Today in Global Small Business: Save Water Co. Wins International Entrepreneurship Award

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What's affecting me, my clients, my colleagues and other global small business owners:

• Houston woman Katie Anderson of Save Water Co. wins international entrepreneurship award with her water conservation business.
• How to tune up your website for global customers (n/c webinar on 5/10); learn from the expert, John Yunker, about what it takes to accommodate online customers worldwide.
• Who knew:  Oracle is a global business.
• Trade secretary [Philippines] Ramon Lopez pushes SMEs into global space by helping them grow their exports.
• India's leather exports poised to hit US $27 billion by 2020.
• See how charity is first for a global business development boss.
• Oh, one more ... Happy Small Business Week.  Kudos to all the global small business owners who keep our economy humming.

What's On the Horizon for Commerce Trends in 2017?

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Commerce marketing automation provider Bronto asked experts inside and outside their company to talk about what's on the horizon for commerce trends in 2017.

In a nutshell: Get ready for global ecommerce, a more visual approach to marketing to customers, the emergence of cost- effective browse recovery technology and virtual dressing rooms, a more thoughtful approach to omnichannel marketing and, as always, a keen focus on personalization.

Read the full report here.

For the First Time, NetSuite Becomes Truly Global

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By itself, NetSuite, offering a range of productivity tools, including ERP (enterprise resource planning) and CRM (customer relationship management), couldn’t tap into foreign markets the way a giant like Oracle can.

NetSuite has mostly limited itself to the English-speaking world (and Japan).  Now that Oracle has acquired NetSuite, it plans to localize its products for many more countries while expanding its data-center capacity, sales operations, partner channel and other assets to reach customers in those new areas.

“We were beginning to globalize, but we didn’t really have the resources or presence to be able to do so,” said Zach Nelson, former NetSuite CEO, who will run the new business unit.

Read more:  NetSuite's Going Global Under Oracle's Flag