How to Kick the Curse of the Slow Computer

While many people are using tablets in this day and age to get quick and easy access to applications and resources that would help them become more productive, several have also decided to keep the PC or laptop close by in case they need to do some heavy-duty work.

The problem with both the desktop PC and the laptop is that they can get sluggish after a while, destroying your productivity and that of your employees. What are you going to do when it takes a quarter of an hour to get that cursed machine on? A quarter of an hour is worth a bit of money, and that gathers up, drop by drop, to thousands of hours a year lost all due to a slow computer. That equates to several thousands of dollars going “poof” every single year.

How do you get your computing infrastructure faster? Let's see a few suggestions from Eric Townsend, SMB & MSP Director at Intel Corporation:

• Schedule your stuff at off-hours â€" Your computer has a schedule for everything, from disk defragmentation to software update installations. Schedule these things at times that you don't need the computer very much, like weekends and after office hours.
• Make regular backups â€" When your computer becomes unbearable, instead of reinstalling the operating system and starting from scratch, you can back up your data on a regular basis. Schedule the backups to happen at weekends and off-hours like in the advice above.
• Update/install antivirus programs â€" You really need to have top-of-the-line security installed in all computers within your company. If you deal with any sensitive data (and you can bet that you do), you'd do best with an enterprise-level security solution. Malware has a tendency to slow down computers and abuse their resources thoroughly. Want to know a secret? They use up resources more often because they're poorly coded in a makeshift manner, not because they intentionally want to make your computer slow. The best virus/Trojan horse is one that doesn't leave a trace, not even while monitoring resources.
• Create a power schedule - We've already told you that you can install updates and stuff at times when the computer is needed. But how do you tell the computer to turn off when it's not installing anything? Make a power-on power-off schedule that goes around this. Give the computer about three hours to do all its updating and defragmentation and an entire day to back up data. Usually, that gives the computer more than enough time to do all its stuff. In fact, you can take this a little further and have employee computers boot about at least 20 minutes before the work day begins. This makes them more productive, since they don't have to sit around waiting for a PC to start up.
• Consider laptops with long battery life - If you give your employees laptops, give them something that has a battery life that's unbeatable. The same goes for tablets and smartphones. This makes their uptime more efficient.
• Get wireless devices with 3-antenna MIMO technology â€" Three antennas with MIMO technology ensures that laptops don't get lost in a wireless network. They will have a strong signal strength and be able to operate from quite a distance!

You're business depends on computers running efficiently perhaps more than you think. If you apply these practices, you will reap financial benefits while keeping your customer base happy and employee productivity at a maximum.

The Number One Reason Employees Stay in a Small Business, According to Employers

If you're like most small business owners, you've invested a sizable chunk of your company's time and money into recruiting, onboarding, and training employees.  Naturally, you do not want to lose good people - because then your investment is wasted.  On top of that your business may be plunged into a mini-crisis by losing a great performer who is difficult to replace.

But the question on the minds of small business owners like me is, what exactly does it take to attract and retain good employees today?  And can small employers compete with large employers able to offer bigger financial packages?

A recent survey has some good news.  Among employers polled, the number one benefit offered was … drum roll please:  paid vacation time.  That is the top benefit that employers surveyed in the GrowBiz Media Small Business Hiring and Retention Survey 2012 said they offered their employees.  Over sixty-seven percent (67.7% to be exact) said they offered paid vacation.

To me that's not surprising - it doesn't necessarily cost anything out of pocket to offer paid vacation.  So it's within the reach of more small employers to offer paid vacation than to offer benefits that cost additional out of pocket.

If anything surprised me, it's the percentage of employers who said they do NOT offer paid vacation.  I find it remarkable  that in this day and age, that nearly one third of the employers said they do do not offer vacation.

The Top 5 Benefits Offered

And what about other benefits? The benefits most often offered by small employers with between 2 and 50 employees  include, in order:

• Vacation time â€" 67.7%
• Personal days off â€" 63%
• Health insurance â€" 57.5%
• Flexible working hours â€" 56%
• Bonuses â€" 55.3%

The Number One Retention Factor Is Not Benefits At All

But if you really want to know what keeps employees around in a small business, it isn't benefits at all.  It's the relationship the employee has with management - at least, that's what employers say.  Those surveyed said the following were the top factors influencing employees to remain:

• Manager-employee relationships â€" 78%
• Company culture â€" 66%
• Employee benefits â€" 53%

The survey results did not include a question about salary, so we don't know where pay fits into the mix.

No Upside to Burning Out Your Employees

When you look at this list, it shows you that investing in relationships and working conditions help your business  compete against larger employers for the available talent pool, and yield good results.  From the employer side you are getting something good in return.  Refreshed, happy, well-balanced employees  are typically better performing.  They are more likely to stick around longer term, meaning less turnover and repeat hiring, onboarding and training for you.  As a result, your business runs more smoothly and there's less churn.  That's good for business.

Let me offer an analogy:  employees are an asset like anything else in your business.  You wouldn't run a valuable piece of equipment into the ground without maintenance, until it breaks and is worthless.  Your employees deserve at least as much consideration and respect.

And remember:  this is not asking employees what factored into their decisions to stay with their existing employers, but rather focused on what employers thought influenced employees to stay.  Still, it points out that small business employers believe they have something to offer that employees want:  good working relationships and a good company culture.  Oh, and some benefits, too, especially quality of life benefits.  View the full employer survey results.

Are you surprised?  And employees, you've heard from the employers - now, what do you say?

Manager and Staff Photo via Shutterstock

Jim Fowler of InfoArmy: Creating An iPad Army of Competitive Intelligence

Imagine an army of iPads marching towards you, about to hand you all of the valuable research data you've been searching for in the blink of an eye. Sounds great, doesn't it? Even better, that vision has actually manifested into reality. Tune in as Jim Fowler, CEO and Founder of InfoArmy, joins Brent Leary to share these latest developments in the world of technology, data and research.

* * * * *

Small Business Trends: Can you tell us a little bit about yourself and InfoArmy?

Jim Fowler: After we sold Jigsaw, I took some of my winnings and funded InfoArmy.  We just launched about a week ago. The concept for InfoArmy is recruiting an army of disciplined global researchers to build a data base of what we call competitive intelligence reports. In three words, the concept of the company is “crowdsourcing competitive intelligence.”

Small Business Trends: How does this compare to what you did with Jigsaw?

Jim Fowler: The concept is similar.  InfoArmy is just a much bigger and more ambitious project than Jigsaw. Jigsaw was about business card records.  InfoArmy is about taking a big form that we have our researchers fill out about a company. In particular, we are looking for specific things like what other companies like this particular company competes with.  We call this a competitive eco system.

We are looking for people at the company.  We are looking for estimates of revenue and a number of employees. Each one of these competitive intelligence reports is completed by the researchers and then we compare the data and track them over time.  So our ambition is to create a really, really invaluable set of data that can be used broadly across many industries.

Small Business Trends: How does the iPad figure into this?

Jim Fowler: We have built our product from the ground up for consumption on the iPad.  Meaning that these reports are designed to be read on the iPad. Our basic thought is information on an iPad is a living, breathing thing.  On paper, it is as dead as the tree that it is  printed on. You can learn in two minutes what it would take two days or more to learn on your own with the ability to move through data quickly on the iPad.

Small Business Trends: Do you foresee changing the way that the analyst community works because of the approach you are taking with InfoArmy?

Jim Fowler: You know, I do Brent. At the beginning there is no question we are creating a set of data we think no one really wants to collect. Our researchers update these competitive intelligence reports every quarter so we think it provides a baseline of information everyone can use.  It just does not exist right now.

Over time, we do believe that we will start offering higher end products that start encroaching into where the analyst lives today.  But for now, we just have to build a critical mass of these reports.

Small Business Trends: What are your expectations for InfoArmy, if we look out a year or two, or even five years from now?

Jim Fowler: Eventually, we want millions of these reports globally in multiple languages.  You have a global set of data and you can read a Twitter report in English, or German, or Swahili, because we will have tens of thousands of researchers that are building these reports.

The other big goal is to have a platform that researchers can literally earn a living on. We have a vision that there is a lot of need for business information.  It is a multi-billion dollar business.  We would like to see the old rules change, where you can use the crowds, and crowds can actually earn a living as researchers on this platform.

Small Business Trends: Would you have been able to do something like InfoArmy five years ago?

Jim Fowler: I think the technology existed to do this concept, but people would have been reading these reports on the web. Now the web is a step up from paper and tablets are a step up from the web from a consumption standpoint.

Our researchers are building these reports on the web as it is too difficult to actually input the data on an iPad.  So the input is done on the web. But I truly believe there is no way they can have the power of consumption and the power of readability that living, breathing data has on an iPad.

I'd encourage people to download the free InfoArmy on iPad app. We have a bunch of free reports available. Look for ones that have trend analysis.  Every quarter they're updated and you can literally just swipe through quarter over quarter and see the change. That is really when you see the power of the mobile device.

Small Business Trends: We are now at a point where we are actually able to provide the kind of things that we always wanted for consumers?

Jim Fowler: I think so.  But I think the crowdsourcing movement is the bigger change here. The tablet is the next step of the technology, but crowdsourcing is the next step of how people work, think and build information together. To me that is the part that is most exciting.

Small Business Trends: So technology is the enabler of the crowd being able to collaborate and the outputs of that collaboration is more exciting to you?

Jim Fowler: You nailed it.  Exactly Brent. You think about the massive transformation and information, and then look at Wikipedia. I mean the crowdsourcing model has taken this industry and completely changed it. It's like Encyclopedia Britannica is basically dead.  They have quit publishing books on paper.

I think if you look at business information, models like Jigsaw and InfoArmy have the ability to take big established brands like Dun & Bradstreet down completely.  I think we are going to see that happen.

Jigsaw had great success in taking an old industry like business contacts and making it into a crowdsourcing play that had a lot of value. Jigsaw was purchased by Salesforce.com for $175 million dollars.  It was a relatively small database of 21 million records.  You can put that on a flash drive now.

Small Business Trends: Where can people learn more about InfoArmy?

Jim Fowler: Visit InfoArmy.com and you can go in and see the reports or you can sign up and become a researcher.

This interview is part of our One on One series of conversations with some of the most thought-provoking entrepreneurs, authors and experts in business today. This interview has been edited for publication. To hear audio of the full interview, click the right arrow on the gray player below. You can also see more interviews in our interview series.

Whether you're growing your business or starting a new venture, BlackBerry solutions provide you with the freedom you want and the control you need. [Series sponsor]

 

Seven Rules to Becoming a Facebook Tastemaker

When the New York Times referred to Facebook as a “Tastemaker” in an article last September, the term perfectly captured this era where one person can influence so many others. The internet has taken the power to influence the masses away from the media and put it in the hands of you, the social media user. The announcement last September was part of Facebook's push toward a medium that processes what you're doing, watching, wearing, and listening to and shares it with your friends. Facebook will process this information and use it to make recommendations.

This move toward public consumerism brings a great opportunity for small businesses, who may find a new audience simply by a few social media users mentioning them. Internet entrepreneur Evan Bailyn believes this is a prime opportunity for these businesses. Want to get involved? Follow these seven tips to increase your chances of becoming a Facebook Tastemaker:

Be genuine. Nobody likes a sales pitch, so it's important to be sincere in your postings. Only post about those things you truly believe in. Your sincerity will come through and you'll have more success.

Make the right friends. It's not about how many people you know, but who you know. Make sure you choose friends that have a wide network. This will allow you to reach more people with your messages.

Project an image. “Facebook's Timeline feature with its large cover image is the perfect place to showcase photos and graphics that reflect the spirit of your business,” Bailyn says. He recommends using Facebook ads, your website, and other social media sites to create an image that expresses who you are and what you do.

Leverage social capital. Bailyn recommends initiating a campaign where you personally e-mail other tastemakers and offer to post something about their business if they'll post about yours. Be sure to choose tastemakers with large, active followings. While it may seem like a great deal of work, Bailyn notes that many businesses don't engage in e-mail campaigns, so doing so can give you the edge.

Don't over-commercialize. This is especially important in your e-mail campaign, as many tastemakers will be reluctant to exchange status updates if your page looks like an advertisement. Be sure your page has real, interesting content that sincerely expresses your interests.

Be entertaining. “No matter your profession, if you create a daily entertaining status update that relates to your industry that's good enough, people will begin looking forward to it, commenting, sharing and liking it abundantly each day,” Bailyn states. He points out that those status updates with high activity levels are prioritized higher in members' newsfeeds. By drawing users in with regularly updated, interesting content, you'll increase your visibility, thereby growing your audience.

Play it cool. Once your Facebook presence has begun to take off, continue to pace yourself. Too many status updates and you'll scare people off. Bailyn recommends posting no more than twice per day on Facebook to avoid being hidden in people's status updates for overposting.

Bailey's book, Outsmarting Google, gives his expert advice on search engine optimization. His follow-up, Outsmarting Social Media, is now available through Amazon.

Fresh criticism of RSA authentication creates rebuttal from vendor on reporting

RSA has defended itself over the Project Team Prosecco research once again after a blog described it as ‘walking around the research without directly addressing it'.

Responding to the Team Prosecco research paper, a blog by Root Labs' Nate Lawson claimed that RSA was ignoring the point that even a legitimate user should not be able to recover encrypted ‘wrapped' keys, as they can only cause the token to unwrap and use them on the operator's behalf, but not recover the keys themselves.

“So this attack definitely qualifies as privilege escalation, even if performed by the authorised user herself,” Lawson said.

He also claimed that as the attack requires local access and a PIN, and PKCS #11 is an API, that RSA ‘really has no firm knowledge how all their customers are using it'.

It said: “Some applications may proxy access to the token via a web front end or other network access. An application may cache the PIN. As with other arguments that privilege escalation attacks don't matter, it assumes a lot about the customer and attacker profile that RSA has no way of knowing.”

The blog also addressed RSA's issue that OAEP (PKCS #1 v2.0) is not subject to this vulnerability, and claimed that this doesn't address the issue raised in the paper where RSA's implementation sets flags in the key to allow the user to choose version 2.0 or 1.5.

It said: “Hopefully, they'll be fixing this despite not mentioning it here. After all, the research paper shows that many other major vendors had the same problem. My conclusion is that we have a long way to go in getting robust crypto implementations in this token market.”

In a response blog, Sam Curry, CTO for the identity and data protection business unit at RSA, said that it was not “walking around” the Project Team Prosecco research as asserted by Root Labs as it supports the research, and its problem was with the reporting on the research and its relationship to RSA.

He said: “Much of this reporting is misleading and inaccurate, leading to unwarranted fear among customers. Reports have been published that claim the cracking of RSA SecurID 800 devices, stealing of private keys and possible cloning of smart cards; all of which of course are not true. In addition, other reports link this attack against smartcards to the RSA SecurID One Time Passcode technology, which is strictly false.”

Looking directly at the Root Labs blog, Curry said that while the summary was fine, it was incomplete as one critical piece that was misunderstood was the statement that the researchers had 'unfettered access to the vendor solutions', including having the PINs needed to access the device.

He said: “Not mentioned by the authors in the paper (or subsequent reporting on the subject) is that RSA was in contact with the researchers more than a year ago. After the researchers explained some weaknesses in our implementation, we modified our PKCS #1 V1.5, and shipped an updated version of our middleware supporting the recommended changes, namely RAC 3.5.4.

“Since the research report does not indicate what version of the middleware was used in the testing, it is difficult to tell if the performance numbers reflect the current RSA middleware. Our suspicion is that the testing in the research paper was not using the new version of RAC, and that some of the speed difference is attributable to an efficient implementation of RSA encryption in the RSA SecurID 800 token which is generally a good thing, but in this case may allow the test to complete faster.”

Curry said that due to the research, it was in the process of designing a solution that will by default disable PKCS #1 V1.5, but allow customers who have this need for backward compatibility to re-enable V1.5 support.

He also said that RSA has responded to these researchers in the past with improvements to its security and welcomes the ‘honest dialogue' their efforts generate.

“We agree that the industry needs robust crypto implementations, and RSA works hard to lead the industry in this area as demonstrated by our early support for PKCS #1 V2 and OAEP.  We expect to continue in this role,” he said.

“Security of smart card devices like the RSA SecurID 800 is not compromised as long as people maintain best practices and control of their PIN. To close, and to illustrate the misinformation being published, the Root Labs blog title should have said ‘PKCS #1 V1.5 vulnerability' instead of ‘SecurID vulnerability'.”

TRUSTe release privacy certifications for websites

New privacy certification solutions have been released by TRUSTe to help UK businesses address consumer privacy concerns.

Its research found that 90 per cent of consumers were concerned about their privacy online, and 88 per cent would not conduct business with companies that they felt were failing to safeguard their online privacy. However a survey of 2,000 adults in the UK found that half were aware of the TRUSTe green privacy seal.

Once a business is certified with the privacy certification solutions, it can display the green TRUSTe Certified Privacy Seal on their site. The solutions include full-service consumer dispute resolution services, which enable businesses to address consumer privacy complaints, while TRUSTe's combination of privacy solutions enable a business to address regulatory compliance.

Chris Babel, CEO of TRUSTe said: “Good online privacy practices are not just about meeting regulatory compliance, but also building consumer trust. With the underlying reality that data is easier to collect, cheaper to store and faster to analyse than ever before, it is even more important that companies can easily demonstrate to consumers that they take privacy seriously.

“TRUSTe's Certified Privacy Seal does just that. We have helped thousands of companies manage their online privacy practices for 15 years, and it is a natural step to extend these services to the UK market.”

Brands such as Apple, eBay, LinkedIn and Microsoft have adopted TRUSTe certificates, with participation growing by over 60 per cent in 2011, with over 4,000 new businesses certified under the TRUSTed websites programme.

White Hat Rally raises more than £25,000

A total of 68 participants in 19 vehicles raised more than £25,000 for charity last weekend at the White Hat Rally.

The route went from Market Harborough to Lincoln, via a loop taking in Cadwell Park and Manby Motorplex on the Saturday and code breaking centre Bletchley Park, via Wansford, Kimbolton and Grafham Water, on the Sunday. Participants are asked to buy a car for less than £500 and customise it for the event.

White Hat handed a cheque for £185,000 to ChildLine at Infosecurity Europe in April, after February's White Hat Ball raised £115,000. the next event is White Hat Sailing, which will take place between the 17th and 19th August on the south coast around the Solent area.

SC Magazine's Dan Raywood will be running the Royal Parks half marathon in October as part of Team White Hat for ChildLine â€" you can sponsor him here

Time Are Tough

When I had a day job, few things bugged me more than painfully obvious corporate waste.

Instead of hiring a service to come in twice weekly to water the plants, maybe you could have someone at the company do that. Or maybe we didn't need to fly the whole company down for the weekend to show us a powerpoint. And I'm betting we could've done without that awful puppet show at the regional meeting. (I'm not making that up.)

I'm not saying that focusing on your strengths, or fostering unity, or, well, puppets, aren't important, but when times are tough, maybe scaling back a bit on some of the obvious extras might not be a bad idea.

Top 10 Email Marketing Musts

Today, we're going to talk about how your business can do email marketing in ways that will serve its interests â€" and the interests of its customers â€" in a much more valuable manner. There's a long list of “don'ts” in email marketing and a very, very short list of “do's.” With all that said, it's best to start with what you should do to ensure that your email marketing campaign succeeds and your customers benefit from it.

To many people, receiving unsolicited emails can be an annoyance. You've most likely been a victim of it in one form or another. Everyone can empathize with the guy whose inbox is full of junk. But one man's trash is another man's treasure. In other words, there are people interested in engaging with your company and finding the latest deals and added services. Let's take a look at what will help make your campaign successful without throwing your company's reputation in the bin!

Wikus Engelbrecht, a writer from GraphicMail, presents us with these tips:

• Get an ESP that fits you - Email service providers, or ESPs, come in all different shapes and sizes. Some of them work better for a small gadget company and others work well for a massive online store. Regardless of the size of your business, there are things all good ESP's have in common: an online/offline support system, training via tutorials, and a sturdy infrastructure.
• Use an opt-in system - One of the most annoying things you can possibly do is to email your newsletter to every email address that has ever touched your site. This is often practiced by amateur companies and isn't a good way to keep a loyal client base. Instead, create an opt-in system where clients that are actually interested in your services can subscribe to your newsletter.
• Send emails based on interests - While users are logged in to your site, things they browse through might show you what they're interested in. While, in some cases, this doesn't work with your business model, you might be able to pull it off. Let's say you own a store that sells electronics and PC stuff. One visitor might have browsed through speakers last week. You can send him and everyone else who browsed speakers an email with promotional prices on some of your stock. This raises the bar a bit and attracts them, since you're talking about something they were interested in a while back. You can cluster up email addresses according to interest to tailor your emails to each particular group with an interest.
• Watch your address list - If your company gets an email back that a particular address no longer exists, remove that address immediately. Sending consistent emails to “dead” addresses tells ISPs and ESPs that you're a spammer. You don't want that kind of reputation.
• Don't forget your mobile customers - Many people are now starting to view their email inboxes via their smartphones and tablets. Don't forget to make your emails compatible with mobile devices. It will help develop a better customer relationship with those customers that are always on the go.
• Write compelling subjects - You might need a writer to help you out with this. The subject should be the topic-maker and the first thing you write in the email. Make sure the subject tells the customer what to expect and give the subject a sense of urgency without making false promises. Here's a good example: 10% or more off on all items from July 20-25!
• Don't be afraid to experiment â€" Get your creative side going! Try a different series of subject lines in each marketing email you send and see how many customers actually click through. Your click-through rate, or CTR, should help you determine the percentage of customers who read the email and actually became interested in what you had to offer.
• Send your emails at the right hour - Depending on the tendencies of your customer base, you might have to schedule emails according to when they usually open their inboxes. A good ESP can tell you when a customer has opened an email and let you schedule your marketing emails according to an average time when your clients seem to be around their computers.
• Let them opt out â€" Make your “unsubscribe” link clear and visible. They should be able to remove themselves from your system if they wish. If you don't do this, they'll start reporting your emails as spam. The more reports you receive, the more damage you take when you'll want to pursue new customers.
• Update your customers consistently - The most successful campaigns send out emails at least quarterly. This is a kind of “hey, I'm still here” to your customers and lets them know you still exist.

As long as you keep to these guidelines, you'll have a marketing campaign that will ensure a tight relationship between your business and your customers. The more transparent you are about what you do, the more trust they'll have in you.

Supreme Court Rules on Healthcare: How Your Business Will Be Affected

Healthcare reform in the US is still a hotly debated topic, even after a long awaited ruling by the Supreme Court was handed down on Thursday. Here are details of the court's decision, and how businesses in particular could be affected.

Supreme Court Decision

What the ruling says. It's a decision that stunned some pundits and will undoubtedly send ripples throughout the business community. The Supreme Court ruled 5 to 4 that Congress acted within its rights to require most Americans to carry health insurance. The law also carries requirements for businesses regarding healthcare for employees. Boston Herald

What it means. What the decision means to you depends greatly upon the size of the business you operate. For example, if you own and operate a one person business, the impact will be much the same as it is for an individual. If you have more than 50 employees on the other hand, the impact on your business could be quite different, depending upon whether or not you currently provide healthcare coverage for workers. The Wall Street Journal

Reactions & Reflection

A mixed bag. The Supreme Court decision will likely mean higher costs for small businesses, especially some that may not currently offer healthcare coverage for employees. But the reaction among small business owners and groups has been a bit more varied, with some concerned the decision represents a terrible blow to entrepreneurship while others believe it will bring down costs. The Washington Post

A moment of clarity. Some small business owners are less than happy with the Supreme Court ruling on healthcare and requirements that they must now supply coverage or be hit with a fine. But economists argue the ruling does provide one benefit to business owners: the clarity to finally know how to plan for the future. Los Angeles Times

Healthcare Implications

Winners and losers. As the 80′s rock band Journey once sang, “Some will win, some will loose, some are born to sing the blues.” In the same way, some businesses will be winners and others will be losers with the Supreme Court ruling on healthcare. Businesses in the healthcare industry, for example, will in many cases be doing better. However, some businesses that don't currently provide healthcare are in for a big cost increase. ABC News

Benefits vs. costs. Another way to look at the Supreme Court ruling is to think of it in terms of benefits and costs for all businesses. For example, some argue the insurance requirement will have the overall impact of lowering costs as the pool of healthy people expands. On the other hand some businesses will pay more for mandated care. Entrepreneur

Cost controls. One major question that remains to be answered is what the Supreme Court ruling will do to healthcare costs. Of course by now, most business owners understand the existing legislation would force some companies to spend more. But will the requirement cause overall healthcare costs to rise or fall? Bloomberg Businessweek

Some Uncertainties

Doom and gloom. Will the US supreme court ruling on healthcare reform really destroy businesses? The National Federation of Independent Businesses predicts the legislation, if left in tact, would cause businesses closures and job loss. But not everyone has the same dark predictions. CBS Chicago

Questions unanswered. But while many experts insist the ruling resolved the issue of healthcare for businesses, some say the decision leaves questions unanswered. These critics believe many businesses may simply hold off on hiring until after the US presidential election, since one candidate vows to get rid of the law if elected.  CNBC

Healthcare Elsewhere

A new business model. Elsewhere, like in the UK, healthcare costs have lead to new business models, including outsourced care. Here one such insurance product is reviewed. Those selling the package claim to cut costs by as much as 50 percent over other programs by providing access to a network of international hospitals. IFAonline