Blog: Small Business and the Cloud

The Secret behind Top Nutrition

We are living in a decade of Smartphones, tablets, and of course the Cloud. All of these make working from any location - that is, outside of an actual office - easy. Although there are some businesses that flourish by having all of their employees in one location and working under one roof, many succeed by having their team working remotely or individually from several different locations.

For any business with remote workers, keeping track of their team and having an efficient means of communication is vital for company growth and success. A secure intranet system in the Cloud, with some form of Cloud-based applications, are essential connectivity tools for a small business to compete in today’s market. One fast-growing small business that made the move to the Cloud in order to keep their team connected was Top Secret Nutrition.

Based out of Florida, Top Secret Nutrition (external link) (“TSN”) is one of the fastest growing sports nutrition companies in the U.S. TSN provides many of the most innovative nutritional supplements in its industry to support active and healthy lifestyles. TSN’s rapid growth has team members working from remote locations, and on the move – promoting products, collaborating with strategic partners, and meeting with distributors and retailers. With this type of dynamic business model, TSN needed an IT solution that was easily accessible from any location and one that would allow team members to share information rapidly and consistently. After much research, it was decided this need required a move to the Cloud (external link) platform.

At that time, TSN co-founder and president, David Zinn, began his search for a solution that would allow his business to grow while working remotely. At TSN, providing customers with the best supplements, education, product information, and experience is of the core of the business, and critical for success. This means that TSN employees always need to be informed, connected, and well prepared. Through extensive online research, Zinn found StreetSmart, InfoStreet’s suite of Cloud apps (external link).

For TSN, the StreetSmart suite of Cloud apps served as a secure intranet system (external link) that included powerful task assignment and CRM apps that were just what the company needed to make information and task sharing easy. Through StreetSmart’s CRM, Zinn and his team were able to quickly update new client information, share it, and keep it all stored in one safe location. As Zinn tells us, “With our team members working on several different clients in several different locations, we needed to make sure that everyone was still connected and informed, StreetSmart’s CRM took care of all that.” In addition, all of StreetSmart’s Cloud apps integrate with each other which made delegating tasks, scheduling meetings, and sharing information effortless.

For TSN, the StreetSmart suite of Cloud apps served as a secure intranet system that included powerful task assignment and CRM apps that were just what the company needed to make information and task sharing easy. Through StreetSmart’s CRM, Zinn and his team were able to quickly update new customer information, share it, and keep it all stored in one safe and accessible location. As Zinn shared, “With our team members servicing many different customers in several different locations, all with unique needs, we had make sure that everyone was always connected and informed. StreetSmart’s CRM provided the platform for clear and relevant internal and external communication. In addition, all of StreetSmart’s Cloud apps integrate with each other which make delegating tasks, scheduling events and meetings, and sharing information transparent and effortless.“

The StreetSmart suite of Cloud apps provides the tools that allow them to focus on key customer relationships to become one of the leading nutritional supplement brands in the U.S. Their supplements can be found online and in specialty stores at various national and regional retailers, such as Bodybuilding.com, Vitamin Shoppe, GNC, and many other local specialty nutritional supplement stores throughout the U.S. Zinn adds, “Staying efficient, up to date, and mobile has also allowed TSN to grow rapidly internationally, and yet we still achieve our goals and produce measurable results on a daily basis. “Having InfoStreet as our Cloud provider, has transformed our business by providing the perfect platform for us to exceed customer expectations.”

When your team needs to stay mobile and efficient what solution will you look to?

• Received a Doc.x from a MAC user and can’t open it on your PC?
• Tried to open an attachment in an email that isn’t compatible?
• Upgraded an older program that won’t work on your new computer?
• Purchased a program only to find out that it isn’t compatible with some of your older computers?
• Or bought a new laptop to discover that some of your programs need an upgrade in order to run……..at an additional price.

Anyone who watches TV, opens a newspaper, or reads a business blog is aware of the rapidly growing cloud explosion. Worldwide revenues from public IT cloud services exceeded $16 billion in 2009 and are expected to hit the $55.5B mark by 2014, according to market researcher IDC. This represents a 27.4% compound annual growth rate, which is roughly five times that of regular IT products, notes IDC”.  With Oracle spending millions purchasing cloud providers, IBM transforming into a cloud-based service provider, and tablets and laptop purchases exploding, the cloud is fast becoming the perfect storm: the convergence of all forms of hardware and applications into a singular experience.

But while these storm clouds are amassing, can the cloud help the goblins that affect our daily work lives disappear?

Working in the Cloud you will find that:

• Cloud-based document apps, such as Google Docs, work on any PC or MAC, no special language required.
• With cloud-based email and/or using cloud-based document programs, your attachments will always open.
• Never download a program again. Cloud-based programs are accessible from any web enabled device as long as you have an Internet connection.
• There are no hardware compatibility issues with the cloud. Never.
• Laptops, tablets, desktops…….they don’t operate cloud-based programs. The cloud will work as smoothly as opening a web page, purchasing a book on Amazon, or ordering Halloween costumes.
• And cloud-based apps work on a pay-as-you-go basis.

There are a number of technical headaches that we all deal with every day, some of which are so frustrating people swear a poltergeist invaded the office. The cloud isn’t a magical solution, but the benefits of cloud computing will benefit your company and will solve many of the everyday hassles easily and affordably.

Fortunately, our season of ghosts and goblins is soon followed by a season of thanksgiving.