you’re new to cloud management software we have a section that gives a brief overview.  What is Cloud Management Software? Cloud management software is designed to manage your resources on cloud computing platforms. The complicated part is the functionality of cloud management tools. The software used to be about cost and flexibility, but many new cloud services are offering more features to streamline the workflow of IT teams. Many groups use complex cloud applications, and need management for the costs, real-time metrics, the run time, and much more. Cloud management covers diverse needs and the capabilities will be different for each software. Below […]

If you need to investigate or research something, you need great software. Law firms primarily use eDiscovery software to organize electronically stored information (ESI) so they can sort through the evidence.  These tools are not limited to law firms. Government agencies and corporations have motivators for needing software to conduct internal investigations. eDiscovery software doesn’t need to be reserved for an investigation per se, but multimedia research and storage of important documents.  This article provides a list of some of the most popular eDiscovery service providers and offers recommendations on which ones might be right for you. Choosing the best eDiscovery software could be the difference between winning a case, properly investigating embezzlement, or keeping a special research secret.  What is eDiscovery Software eDiscovery software is a document review software. The software allows you to upload documents and then search for important dates, names, subjects, and other metadata classification fields.  The software is extremely search-dependent. The ability to search for specific information fast and accurately is crucial. Organizing the information in the database is very important for when you need to go back to something you already searched and classified. Functions that allow those search capabilities include filtering, tagging, culling, […]

Project management software is essential for helping your team collaborate. Before committing to a project management tool, however, you need to ensure that it has the right features and capabilities to suit your team’s needs. A startup working on several projects simultaneously will need software that can keep up with its rapid pace. A client-facing small business may prefer an all-in-one project management and CRM solution. Larger enterprises will likely need many different permissions settings and workspaces for all their users. We will explore some of the factors everyone should consider when choosing project management software. We’ll also look at some specialized features offered by some tools that might benefit your team. If you’re new to project management, you can watch this video first for a quick primer on what it is, and how it can help your business: Key Considerations for Choosing the Best Project Management Software Let’s look at several key factors to keep in mind when comparing options. Ease of Use The goal of using project management software should be to streamline your workflow. Options with an intuitive interface will make task tracking significantly less tedious for your team. Ease of use will mean different things depending […]

How you manage your data affects your company’s entire workflow. If you use a file system, there can be several rooms for error. The ideal system to store your data is one where you can customize, organize, and protect your data with. There are integrity constraints with a simple file management system. Your data quality will also be at risk without protection.  We will go over the advantages of database management systems. This includes the kinds of database man, the database structures, the different data structure needs, and the overall benefits of these systems.  What is Database Management? Database management, in the simplest terms, is organizing your data. This can be the lists of patients and their personal information. It can be your contacts, their information, templates you set aside for their correspondence. You can structure cloud applications in a database, as well as storage.  Your database needs will help you decide the type of database system you want and the type of software you may want to manage it. A database management system (DBMS) is what organizes and structures your imputed information. A service for managing a DBMS is not a DBMS. The DBMS is the actual database with […]

Whether you store data with PostgreSQL, MySQL, or NoSQL, there’s a good chance that a database management system (DMBS) can save you time and headaches. Several factors can help you select the right DBMS for your organization. Consider your current database type, business needs, and scalability requirements. If you’re unfamiliar with databases, this video offers a great introduction to some of the fundamentals! We’ll guide you through evaluating DBMS products based on four factors: Pricing Existing Database Migration Functionality and Business Needs Scalability DBMS Pricing The perfect DBMS for you might as well not exist if it’s outside your price range. The range of pricing options is as large as the range of DBMS options itself. Free open-source DBMS products are common, like many other products in the database world. Vendors may also offer paid support plans or proprietary licenses built upon the open-source component. Generally, though, “free” is the starting point for open-source options. Yearly licensing fees and tiered systems are another common pricing model. Depending on your selection, yearly fees can range anywhere from under $100 to over $2,000 per user per year. Cloud-based vendors may charge a per-hour or per-resource fee in addition to licensing fees. These […]

Project management software is a valuable tool that can help you organize and collaborate on projects of any type or scale. You may need a customizable tool with plenty of automation. You may prefer a simple and intuitive interface, or software that is well suited to your development team’s agile workflow. You can take advantage of these useful features at no cost with free project management software. No matter what features you’re looking for, we’ve found the best project management software you can get for free for you and your team members. What Makes the Best Free Project Management Software? All the tools on this list were selected for their feature-rich free versions and suitability for different use cases. Below is a quick overview, before we cover each tool in detail.  Software Tr Score Free Version Limitations Biggest Pro Biggest Con Jira 8.2 10 Users, Unlimited Projects, 2 GB Storage, No Customer Support Integration with DevOps Tools and Support for Agile Workflows Can be Complicated to Learn, Only Designed for DevOps Trello 8.4 Unlimited Users, Unlimited Workspaces (Teams), 10 Boards per Workspace Efficient, Intuitive Interface Free Version Only Includes Board View ClickUp 8.8 Unlimited Users, Unlimited Tasks, 100 MB Storage, […]

Fleet management software allows organizations to help with the daunting tasks like organizing vehicles, drivers, incidents, and so much more. The right software can simplify this logistical quagmire and unlock the potential of your organization. As such, there is a huge array of options available. Fortunately, by breaking down your needs, limits, and scale, you can choose the best fleet management software for your budget. In this piece, we will cover: Pricing Scale and Scalability Features Needed  Mobility Ease of Use and Integration With all of these features in mind, you will have a much better picture of exactly what you are looking for. With that, we can start to look at some of the software out there. Fleet Management Pricing A software could do everything you ever dreamed of and more, but be utterly useless if it is too expensive for your budget. The first and potentially most important part of any software discussion is a rough guide to pricing. As a general rule, fleet management software will cost you about $25-40 per vehicle. The extremes can range from $5-$250 per vehicle, but these tend to be for very specific use cases.  Other costs can include hardware that may […]

The covid-19 pandemic is a major reason for a spike in VPNs, but the market has found ways to make themselves relevant for non-work uses as well. Virtual Private Networks (VPN) are rising in popularity for both remote work and personal use. VPNs do not protect against malware or stop you from being hacked, but many are interested in using them for secure networks for work, and to stay safe on public networks.   One major reason for more VPN use is simply increased advertising on entertainment sites, specifically, YouTube. The trends section below covers the kind of advertising VPNs are doing on YouTube and elsewhere. The market is expected to grow exponentially, and many are scrambling for an advantage. There are new and interesting developments for 2021. Below are statistics that give a brief insight into the VPN market.  Top VPN Statistics for 2021 The global VPN market is believed to be $75.59 billion in 2027 (Statista 2021)  There are about 142 million VPN users iIn the US. (Security.org 2020). Slovakia, Spain, and South Africa are the top up-and-coming markets for rising interest in VPNs include  (VPNMentor 2020). 92% of Americans believe protecting their data and information is important, but […]