MME TECHNOLOGY: IT insights and trends that are today reshaping lower middle-market businesses.

Big Trouble in the Little Enterprise: Information Security and Middle-Market Firms

By on March 20, 2013 in First Person, Technology

  One of the truly unfair things about information security is that the scope of risk doesn’t scale downward with the size of the organization. A large global enterprise has to deal with all sorts of potential threats: APTs, phishing, malware incursion, insider threats, compliance mandates, and more. Unfortunately, the small enterprise or middle-market business [...]

Read full story • Comments { 0 }

Functional Expertise Trumps Tech as More Middle-Market Firms View Cloud Not as IT, but as Growth Stimulus

By on March 14, 2013 in Technology

  As more middle-market IT leaders find themselves inundated with questions regarding the latest swarm of cloud computing applications, we asked Todd Burner, a senior director at CEB, to field a few of our questions regarding the cloud and its impact on the organizational dynamics inside middle-market firms. Burner has been studying the complexities of cloud [...]

Read full story • Comments { 0 }

IBM’s Middle Man Says Analytics Better Than Sliced Bread When It Comes to Satisfying Growth-Company Appetites

By on February 15, 2013 in Technology

  “What’s the last piece of technology to parallel the impact that analytics is having inside lower-middle-market businesses?” This is one of a number of questions we recently posed to Ed Abrams, IBM vice president of marketing for midmarket businesses. His all-confident reply: “I’d say it almost parallels their first website.” While you may not [...]

Read full story • Comments { 0 }

GoGrid, the Disrupter’s Disrupter, Wields an Operations Edge

By on January 30, 2013 in In The Middle, Technology

  When Amazon sizes up its rivals inside the Web hosting arena these days, there is likely some degree of poetic justice being levied when the Web giant faces off with GoGrid, a San Francisco–based Web hosting services firm. After all, it seems only fitting that Amazon — a firm that likes to boast that [...]

Read full story • Comments { 0 }

For BlackLine, SaaS Ambitions Became Precursor to Middle-Market Growth

By on January 22, 2013 in In The Middle, Technology

  It was the kind of strategy decision that can throw even the most well-managed middle-market businesses into complete chaos. After years of developing, incenting, and motivating its world-class sales team to enlighten customers to the virtues of owning its financial close software, BlackLine Systems of Los Angeles scrapped its enterprise licensing model for one [...]

Read full story • Comments { 0 }

As Functional Knowledge Trumps IT Knowledge in the Age of the Cloud, Middle-Market Firms Behold a Flattened World

By on January 21, 2013 in Technology

  What was once best left up to the IT department to procure and deploy is now “embedded” in the business, according to Harry Wallaesa, a seasoned business leader whose varied career includes tours of duty as CIO of Campbell Soup Company, president and COO of Safeguard Scientific, and chairman of technology firm Compucom. Middle [...]

Read full story • Comments { 0 }

Analytics Takes a Deep Dive Inside the Bottom Quarter

By on December 14, 2012 in Technology

  It’s no secret that an increasing number of lower-middle-market companies are tapping into the competitive powers of analytics. However, bottom-quarter firms may have to address some unique organizational issues before they are able to properly implement and use analytics to their advantage. We recently caught up with Jundong Song, head of marketing intelligence for 89 [...]

Read full story • Comments { 0 }

At Xactly, the Gazelles Are Caught on the Way Up Not Once, But Twice

By on December 13, 2012 in In The Middle, Technology

  Among some lower-middle-market companies, few customers are more coveted than those that reside in the middle market’s bottom quarter. Such is the case with Xactly of San Jose, California, a venture-backed, software-as-a-service (SaaS) firm that lately appears to be just as enthralled by the growth of other bottom-quarter firms as it is with its [...]

Read full story • Comments { 0 }

At Geneca, Culture Triggers Growth for Employer as Well as Employees

By on November 21, 2012 in In The Middle, Technology

  How a middle-market software developer came to realize that its future would be measured by its employees’ lines of sight. For many fast-growth companies, corporate culture remains stubbornly adolescent — an awkward organizational construct that never quite reaches maturity. For less inspired middle-market leaders, the company’s holiday party may still serve as a worthy [...]

Read full story • Comments { 0 }

How Cloud Computing Became a Second-Century Priority at Thomas Publishing

By on November 13, 2012 in Finance, In The Middle, Technology

  As it has for many middle-market firms, the uncertain economy has made Thomas Publishing of New York City ever savvier when it comes to leveraging technology to reduce costs. These reductions don’t always require the elimination of jobs — or at least they didn’t when Thomas Publishing recently zeroed in on its hiring expenses. [...]

Read full story • Comments { 0 }