Stay on top of trends to keep your business afloat

His clients were defecting to competitors on the Web, he relied on an antiquated computer system, and his product mix was out of date. Not surprisingly, his business was going in accordance with.

Outside forces and new technologies dramatically affect what happens to your small business. You don't have to respond in whiplash fashion to every business fad, nevertheless you can't keep your head in the sand during major changes occur.

1. The cloud.(AT) Though social media and mobile get more buzz, the great change-maker for small business comes from the cloud.

Using Internet-based applications to run your business or rather than locating those applications on your servers or hard drives sounds pretty dull, doesn't it?

The cloud is transformative

But going to the cloud is transformative. Without warning, you don't have the headaches of middle-of-the-night "my server's down" problems, you gain powerful functionality, you can spend more of your time on your business and less on your infrastructure, and you can access your applications and data from virtually anywhere.

Keep watching because this year will see the emergence of more easy-to-use tools that help you reach highly targeted clients. More small businesses will embrace a wide variety of social media platforms, and Google+ will become a significant player.

Raft of business functions

Smart businesses increasingly will use mobile solutions for a raft of business functions. One innovation that will explode: accepting payments on smartphones, with tools just as Square.

5. Credit.(AT) Credit has been tough for small businesses for years now. Nevertheless it will get slightly better this year, making it a bit easier for healthy companies with strong customer demand to expand.

I've been pleasantly surprised to meet many American small-business owners who have grown their businesses by going international.

Few years ago

A few years ago, I met a man who ran his family business as if it were 1982. His clients were defecting to competitors on the Web, he relied on an antiquated computer system, and his product mix