Could Your Business Use a Technology Makeover?

If your business could use a good technology makeover, there’s still time to submit an application for the WBDC’s Third Annual Small Business Technology Makeover Competition. You could win more than $100,000 in free technology products and business services. The deadline to apply is December 15 at 5 p.m.

The two previous winners are thrilled to have entered and won. Julie Savitt, owner of AMS Earth Movers, says the earth stopped the day in early January 2010 when she learned she beat over 100 women entrepreneurs to win $35,000 in services and equipment. Last year, Linda Toops won $60,000 in products and services for her company, Clerestory Consulting.

The WBDC sponsors the competition in a collaborative partnership with such corporate and small business sponsors as CDW, Constant Contact, COSi, Directions Training Center, Etchasoft, Falkor, MarketM, Microsoft and Microsoft Store.

Ms. Savitt’s company, AMS Earth Movers, with six employees and four company-owned trucks, is a construction materials hauling company, whose primary service is the hauling of aggregate, brick, broken asphalt, soil and contaminated soil to and from job sites in the greater Chicago area. Its antiquated technology was dragging it down – but all that changed when Julie won the top prize.

Today, she has a new website, an upgraded computer server and network, computer hosting and maintenance, high-speed internet bundled with nationwide long distance and email hosting, a color printer and supplies and a Sharepoint portal set up for team collaboration. Plus, she received the training to use it all.

Winning the competition gave Ms. Savitt the courage to do something she never anticipated: resigning 25 percent of her residential customers who were slow-paying. Instead, she concentrated on winning federal government “stimulus” projects and began working directly with general contractors to win business. Some 95 percent of her clients now pay within 30-45 days and she's generating an average of two new customers each month.

Clerestory Consulting is a change-management consulting firm that focuses on helping clients receive measurable business results that lead to decreased costs and increased profitability. They work in a variety of industries including manufacturing, financial services, education, not-for-profit and city government.

In her awards application, Ms. Troops wrote that the majority of their laptops, printers and servers were eight years old, and many were used when originally purchased. Laptops are essential to their business because each consultant takes them to a job site and spends between 40 to 50 hours a week using them to gather data, create and analyze spread sheets, and to cost-justify their recommendations to their clients. The economic downturn prevented the firm from purchasing new equipment; the prize package enabled them to improve operations and become profitable once again.

This year’s prize package includes a small business server; 1 networked printer; 1 projector; 2 headsets; 7 laptop computers; $30,000 scholarship to Executive Business Training; website development, including brand design and content; installation and configuration hardware, labor and support; 5 licenses of Microsoft Small Business Server Premium 2008, Microsoft Office Professional 2010 and Windows 7 Ultimate; full suite of email marketing products, and much more.

Click here for more information and to submit your application today!

Tagged as: small business and women business owners

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Hedy M. Ratner is founder and co-president of the Women's Business Development Center, the largest, oldest and most comprehensive and successful women's business assistance center in the U.S. She blogs about entrepreneurship, working women, success stories, small business and more in “Windows to Business Success.”