Industrial Affiliates Blog: 2010

Saturday, September 4, 2010

Venture in Internet Marketing

Industrial Affiliates is looking for an Internet Marketing firm ,
- Located less than 30 minutes drive North or South of Laval, Quebec
- Specialized in WEB publishing, Search Engine optimization and PHP programming ;
- Valued between 750K and 1M $ ;
- That has been operating for several years ;
- Not satisfied profitability ;
- Interested to address world markets in partnership with a large company ;
- Interested to explore possibilities for capital/venture/acquisition .

In this context, we are also interested to discuss performance based commission to any third party who can refer us a company that would close an agreement with us.
Please contact pierre.dumas@affiliesindustriels.net

Tuesday, July 20, 2010

ExportPro.org: REPEX new trade mark.

July 10 2010, REPEX is proud to announce its new trade mark on North American and world markets and presents one of the templates of its forthcoming portal

Innovation is one of the foundation of our economies. But innovation is foremost in relation to the needs of the markets. It is from the needs of the markets that new ideas emerge and are being converted in new products or services. It is also through the markets these new products and services gets converted in benefits for society.

Today REPEX innovates and mark a new step in its transformation on Quebec and Canada historical and main markets with the introduction of ExportPro.org 's template and trade mark.

Our new domain represents a market of over

200 million people
10 trillion dollars in GDP
50 million candidates including over 4 million engineers
5 000 business organizations and economic development agencies.

The introduction of ExportPro.org is also the opportunity for REPEX to reposition itself as a back office provider helping business organizations and economic development agencies to increase performance and networking. Our new trademark also evoke the use a computer ports as a way to increase commerce between businesses and professionals.

Doing so, ExportPro.org new era will contribute to implement the vision of its founders

Be a leader among the trade associations and groupings of businesses of Quebec through the implementation of WEB centric technologies with and for its economic partners
Be an inclusive organization whose members come from all the spheres of activity connected closely or by far to the international trade
Contribute to the progress of the practice of the international trade

ExportPro.org is meant to provide back office services networking communities located on large markets. ExportPro.org's bottom up strategy is based on the federation of a large number of small organizations while providing new services that will help local, regional and national organizations to network and improve performance.

For more information contact pierre.dumas@repex.qc.ca

Sunday, July 11, 2010

OMS Enterprise: the Next Generation Opportunity Management Software

Lead by Pierre Dumas, this week, Industrial Affiliates made a new step toward the configuration of OMS Enterprise, the next generation opportunity management software. Following its agreement with Industrial Affiliates, Internet Merchandising System installed its Powerful Online Business-to-Consumer Reservation & Booking Software Platform ready to be configured and converted into Industrial Affiliates' Opportunity Management System.

This installation launches the configuration of OMS Enterprise, the next generation of opportunity management software operating as a service (Saas). The software provides unlimited information distribution capacity with a truly scalable, value added, 'Mix & Match' Internet reservation & booking software. The system can be easily adapted to the OMS as a large interactive selling platform with cross-channel functionalities, XML/API & multi vendor opportunity reservation solution.

Leap ahead of what is currently on the market, OMS Enterprise aims to become one of the most advanced opportunity/ecommerce online reservation control solutions provided online as a service (SaaS) .

OMS Enterprise accommodates multiple distribution channels, with multi-division, multi-brand marketing strategies, providing web-based interfaces for Call Center, Business to Agent to Business (B2A2B) reservations via online web sales, call-center, front desk, mobile, on-board & kiosk sales.

The opportunity reservation software is integrated on a modular basis and is highly customizable, scalable, PCI compliant, for any size operation using PHP and with a powerful MySQL database.

Ready to be configured the system is only few weeks away from being an effective applications to reserve opportunities in a multi city, multi organizations, multi trade category, multi industry and multilingual environment.

For more information contact Pierre Dumas pierre.dumas@affiliesindustriels.net

Thursday, February 18, 2010

Economic Development Agencies structures: Like it was 25 years ago

Local Economic Development Agencies and Chambers of Commerce are not yet organized to optimize access to markets. In some way they are operating like community banks were operating 25 years ago.

25 years ago, there was about 14 000 community banks. Between 1994 and 2003, the number of community banks fell from 9600 to 7300; at the same time, branch banking nearly doubled with about 86 branch banks totalizing about 40 000 branches in 2003.

Since then, the traditional image of the brick and mortar bank where the bank manager was understanding the local market and had strong customer relationships changed dramatically in good part because of technology and regulatory changes. Automated teller machines (ATMs) proliferated; the Internet gave rise to virtual banking. Banks developed centralized call centers to handle customer service issues and to initiate transactions. The way banking was brought to local markets changed dramatically because of technology and convergence.

The same is about to happen for local Economic Development Agencies and Chambers of Commerce. Currently federated through regional and local office. They are not yet organized to optimize access to markets. In some way they are operating like community banks were operating 25 years ago (if not 50 years ago). Still today, thousands of economic development agencies operate as "brick and mortar centric" organizations where directors understand their local market and have strong customer relationships locally.

But things change. Economic Development Departments and head offices can witness a drastic change in the way international communications are performed. They have realized that preparing trade shows and commercial mission are not sufficient to attract commerce, investment and contracts.

We can predict that media and consulting convergence is about to change the geographic federation of economic development agencies by region, states and provinces and cities. Instead of being focused on local markets, agencies will become focus on export markets using the new media and virtually federating with flexibility under diverse criteria and categories.

Under economic pressure governments will be forced to accelerate these changes and to put away the dominant organization architecture based on brick and mortar. The convergence of digital media will change the current balance between political marketing and business marketing and accelerate the divide between these functions.

The private sector has already taken a large part of international communications channels; this trend shall affect the way economic development agencies will perform in the near future.

Tuesday, February 16, 2010

Selected as finalist by New York State

Last December, Industrial Affiliates has received a request for proposal to provide business development services to the New York State Department for Economic Development (NYS DED) and to the members of its export clusters. Last January our proposal was selected as one of the three finalists.

We beleive our selection as finalist was based on the strong background of professionals who joined us. For this occasion, we have regrouped professionnals from Manitoba, Ontario and Quebec joining together for the proposal and cumulating an impressive experience in Export, Training, Consultation, Market Intelligence and e-commerce. Several members of this Linkedin Group were part of this proposal

Inspired from corporate strategies used in the financial products and services industry, we proposed a scalable development plan based on the tools of the 21rst century. Our marketing plan and our tools can service a single business as well as to develop a network of hundreds of economic development agencies and thousands of export ready companies.

It was an honor to receive this request for proposal. Our selection as finalist energized our group and multiplied the possibilities to expand our reach in Quebec, Ontario and New York State in the very short term.

Our recent venture for the OMS Enterprise is an other step towards the implementation of the reach out plan. Today, we can say several economic development agencies are showing interest to use the tools and the business model to expand their reach in New York as well as several other states and provinces.

As the foundation of our business model is based on software as a service (saas) any one of our readers could use the system and the business model for their own success and business development.

In other words, our experience can become yours.

Monday, February 15, 2010

Industrial Affiliates and IMS add “OMS Enterprise” to their OEM agreement

Industrial Affiliates and Internet Merchandising Systems Inc. announced today their intention to add “OMS Enterprise” under the umbrella of their OEM Software Agreement signed on November 28 2009.

”OMS Enterprise” is part of this new generation of scalable softwares that include virtual resources provided as a service to businesses and professionals. OMS Enterprise is designed to:

Help business managers to advertise an unlimited number of business offers, to receive leads and reserve them under the the account of the disclosing party as well as to send informations of the sales process to the disclosing party.
Help Economic Development Agencies, to advertise an unlimited number of businesses on the WEB and to receive reports about the performance of their business cluster or partners.
Create an unlimited number of free regional business opportunity boards that extends the reach of businesses to receive sales leads from new markets and find new clients they could not find easily otherwise.
Help businesses receive leads from professionals, reserve each leads under the professional accounts of disclosing party and provide systematic follow up.

”OMS Enterprise” is also designed to find business offers and opportunities through

1.Economic Development categories and subcategories
Trade

direct sales
distribution

Investment

Acquisition
Joint Venture
New Implementation
Real Estate

Contracts

Lisensor/licensee
Sub-contractor/subcontractee
Strategic Alliance

2. North American Industry Codes (NAIC)

Including

Agriculture, Forestry, Fishing and Hunting
Mining, Quarrying, and Oil and Gas Extraction
Manufacturing
Wholesale Trade
Information and Cultural Industries
Finance and Insurance
Real Estate and Rental and Leasing
Professional, Scientific and Technical Services
Health Care and Social Assistance

3.Geographic targets

Region (ex: North America),
Country,
State/province,
Airport city

For example, ”OMS Enterprise” software design can help to advertise and publish business offers from New York State companies searching for acquisition opportunities in the mining industry in Canada; to receive leads, reserve these leads under the name of the disclosing pary and to follow up information to them.

The extension of our OEM software License Agreement with IMS Cart to ”OMS Enterprise” is a major step for the integration of our services within technological clouds, which will increase our strength and provide access to large markets » said Pierre Dumas, president and founder of Industrial Affiliates.

« OMS Enterprise is designed and configured from IMS's Enterprise Distribution Manager, a commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) application, with a powerful pre-built functionality that delivers features, benefits and exceptional price performance», said John Shenton, President of Internet Merchandising Systems. IMS Enterprise Distribution Manager can used by any reservation company seeking a system that enables them to distribute rates and inventory online and establish a significant and powerful booking and reservation online e-distribution centre.

About Internet Merchandising Systems Inc
Internet Merchandising Systems Inc. was founded on a commitment to develop innovative products and services to meet the online reservation needs of our clients and partners in improving their profitability and productivity. IMS has created and delivered, pre-built application functionality with a scalable service orientated architecture for Internet reservations, and integrated ticketing systems that helps companies build connected enterprises to capture more market share, communicate effectively and operate competitively in today’s Internet environment. www.imscart.com

About Industrial Affiliates
Industrial Affiliates provides business networks development services with agents referring opportunities to organizations, whether business associations, manufacturers, consultation and service providers. Industrial Affiliates also help to systematically manage opportunities between product and service suppliers and referring agents while keeping suppliers in charge of customer relationships. They acquire new customers they could hardly reach otherwise and pay referring agents only when sales or qualifying actions are completed. www.industrialaffiliates.net

Sunday, February 7, 2010

Forthcoming Marketing Campaign

In the past few months, Industrial Affiliates signed affiliation and alliances with

Salesforce http://www.salesforce.com/ ,
Taleo http://www.taleo.com/ ,
Echosign http://www.echosign.com/ ,
CFCI http://www.contactsmonde.com/ and
Help Online http://www.help-online.ca/ .

Our business offer

What we are looking for
Industrial Affiliates is looking for companies and professionals interested to develop business in an interdependent and complementary fashion on new markets.

We propose a unique marketing campaign
Our first goal is to federate a group of companies interested to publish and advertise business offers to over 1200 economic development agencies located in 10 provinces and 25 states. These states are located in the North East, Mid Atlantic, Mid West and South of United States. Globally these markets represent over 10 000 billion dollars in Gross Domestic Product.

Our second goal is to find sponsors interested to begin this reach out plan in

New York State,
Ontario and
Quebec.

These provinces and state represent over 1 700 billion dollars in GDP.

How can this campaign be free of charge?
We believe that our federation in the same marketing campaign can be a powerful vector to contact thousands of economic development agencies, intermediaries and clients the targeted markets. We also know this audience has a strategic value for large private companies and for governments. However, at this point in time, we do not have confirmation of sponsorship yet and we do not guarantee that we will have the sponsorships.

For Industrial Affiliates and for you as well, this campaign is a way to open new information pipelines and to gradually increase the number of companies using the same approach. We can start with small steps and grow as we gain momentum.

Geographic segmentation
We plan three stages in the reach out plan

1. Advertise and publish business offers in and between New York State, Ontario and Quebec markets. .

2. Same in the remaining 8 other provinces Canada and 13 states of USA:

Canada: Alberta, British Columbia, Manitoba, New-Brunswick, Newfoundland, Nova Scotia Saskatchewan

USA: Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Vermont, Wisconsin).

3. Reach out to 11 more states

USA: Texas, Florida, North Carolina, Georgia, Virginia, Indiana, Tennessee, Missouri, Louisiana, Alabama, South Carolina.

We estimate that over 190 000 companies would be involved in interstate, inter provincial and export in these markets. We also think that Economic Development Agencies and other intermediaries can become good intermediaries as they have contacts, knowledge and access to these companies.

The foundations of this campaign
Our approach is to federate several small companies into export clusters sharing the same marketing campaign.

This campaign is also based on entrepreneurship. We are all independent contractors. Nothing in our joint marketing campaign must be interpreted a partnership, legal association or joint venture. The marketing campaign will include an advertising agreement including several disclaimers and conditions to protect everyone as independent businesses.

Industrial Affiliates do not act as a sales intermediary or referrer during this promotion except for the companies that we have signed a formal affiliation agreement. So anyone who wants to join the campaign do not commit commissions, royalties or fees unless it is specifically agreed

Industrial Affiliates simply shares a marketing process , a communication plan and communication platform to advertise and publish business offers to economic development agencies or other intermediaries and clients.

Each business offers proposed by you must therefore have a reasonable competitive edge on the targeted market. Your business offer also need to be structured in a way to attract members in its customer value chain. Your business offer must therefore emerge from a thoughtful marketing and communication plan. This is the responsibility of each members

My roles as entrepreneur and publisher
As many entrepreneurs I have several roles in my company. I am a marketing consultant and Internet Technology entrepreneur. My roles will be described in our marketing agreement before we advertise business offers. Acting as a publisher I am interested to publish business offers that in our judgment will make sense to the audience as economic development agent.

However, we do hope this campaign will lead you to generate sales and along time to invest more in new marketing and communication services increasing sales and reducing costs. We also hope like most of our members, that we will continue to expand our affiliations with other companies, continue to provide marketing services and Develop IT systems

Your role
You are in charge of your plan and you delegate tasks and responbilities. You are responsible to advertise good and competitive business offers

Don't be too technical. Think of this campaign as if it was a trade show: your role is to write a business offers that can raise attention, interest and action from our readers, intermediaries and prospects.

Tangibles for your organization

First and foremost, the federation of our business offers aims to find sponsors for our collective campaign;
This campaign can create new information pipelines that will help you find new intermediaries and clients on new markets;
You will gradually learn from this new marketing experience.

Take this opportunity and advertise your business offer.
Our interest is to convert networking into sales.
I invite you to take this opportunity

Take the time to advertise and publish a precise business offer according to your business priorities

You can write as many business offers that you want.

In the beginning you will advetise in the section discussion of this group.

Later we intend to publish your offer on the platform appropriate for our audience

Just make sure your offer can raise attention, interest and action on these markets.
It will be useful any way.

I have traveled to developed business in 20 of the 35 states and provinces targeted.
I remain available to answer your questions.

Pierre Dumas, M.Sc.

Sunday, January 31, 2010

The Extended Enterprise - Part 1

Enterprise Architecture in commerce

With the rise of WEB centric systems and cloud computing, CRM companies and Economic Development Agencies would benefit most by federating small businesses and agents building enterprises from bottom up. Already on the WEB large numbers of agents and small companies have been architectured and federated in Enterprise systems in the Real Estate Industry, Travel Industry, Financing Industry. In the field of Software as a Service (Saas), the bottom up Enterprise approach has proven to be far more efficient than the Top Down Enterprise approach. In the field of export and interstate commerce, the same kind of Bottom Up Enterprise Architecture can be federated to increase sales interaction and cost efficiency.

In today's world, it is possible for a large number of people and small organizations working together to grow from their joint involvement. Small and medium size businesses that are grouped by government agencies with export clusters will benefit the most if they delegate business intelligence responsibilities to a common business development agency and if they use WEB centric CRM systems to provide information from bottom up as well as to receive information top down.

The Bottom Up Enterprise Architectures emerging from these federated organizations can be far more efficient than traditional structures in their domain because of the increased flow of information within the customer relationship value chains and because of the cost reductions arising from the use of Internet technologies on large territories.

Enterprise Architecture globally in commerce

As reported by Wikipedia

An enterprise architecture description gives a holistic, systematic description of an enterprise. It encompasses business functions, business process, people, organization, business information, software applications and computer systems with their relationships to enterprise goals.

Describing the architecture of an enterprise aims primarily to improve the effectiveness or efficiency of the business itself. This includes innovations in the structure of an organization, the centralization or federation of business processes, the quality and timeliness of business information, or ensuring that money spent on information technology (IT) can be justified.

One method of using this information to improve the functioning of a business involves developing an "architectural vision": a description of the business that represents a “target” or “future state” goal. Once this vision is well understood, a set of intermediate steps are created that illustrate the process of changing from the present situation to the target.

While enterprise architecture is closely tied to IT, it should be viewed in the broader context of business optimization in that it addresses business architecture, performance management and process architecture as well as more technical subjects.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enterprise_architecture

It should also be noted that when redesigning work-flows to improve efficiency, Enterprise Architects considers Bottom Up as well as Top Down approaches. The goal is to gain efficiency.

Therefore, in the world of Enterprise Architecture, it is out of the question to ideologically reject Bottom Up work-flows. This rejection attitude would defeit the whole purpose to adapt, improve and increase efficiency of existing Enterprise Architectures.

More...

Part 1: Enterprise Architecture in commerce

Part 2: A Bottom Up Enterprise Architecture in computing: Cloud Computing

Part 3: A Sales Architecture : targeting the Enterprise companies

Part 4: The Extended Enterprise for Export clusters

The Extended Enterprise - Part 2

A Bottom Up Enterprise Architecture in computing: Cloud Computing

One of the most flamboyant example of the benefit of federating small organizations in a larger cohesive Enterprise built from Bottom Up is the business strategy underlying Cloud Computing.

Since 2000, Internet Technology companies are increasingly using Cloud Computing as a strategic way to grow. While the Enterprise application development with traditional software are complex, slow, and expensive, Cloud Computing emerged as a new Enterprise Architecture to address these problems.

According to Salesforce.com, inc,

Cloud computing refers to the use of Internet (“cloud”) based computing, storage and connectivity technology for a variety of different services. The pervasiveness of the Internet, along with the dramatic decline in the pricing of the technology components has enabled this new generation of computing, in which dynamically scalable and often virtual resources are provided as a service to both enterprises and consumers. Users need not have knowledge of, expertise in, or control over the technology infrastructure “in the cloud” that supports them.

In the context of enterprise business applications, cloud computing fundamentally changes the way business applications are developed and deployed. Application developers no longer need to create and manage their own infrastructure of servers, storage, network devices, operating system software and development tools in order to create a business application. Instead, the entire infrastructure is managed in the cloud, and developers simply use an Internet browser to access the development environment.

http://www.salesforce.com/assets/pdf/investors/FY09AnnualReport.pdf

Salesforce.com, inc. has introduced its cloud computing platform http://www.force.com/ which became a strategic tool to increase the strength of the company on the market. Ranking 43rd in the Fortune 100, Salesforce.com, inc describes itself as an "Enterprise Cloud Computing Company " and one of the top companies in the U.S. . This position illustrate how the Bottom Up enterprise approach can be productive and efficient.

An other company, Taleo, has chosen cloud computing as part of its growth strategy http://new.taleo.com/resources/about-cloud-computing and launched Solution Exchange http://solutionexchange.taleo.net/sx/ . More than 4,200 organizations use Taleo for talent acquisition and performance management, including 46 of the Fortune 100 and over 3,500 small and medium sized businesses across 200 countries and territories.

Globally technological clouds help companies to expand from a Bottom Up Enterprise Architecture approach. His approach helps computing organization to grow their business faster and increase brand brand recognition faster and at a lower cost than traditional Top Down Enterprises.

Cloud Computing is a strong example of business development based on Bottom Up Enterprise Architecture approach within the product/development value chain.

The benefits of Bottom up Enterprise Architecture within the "Customer Relationship Value Chain" is not quite well understood as they are within the "Product Development Value Chain".

More...
Part 1: Enterprise Architecture in commerce
Part 2: A Bottom Up Enterprise Architecture in computing: Cloud Computing
Part 3: A Sales Architecture : targeting the Enterprise companies
Part 4: The Extended Enterprise for Export clusters

The Extended Enterprise - Part 3

A Sales Architecture : targeting the Enterprise companies

In the Customer Relationship Value Chain, Enterprise Business Representatives (EBR) rarely support Bottom Up business development strategies based on federating large numbers of small and medium size businesses.

In the traditional sales patterns Enterprise Business Representatives (EBR) methodically prioritize and prospect into enterprise companies structured with a president, vice presidents and divisions. Often, EBR are themselves part of regional teams, consisting of a Regional Vice President and a select number of Account Executives which focus on «Enterprise companies».

In this traditional Top Down sales model, leads, contacts, opportunities and sales originates from prospects at the top of the hierarchy list. EBR create and prioritize targeted account lists, methodically prospect into the accounts, and conduct high-level conversations with senior executives about their business operations.

This point of view is efficient to generate sales with large organizations but is ill equipped to efficiently address sales leads coming from large number of small organizations and individuals in the process to federate.

Increasing marketing attention to Bottom Up Enterprise Architecture

Over the past 5 years, convergence of communication and marketing tools has improved the capacity of aggregators to federate small and medium size businesses in cohesive business development Enterprises.

At the same time the economic crisis highlighted that traditional road shows, economic missions, magazine advertizing and trade shows and not necessarily the most efficient marketing tools.

Several industries already rebalanced their Enterprise Architecture, increasing access to the markets though Bottom Up Work-flows This strategy in the Customer Relationship Value Chain is often emerging using WEB centric software to federate large numbers of small and medium size organizations. The increased efficiency of the Bottom Up Approach is common knowledge in the Travel, Insurance, and Financial Service industries.

Would travelers deal with a travel agent who would not use an online reservation system and who could only sell travels in the one or two locations they visited in the past months?
Would home buyers deal with a real estate agent who does not have MLS system and who could only access information on houses they visited?
Would investors engage with agents who would not have access to online performance reports?

Despite the enormous sales opportunities arising from federated organizations, still several sales development organizations knowingly decide not to pay attention to this type of business architecture. They,

Focus almost exclusively under the Top Down Enterprise Company marketing-sales model.
Work mostly with the last opportunity contacts and neglect to systematically following up large number of leads;
Rely on few trade show participation to increase their sales networks;
Usually adopt a regional sales structure focusing to prospects located close to their office;
Loose sales reporting capacities on all sales leads that cannot be converted immediately into opportunities.

There is nothing wrong with these strategic choices. These organizations do not adapt because their managers do not perceive economic incentives to change for more cost effective, flexible, and efficient strategies.

In turn, their choices create opportunities for other organizations who see the benefits to better balancing their Top Down approach to the market with Bottom Up Enterprise Architectures.

For example, in computing, innovative companies increased performance through Cloud Computing.Likewise, in the Customer Relationship Value chain, other organizations are positioning themselves to federate large numbers of small organizations to increase access to market.

The Extended Enterprise - Part 4

The Extended Enterprise for Export clusters

To customers on export markets, the Enterprise represents a combination of business organizations and governments that provide good and services. Often called the "Extended Enterprise", this point of view looks beyond each company and represents the complete value chain for good and services.

The Extended Enterprise is an enterprise architecture model raising leads and opportunities for a large number of small and medium size organizations federating within export clusters.

In defining the extended enterprise, managers determine which individuals and organizations they want to keep information about. They identify the kind of information they'd like to capture, and design systems that provide this information to the people who need it to facilitate their business. They then supply information to economic partners, employees, agent and distributors, partners and affiliates and prospective clients, which result in the extended enterprise.”

The Extended Enterprise can increase the value of its members who share common goals, policies and practices, and who delegate business intelligence, thus, increasing the flow of information though WEB Centric CRM Systems.

Globally, the Enterprise Architecture of the Extended Enterprise is on the Customer Relationship Value chain, what Cloud Computing is on the product development value chain: both Enterprise Architectures adopt a bottom up development strategy connecting with an array of small and medium size organizations operating under the same policies and practices increasing the efficiency for all.

The Extended Enterprise business model is a business opportunity in itself.

In 2010, the situation in sales and marketing have changed a lot. We believe it is time to adjust our sales and marketing strategies to the realities of the new economy. Everyone can see how the new economy has changed dramatically several industries such as publishing, job boards (Monster, Linkedin), advertizing (Google), travel, etc. IT companies are turning to the benefits of Cloud Computing to increase their power from bottom up with third parties. This is the new economy.

The business model of the Extended Enterprise on the customer Relationship value Chain relies on the same Bottom Up benefits than Cloud Computing does on the product-development value chain. Both

Federate large numbers of organizations and professionals on large territories;
Go beyond the conception of the Enterprise as the sum of the brick and mortar and the employees under the same roof.

Still several organizations have no incentive to drive the market and rapidly cannibalize their existing businesses for more cost effective, flexible, and efficient strategies for most of their clients.

At the same time those interested to cope with the rapid changes of the new economy and want their clients to take advantage of the tools available, can actually grab a larger part of the market by extending their reach in a permanent, systematic way on large trade regions.

Receiving Opportunities through the Extended Enterprise

PDF format

Generally most sales organizations target, prioritize and prospect into enterprise companies to conduct high-level conversations with senior executives about their business operations and to find revenue opportunities. This point of view is limited since it neglects a large number of opportunities that can be captured from federating large numbers of small companies on large markets.

With the rise of WEB centric systems and cloud computing, CRM companies and Economic Development Agencies would benefit most by federating small businesses and agents building enterprises from bottom up. Already on the WEB large numbers of agents and small companies have been architectured and federated in Enterprise systems in the Real Estate Industry, Travel Industry, Financing Industry. In the field of Software as a Service (Saas), the bottom up Enterprise approach has proven to be far more efficient than the Top Down Enterprise approach. In the field of export and interstate commerce, the same kind of Bottom Up Enterprise Architecture can be federated to increase sales interaction and cost efficiency.

In today's world, it is possible for a large number of people and small organizations working together to grow from their joint involvement. Small and medium size businesses that are grouped by government agencies with export clusters will benefit the most if they delegate business intelligence responsibilities to a common business development agency and if they use WEB centric CRM systems to provide information from bottom up as well as to receive information top down.

The Bottom Up Enterprise Architectures emerging from these federated organizations can be far more efficient than traditional structures in their domain because of the increased flow of information within the customer relationship value chains and because of the cost reductions arising from the use of Internet technologies on large territories.

Enterprise Architecture globally in commerce
As reported by Wikipedia

An enterprise architecture description gives a holistic, systematic description of an enterprise. It encompasses business functions, business process, people, organization, business information, software applications and computer systems with their relationships to enterprise goals.

Describing the architecture of an enterprise aims primarily to improve the effectiveness or efficiency of the business itself. This includes innovations in the structure of an organization, the centralization or federation of business processes, the quality and timeliness of business information, or ensuring that money spent on information technology (IT) can be justified.

One method of using this information to improve the functioning of a business involves developing an "architectural vision": a description of the business that represents a “target” or “future state” goal. Once this vision is well understood, a set of intermediate steps are created that illustrate the process of changing from the present situation to the target.

While enterprise architecture is closely tied to IT, it should be viewed in the broader context of business optimization in that it addresses business architecture, performance management and process architecture as well as more technical subjects.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enterprise_architecture

It should also be noted that when redesigning work-flows to improve efficiency, Enterprise Architects considers Bottom Up as well as Top Down approaches. The goal is to gain efficiency.

A Bottom Up Enterprise Architecture in computing: Cloud Computing

One of the most flamboyant example of the benefit of federating small organizations in a larger cohesive Enterprise built from Bottom Up is the business strategy underlying Cloud Computing.

According to Salesforce.com, inc,

Cloud computing refers to the use of Internet (“cloud”) based computing, storage and connectivity technology for a variety of different services. The pervasiveness of the Internet, along with the dramatic decline in the pricing of the technology components has enabled this new generation of computing, in which dynamically scalable and often virtual resources are provided as a service to both enterprises and consumers. Users need not have knowledge of, expertise in, or control over the technology infrastructure “in the cloud” that supports them.

In the context of enterprise business applications, cloud computing fundamentally changes the way business applications are developed and deployed. Application developers no longer need to create and manage their own infrastructure of servers, storage, network devices, operating system software and development tools in order to create a business application. Instead, the entire infrastructure is managed in the cloud, and developers simply use an Internet browser to access the development environment.

http://www.salesforce.com/assets/pdf/investors/FY09AnnualReport.pdf

A Sales Architecture : targeting the Enterprise companies

Increasing marketing attention to Bottom Up Enterprise Architecture

Would travelers deal with a travel agent who would not use an online reservation system and who could only sell travels in the one or two locations they visited in the past months?
Would home buyers deal with a real estate agent who does not have MLS system and who could only access information on houses they visited?
Would investors engage with agents who would not have access to online performance reports?

Focus almost exclusively under the Top Down Enterprise Company marketing-sales model.
Work mostly with the last opportunity contacts and neglect to systematically following up large number of leads;
Rely on few trade show participation to increase their sales networks;
Usually adopt a regional sales structure focusing to prospects located close to their office;
Loose sales reporting capacities on all sales leads that cannot be converted immediately into opportunities.

The Extended Enterprise for Export clusters

The business model of the Extended Enterprise on the customer Relationship value Chain relies on the same Bottom Up benefits than Cloud Computing does on the product-development value chain. Both

Federate large numbers of organizations and professionals on large territories;
Go beyond the conception of the Enterprise as the sum of the brick and mortar and the employees under the same roof.

Wednesday, January 27, 2010

List of RSS feeds from our Linkedin Group

Affiliates Networks Enterprises aims to increase trade with companies and referring agents worldwide, interested to develop markets in North America.

We focus to advertise business offers and related opportunities in the following categories:

1. Trading products or services

1.1 Direct trading with customers
1.2 Trading through distributors

2. Investments
2.1 Real estate investments
2.2 Takeovers
2.3 New implementations
2.4 Joint ventures;

3. Contracts
3.1 Sub-Contractor/Sub-Contractee
3.2 Licensor/Licensee
3.3 Strategic Alliances (ex: marketing)

Here bellow the current list of RSS Feeds on our Linkedin group :

Canada-U.S. Relations http://www.international.gc.ca/media/rss/topic-sujet/canada_us-relations-canada_etats_unis_eng.xml
CanadExport News http://www.international.gc.ca/canadexport/rss/news_nouvelles_eng.xml
Commerce Highlights http://www.international.gc.ca/commerce/rss/commerce_highlights_eng.xml
Crain's New York Business - Small Business News Feeds http://feeds.feedburner.com/crainsnewyork/small_business
Forbes.com: Most popular stories http://www.forbes.com/feeds/popstories.xml
Forbes.com: News http://www.forbes.com/news/index.xml
International Chambers of Commerce http://www.iccwbo.org/collection4/folder165/rss.html?title=ICC%20-%20The%20world%20business%20organization
Invest in Ontario - General Announcements http://www.investinontario.com/rss/general_announcements.xml
Latin America http://www.international.gc.ca/media/rss/topic-sujet/latin_america_caribbean-amerique_latine_caraibes_eng.xml
Monster Press Releases http://about-monster.com/press_releases/rss
NYT > Small Business http://feeds.nytimes.com/nyt/rss/smallbusiness
Ontario Exports - General Announcements http://www.ontarioexports.com/rss/general_announcements.xml
The Economist: Business http://www.economist.com/rss/business_rss.xml
The Economist: Corporate leadership http://www.economist.com/rss/corporate_leadership_rss.xml
The Economist: Economics http://www.economist.com/rss/economics_rss.xml
The Economist: Europe http://www.economist.com/rss/europe_rss.xml
The Economist: Finance and economics http://www.economist.com/rss/finance_and_economics_rss.xml
The Economist: Globalisation http://www.economist.com/rss/globalisation_rss.xml
The Economist: Mergers and acquisitions http://www.economist.com/rss/mergers_and_acquisitions_rss.xml
The Economist: News analysis and views http://www.economist.com/rss/news_analysis_and_views_rss.xml
The Economist: The Americas http://www.economist.com/rss/the_americas_rss.xml
The Economist: The European Union http://www.economist.com/rss/the_european_union_rss.xml
The Economist: The World Bank and the IMF http://www.economist.com/rss/the_world_bank_and_the_imf_rss.xml
The Economist: The world this week http://www.economist.com/rss/the_world_this_week_rss.xml
The Economist: United States http://www.economist.com/rss/united_states_rss.xml
Trade Relations (Asia) http://www.international.gc.ca/media/rss/topic-sujet/asia-asie_eng.xml
Trade Relations (Europe) http://www.international.gc.ca/media/rss/topic-sujet/europe_eng.xml
Trade Relations (U.S./Mexico) http://www.international.gc.ca/media/rss/topic-sujet/mexico-mexique_eng.xml

Please note that Linkedin only allows a maximum of 30 feeds.

We will manage this list in our best judgment.

Any way, sharing your RSS feeds suggestions will help everyone to discover new sources of information in regard to the goals of this group.

You can visit and subscribe to our group at http://www.linkedin.com/groups?about=&gid=2639263

Thanks

Tuesday, January 26, 2010

Text of our first video advertising on the WEB

WEB technologies are evolving at fast pace.

Millions of people are already putting video on the WEB. So we stepped in today: we made the my first tests of WEB video advertising for Affiliates Networks Enterprises.

This first WEB advertising was brought up with the support of http://www.help-online.ca/ with whom Industrial Affiliates has signed an alliance last week.

Industrial Affiliates will soon have a full directory .../enterprises/ dedicated to businesses and professionals interested to provide secured visio consultation.

Here is the text of this first WEB Video Advertising:

-------------------

Welcome

My name is Pierre Dumas.
I have 25 years of experience in the fields of Economic Development, Marketing and Distribution.

You are now watching one of the most innovative business development community that I have ever seen.

This WEB service is for any companies and professionals in the world, interested to develop business in North America.

Our business community helps you to:

Recruit more members in your sales networks;
Access large markets;
Advertize your business offers in a simple and efficient way;
Pre select partners, and representatives;
and more.

Make the first step.

You can register for free
Right here,
Right now.

------------------

Wikipedia reports that "Books on tape are recommended to be 150–160 words per minute, which is the range that people comfortably hear and vocalize words". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Words_per_minute#cite_note-4 .

The text of this 103 words which took about 39 seconds, so yes, I spoke at a rate of 160 words per minute.

This was a test. Nevertheless, will put it on the WEB for a short while.

Our goal is to propose cohesive marketing strategies and world class WEB centric technologies helping members of our business community to increase sales. More info will come.

Meanwhile, if you think you could reduce costs or increase revenues with visio consultation technologies, do not hesitate to contact me.

Pierre

Saturday, January 23, 2010

Industrial Affiliates signs an alliance with Help Online Consulting

Industrial Affiliates has signed an alliance with Help Online Consulting . Each parties develops and provide products and services in the field of online consultation and network development on the Internet. Both parties think it is of their best mutual interest to work together. This alliance reflects the spirit of cooperation between Help Online Consulting and Industrial Affiliates.

This alliance is an important step to provide an integrated technology solution between

A Talent Management Suite focusing on important recruiting sources;
An highly secured online visio consulting solution helping businesses to reach out efficiently to professionals and specialists around the world;
A unique Opportunity Management System enabling businesses to receive opportunities,follow up development with referring agents and generate more sales.

Industrial Affiliates will use and propose Help Online Consulting solutions to meet three goals:

Launch a promotion program on export markets including Help OnLine secured visio consulting solution ;
Provide a visio consulting service platform profitable to businesses and business associations;
Provide a unique pre selection tool to recruit specialists on large territories.

About Help online
Help Online Consulting provides a highly secured technological platform designed to meet the need of a diversified client base. Help Online Consulting provide access to professionals while keeping confidentiality and network security required by professional associations rules and regulations. Help Online reduce obstacles related to consulting services whether related to distance, isolation or efforts required. The system increases access to professionals in everyone's office at their convenience.
http://www.help-online.ca/ .

About Industrial Affiliates
Industrial Affiliates provides business networks development services with agents referring opportunities to organizations, whether business associations, manufacturers, consultation and service providers. Industrial Affiliates also help to systematically manage opportunities between product and service suppliers and referring agents while keeping suppliers in charge of customer relationships. They acquire new customers they could hardly reach otherwise and pay referring agents only when sales or qualifying actions are completed
http://www.industrialaffiliates.net/

Thursday, January 21, 2010

Estimation of extra-provincial trade in Canada

Estimation of extra provincial trade in Canada

About

24 000 companies between 20 and 499 employees would be trading outside their province;
20 000 companies would be involved in international activities from the manufacturing;
5 400 companies would be involved in international activities from the service industries;
9 000 companies would be contracting with companies outside their province;
3 000 companies would be making direct Investment outside their province.

Trading products
About

20 000 companies would be exporting directly to clients outside their province;
7 400 companies would be using distributors outside their province.

Investment
About

3 000 companies would be investing outside their province;
2 000 companies would be investing in real estate outside their province;
1500 companies would be involved in takeovers outside their province;
800 companies would venture outside their province.

Contracts
Sub-Contracting
About

10 000 companies would sub contract to companies outside their province;
4 000 companies would subcontract outside their province.

Licensing
About

1500 companies would acquire licenses outside their province;
2 800 companies would sell licenses outside their province.

Strategic Alliances
About

2 400 companies would make strategic alliances with a partner established outside their province;
2 000 companies would make strategic alliances on markets outside their province.

Our role is to help capture these opportunities

Tuesday, January 19, 2010

Advertisers and Trade Professional subgroups on Linkedin

Affiliates Networks Enterprises http://www.linkedin.com/groups?about=&gid=2639263 is a Linkedin Group registering members interested to develop business in an interdependent and complementary fashion.

We have created two subgroups to develop business and trade services. These subgroups are dedicated to active organizations and professionals ready to expand markets.

Business Offer Advertisers Group : This group is reserved for professionals and companies worldwide, advertising Business Offers targeting North American markets.
Trade Professionals Group : The goal of this group is to advertise services offered by trade professionals and ultimately generate sales of trade services with companies interested to expand markets.

Although we have an open door policy for all companies and individuals interested to increase trade, only registered members of Affiliates Networks Enterprises Group can join these two subgroups.

Admission is free. New members can then invite their contacts to become part of the our group and then to register in the subgroups http://www.linkedin.com/groups?about=&gid=2639263

You can contact us for more detailed information.

Best Regards

The management team

Friday, January 15, 2010

8 Steps to Advertise Your Business Offer

The advertisement of a business offer shall lead the readers to take action like a funnel leads liquid in its center. A good offer inspires the right people to register to the companies referring program and to be interested in reading more throughout the advertising. The following is a basic template for a business offer advertisement.

1. The title of the offer.
It must be an eye-catching title. Think of your business offer as an advertisement.

2. Snapshot of what the company is looking for.
Start with a title and quickly state the results you offer: “This piece of equipment generate up to 15% in cost reduction”; “Commissions up to 300 000$ for a term of three yearsduring .

3. Statement of the intangible benefits for the referring agents and the client.
The next statement leads with intangible benefits of the offer, based on the companies brand, and tells the recipient what is unique. This statement can be specific to the business offer (ex: innovation, markets, etc.) or to the company (ex: expertise, trustworthiness, etc.). Intangible benefits can be described from the point of view of the referring agent and from the point of view of the client

4. Why is this business offer important?
You can refer to the heart the companies brand or to the benefits of the product or service to our society, referring agent or to clients.

5. Basic product/service information.
Technical aspects of the product or service offered. But don't be too technical. Explain the benefits for the end user client, the markets, the various applications. Value on the markets. Competitive edge, etc..

6. Tangibles for the referring agent
Explain tangibles like commissions, conditions, etc.. Statements like “we reserve each opportunity for 24 months. Referring agents can make an extra 30 000$ per year with only one sale closed. Online training, news and information, existing network, free communication tools are also tangibles for the referring agents.

7. Statement before the invitation to take action.
Present why they should refer opportunities to your company. or explain the commitment of the company for innovation, quality or service.

8. Invitation to take action.
Think how experts in your field can read your business offer. What can your company promise and deliver that is different than competition?

There are two types of invitations to take action that are online standard : “find out more about the company and “email this offer to a contact” .

If recipients choose either, you can use them to reinforce their interest.

If they click on a link to “find out more,” direct them to a special section of your Web site and thank them for their interest to refer opportunities to your company. Do not send them to the home page of your WEB site because you will not control the business offer message and risk loosing their interest while studying the entire WEB site of your company.

If they e-mail the job to a colleague, have your system set up to send them a separate e-mail -- inviting them to send an inquiry .

Wednesday, January 13, 2010

Strategic Alliance with CFCI

The International Commerce Training Center (Contacts Monde) and Industrial Affiliates announce a strategic alliance to open additional communication channels to support interstate, inter provincial and international commerce in North America.

Mr Karl Miville de Chêne and Pierre Dumas will offer world class communication tools to economic development agencies and businesses interested to increase daily communication on these markets.

The first campaigns will target and links markets from Quebec, Ontario and New York State which count over 32 000 export companies.

The two businesses create this strategic alliance to link innovative organizations and business people who are generally positive with:

• Inter regional and international collaboration;
• Accepting products, services and ideas coming from outside their organization;
• Opening capital investment to new projects;
• Involving risk taking entrepreneurs able to initiate new businesses on new markets;
• Innovate using communication channels reaching out to millions of users;
• Reaching out to all possible channels, customer groups, and regions with new products and services;
• Use databases linking a large number of talent available to increase commerce on local and international markets.

The two companies are aiming to systematically monetize international business networks to increase sales of goods and services. Business relationships will be deployed in four steps:

1. Send and receive information related to opportunities;
2. Receive acknowledgment of one's unique contribution in while disclosing an opportunity;
3. Establish formal and flexible agreements related to each opportunity;
4. Receive compensation in accordance to their agreements and based on performance.

This alliance adds up to the partnerships and affiliation agreements made between Industrial Affiliates and Taleo, Echosign and Salesforce as well as with hundreds of companies and public organization who dealt with ICTC (Contacts Monde). Several other alliances and affiliation will be announced shortly.

The two businessmen see an obvious need to increase communications on export markets as well as to monetize business social networks on the Internet. The alliance will collaborate with several export promotion agencies and businesses worldwide, interested to increase market penetration in North America through the communication channels of the twenty first century.

Thursday, January 7, 2010

Affiliate networks for technology clusters

Industrial Affiliates can increase the promotion of technology clusters with affiliate marketing strategies and tools.

These networks can banefit from WEB centric technologies linking technology clusters to highly specialized markets. The system also allows the diffusion of sales oriented WEB links and banners through built for each members of the technological clusters, to their distributors, resellers, retailers, sales agents etc..

Industrial Affiliates Channel Marketing tools:

Can be adapted to promote technology clusters and communities
Can be adapted to technology cluster and community WEB site
Integrates with existing third-party web sites;
Provides an online descriptive catalog of each companies in the technology clusters.

These tools can also centrally manage companies information, including:

Content – Images, Descriptions, etc.
Categories – Groupings of similar products
Cross-Selling Opportunities – Display required / related companies within a technology cluster;
Tracks and archives opportunities of requests for proposals and order history;
Each company of the technology cluster can manage their opportunities of requests for proposals;

Referring agents from each company can also access online reports of the sales process as well as to report themselves new informations.

Benefits:

Expands the technology clusters visibility
It can reach market niche in the global marketplace at a fraction of the cost of printing, trade shows, cold calls;

It can integrate all members of the value chains in a cohesive communication plan in the country;
Expands the visibility of technologies on world markets
It supports each company's channel marketing strategy for each product, service, solution and technology;

It helps companies to expand their reach to thousands of sales agents in the world highly specialized in their field of business;

It can turn business and social networks into a competitive advantage;

It can use job boards and resume databases in 54 countries;
It is sales driven;
It helps to manage opportunities of requests for proposals and to track material facts with external sales force;

It helps to create trusted networks between companies and external sales force increasing the possibilities to make sales;

It makes it easier for partners throughout the world to start business relationships with members of the technology cluster;
It helps to complete the supply and production value chains to the customer Relationship Value Chain on highly specialized markets.

The innovation value chain

Wednesday, January 6, 2010

Industrial Affiliates in partnership with Salesforce.com

Industrial Affiliates develops referring agents networks on large geographical markets.

Industrial Affiliates is now registered in Salesforce.com Cloud Computing partner program. Based on the same principles of collaboration and transparency prmoted in the "Cloud Computing" program, Industrial Affiliates invites its economic partners to collaborate to develop an implement export clusters on large geographical markets.

Salesforce.com is mostly recognized in two areas: its sales automation software (CRM) and its platform Force.com.

Sales force automation
Sales force automation (SFA) enables salespeople to be more productive by automating manual and repetitive tasks and by providing them with better, more organized data about current and prospective customers. SFA helps companies establish a system and process for recording, tracking, and sharing information about sales opportunities, sales leads, sales forecasts, the sales process, and closed business, as well as managing sales territories. SFA also helps sales organizations manage unstructured information such as sales collateral, presentations, price lists, and video assets.

Industrial Affiliates interest in SFA is based on the followings :

Conformity with governmental and economic development agencies interested to develop referring agents networks involved in trade;
Real time analysis and reports helping to make decisions;
Immediate deployment of the application online worldwide and off line;
A user friendly CRM system whit hundreds of thousands of users;
Capacity to modify and adapt the application to the needs of the customer relationship value chain;
Software proposed as a service online (saas);
The "Cloud Computing" approach will help Industrial Affiliates to deploy its Opportunity Management system more quickly;
The Affiliate Marketing approach and the export cluster approach proposed by Industrial Affiliates share the same principles of the Cloud Computing: increase efficiency (increase sales, reduce costs) through the aggregation of resources coming from multiple members located in large geographical markets.

This partnership also increases our capacity to manage large number of stakeholders through a hub which increases business relationships between the members of the customer relationship value chain as well as to provide real time reports and analysis to governments and trade agencies.

Force.com
Industrial Affiliates partnership with Salesforce.com Cloud Computing (force.com) also increases its capacity to develop and distribute its Opportunity Management system.

Industrial Affiliates also shares the view of Salesforce.com in regard to the needs to develop trust to increase performance. As such trust networks that are open on the Internet are based on collaboration and transparency.

For more information about Industrial Affiliates services click on http://www.industrialaffiliates.net/

For more information about Salesforce.com click on http://www.salesforce.com/company/investor/

NOTES
Software-as-a-Service (“SaaS”)
SaaS enables businesses to subscribe to a wide variety of application services that are developed specifically for, and delivered over, the Internet on an as-needed basis with little or no implementation services required and without the need to install and manage third-party software in-house.

SaaS contrasts with the traditional enterprise software model, which requires each customer to install, configure, manage and maintain the hardware, software and network services to implement a software application in-house. Moreover, traditional enterprise software vendors must maintain support for numerous legacy versions of their software and compatibility with a wide array of hardware devices and operating environments. As a result, they either have to dedicate fewer resources to innovation, or incur higher research and development expenses as a percentage of revenue compared with on-demand application service providers.

Salesforce.com believes the market should not discriminate between small and large companies, and businesses of all sizes and across all industries should be able to use the same software based on a multi-tenant architecture. This architecture enables Salesforce.com to leverage a common infrastructure and software code base across all customers who benefit from access to the most current release of the application, automated upgrades, more rapid innovation and the economies of a shared infrastructure.

Salesforce.com believes the shift to SaaS applications provides significant benefits even beyond those associated with multi-tenant infrastructure. Businesses are able to realize many of the benefits offered by traditional enterprise software vendors, such as a comprehensive set of features and functionality and the ability to customize and integrate with other applications, while at the same time reducing the risks and lowering the total costs of owning enterprise software. As a result, Salesforce.com believes the continued emergence of SaaS applications is bringing about a fundamental transformation in the enterprise software industry as businesses will be able to replace their purchased software with subscriptions to a wide range of application services.

Cloud Computing
Cloud computing refers to the use of Internet (“cloud”) based computing, storage and connectivity technology for a variety of different services. The pervasiveness of the Internet, along with the dramatic decline in the pricing of the technology components has enabled this new generation of computing, in which dynamically scalable and often virtual resources are provided as a service to both enterprises and consumers. Users need not have knowledge of, expertise in, or control over the technology infrastructure “in the cloud” that supports them. In the context of enterprise business applications, cloud computing fundamentally changes the way business applications are developed and deployed. Application developers no longer need to create and manage their own infrastructure of servers, storage, network devices, operating system software and development tools in order to create a business application. Instead, the entire infrastructure is managed in the cloud, and developers simply use an Internet browser to access the development environment. Application users are able to gain access to a variety of business applications via an Internet browser or mobile device, and are able to take advantage of a robust, secure, scalable and highly available application at a relatively low cost, without the cost and complexity of managing the application.

Enterprise cloud computing, which refers to business applications that are developed using the cloud and a technology platform that customers and developers use to build and run business applications, includes both application Software-as-a-Service for users and Platform-as-a-Service for developers

It powers nearly 60,000 businesses running more than 100,000 applications that 1.5+ million users count on every day. http://www.salesforce.com/platform/cloud-infrastructure/

The AppExchange is the complete marketplace for cloud computing with 1000+ apps and services that extend use of Salesforce CRM and the Force.com platform http://sites.force.com/appexchange/apex/home

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