Business-to-business selling on the Internet, or B2B e-commerce, is one of the fastest growing segments of the small-business marketplace. As businesses flock to the Internet to find vendors for essential products and services, B2B e-commerce is rapidly expanding, both in terms of total revenue and the number of small B2B firms operating in the digital space.

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It’s been difficult in recent years for many people and small businesses to get the loans they need from banks and other traditional lenders, but there are a variety of alternative models. One is person-to-person lending, offered by companies like
Prosper, which essentially lets individual people become lenders. "We look at Prosper as a new way of banking," said Chris Larsen, Prosper’s CEO and cofounder.

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One of the most significant workplace changes of the past decade has been the steady increase in telework and flexible work arrangements. In the past, the ability to work remotely from time to time might have just shown up on a "corporate perks" sheet handed to new employees. Today, telework is no longer an employee perk but rather a business imperative.

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Many small-business owners may not realize that the cloud plays a big role in their business operations, and its importance is growing every day. I’m often asked, "What exactly is the cloud, and why does my company need it?" Simply put, the cloud hosts resources and applications that are accessed through the Internet.

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Cloud computing may still be in its infancy, but Google, Amazon and IBM — as well as other large vendors — have rolled out cloud services at almost breathtaking speed. Indeed, it might appear these tier one vendors already have the multibillion dollar industry sewn up. That is not true, of course.

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