The IRS is exploring opportunities to partner with organizations to help entrepreneurs in Arizona thrive in their business ventures, especially new sole proprietors. By providing links and downloadable PDFs, it gives proprietors a site to find information through tax publications, videos and social media. It also provides specific resource information in PDF format for … [More]
Contest is Win for Small Business
The Arizona Small Business Association announced the winner for its amAZing® Small Business Video Contest at the 20th Annual Enterprise Business Awards Luncheon last month at The Phoenician. All In The Present won first place, along with $500 cash. The other finalists were Kaptured Photography, SWAT Fitness and Benjamin Franklin Plumbing. … [More]
Cashing In on the ‘Internet of Things’
Presence, a recently launched smartphone application from Mesa-based People Power, is the first free wireless Web camera made by recycling old smartphones or mobile devices as cameras, which can be used as monitoring devices. Users include the City of Globe’s school district, which uses smartphones donated by the residents as an affordable measure to maintain security … [More]
Demographics Drive Housing Market
Lifestyle-inspired design change is the approach Maracay Homes is taking to make its new homes stand out in the re-emerging housing market. Among the features in its Arizona Collection are an “owner’s entry” from the garage, with cubbies for personal items and a technology station for docking electronic devices, that displaces the laundry room to a new location behind the … [More]
Micro Business Blossoms at Phoenix Public Market
Last month, the Phoenix Public Market celebrated the opening of the Phoenix Public Market Café by St. Francis owner Aaron Chamberlin, which re-energizes space that had been empty for a year. Many of the market’s micro businesses will also directly benefit by selling products to the new restaurant. As a venue, the Phoenix Public Market contributes strong support to the local … [More]
ProKure Revolutionizes Commercial Cleaning
A patented delivery system for ClO2 (chlorine dioxide), a biocide long recognized for its effectiveness in odor and pathogen control but previously available only in large applications, brings the product within reach for small businesses. ProKure Solutions offers easy-to-store, long-shelf-life pouches that dissolve in water to reliably create specified concentrations, … [More]
Data Center in Tucson Offers Off-site Security for Valley Businesses
“As the data center market grows in Phoenix, it’s a great opportunity to have a second site two hours away,” says Bruce Lehrman, CEO of Involta, a full-service data center company that opened a 38,000-square-foot facility in Tucson last month. Just as Phoenix has become a popular location for off-site data centers because of the state’s lack of natural disasters, Valley … [More]
Investment Call Center Expands in Chandler
The Chandler call center of Bank of America’s Merrill Edge investment service will be expanding the number of its investment advisors by about 50 percent over the course of 2013. The office, open since 2010 to serve the “mass affluent” segment (who invest $50,000 – $250,000), currently employs 197 investment professionals. According to Mike Nannini, the division sales … [More]
Forego ‘Gut Instinct’ to Build Biz in China
Westerners don’t have as much in common with the Chinese as they do with their fellow Westerners. So don’t expect to see through them or make instinctive and accurate judgments about Chinese businesspeople or situations. You Don’t Know What You Don’t Know. Issues not even bothered with when doing business in the States are life-and-death issues for China because contracts … [More]
Healthcare Operation in Growth Mode Thanks to PPACA
Theirs is a field of healthcare whose present growth “directly relates to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act,” says Jennifer Rayl, who, with husband Steve, owns a BrightStar Care franchise in Scottsdale. The business provides home care in a full continuum from non-medical to skilled, and the BrightStar Care franchise developed its Clinical Pathways Program … [More]
Business Advice in All Industries
A UK company has come up with a way to get business advice online for free. GuruOnline, a “video network” of clips on advice for every business situation from regions around the world. Members can access for fast and relevant answers to their business questions. … [More]
Counterfeit Software Hurts
A survey by Microsoft and IDC looked at the effects of malware and counterfeit software that infect computers. The study finds that time and costs are significant. Visit the site to see the results and learn more as one in three consumer PCs will be infected by malware in 2013, and consumers will waste $22 billion and 1.5 billion hours dealing with security issues from … [More]
Get IT $avvy
Baseline is a website that helps tech managers and business executives work together to understand and find the ROI in IT. Baselinemag.com provides valuable information on all areas of IT through articles, latest technologies and reports to help build business. With content organized for easy, intuitive search, this site is known for truly bringing an understanding of IT and … [More]
Evernote Does Everything
An app, Evernote claims it can help you remember everything. In business, that is a real plus. With Evernote, all of a user’s notes, Web clips, files and images are made available on all of his or her computers and devices. Reference to all that one does, stores awnd schedules is right at one’s fingertips. … [More]
Multi-Family Gains Benefit Chandler
The new development that broke ground in March at Alma School and Pecos roads represents a planning change by the City of Chandler’s economic development department. Because the city was already considering whether to change the zoning on some properties — and what to change to — as a result of the recently completed “4-Corner Retail Study,” Chandler was open to developer … [More]
Packaged Water Company Aims to Help Local Economy
The idea was ahead of its time when Liesl Harder Kielp, founder and president of AguaSAC, L.L.C., began talking with colleagues three years ago about packaging water in a pouch. “The film structures available were not conducive to water — they would taint the flavor,” explains Kielp, who is also founder of EnVision Flexible Packaging, referring to the material used for making … [More]
‘First to File’ Patent System Replaces ‘First to Invent’
The change in United States patent laws that went into effect on March 16 of this year is intended to better align the U.S. with all other industrialized countries, in that all countries now utilize a “first to file” standard as opposed to “first to invent” when determining who has priority to an invention. Previously, if a company could show it was, in fact, the first to … [More]
Local Banks Merge, Establish Stronger Capital Position
The merger of First Scottsdale Bank and Commerce Bank of Arizona, Inc.’s parent company, CBOA Financial, Inc., will establish the new entity as the second-largest commercial bank franchise headquartered in Arizona when the transaction closes, which is expected to happen in the second half of this year. The new Commerce Bank — the name under which the merged entity will operate … [More]
