Open source software (OSS) is currently a hot item, but there are many good reasons to do some research before jumping right in. OSS differs from proprietary software in many important ways, and to be successful you will need to thoroughly investigate how your business model might benefit from switching to OSS.

Though interrelated, marketing and sales are two different disciplines and areas of the business process. The simplified version: the marketing team pre-qualifies, so the sales team can follow real leads. Together, they streamline the buying and selling process.

Marketing, the backbone of any business should be carried out in a very sophisticated and effective manner in order to experience reasonable increase in profit and return on investment. The most important part of any marketing system is calculating the lifetime value of the customer. In this post we are going to discuss a simple way to calculate your customer's lifetime value and how to use this information to increase your return on investment (ROI).

Promotion for B2B companies has become multi-faceted, given the attention paid by marketing experts to SEO, social media, and mobile technology. These promotion discussions tend to revolve around how companies can get more exposure and traffic. However, there is an important aspect of promotion that some B2B companies tend to overlook: how a company is positioned.

One typically under-utilized asset possessed by most B2B companies is their database. Whether that database is a snail-mailing list, email list or social media following, the capacity to contact interested people must be harnessed as a part of a complete promotional plan.

Spending valuable staff time on social media engagement or fiscal resources on media advertising for branding campaigns is not common in many B2B companies. This is understandable; the ROI on either investment is difficult to track.

Selling to businesses generally means longer sales cycles. Prospective clients will need to walk through multiple approvals in their own companies before agreeing to purchase, so it's important that you, as the seller, build multiple relationships within the prospective company. This is a significant challenge. Educating potential clients is one of the most effective methods for building interest in their companies and gaining their trust.

Open source software development may not be as easy as it sounds. There are several problems you may encounter as you develop your own software. Here are 5 of the most common problems which you need to brace yourself for.