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New SizeUp Tool Delivers Free Customized Business Analysis to Small Businesses
by Michael Chodos, SBA Official
- Created: September 11, 2012, 12:19 pm
- Updated: September 11, 2012, 1:14 pm
In today's challenging economic environment, where small businesses create two out of every three net new jobs in the U.S., help for small businesses is more critical than ever before. A key foundation of success in business is to leverage data analysis to discover insights and make smarter decisions. Delivering these types of services online provides the greatest opportunity to reach the most businesses. That's why SBA has made available SizeUp, an online small business support service that can deliver customized business analysis to an unlimited number of businesses.
SizeUp provides data analysis in three key ways:
- Benchmarking an existing business to see how it sizes up by comparing performance to all other competitors in the same industry;
- Mapping competition to see where competitors, customers, and suppliers are located; and
- Finding the best places to advertise by choosing from pre-set reports to discover areas with the highest industry revenue and the most underserved markets. Custom demographic reports can also be created.
When starting or managing your small business, defining your market using data analysis is an essential part of developing your business plan. For more help, SBA connects small businesses to its vast partner network, including Small Business Development Centers (SBDCs), Women's Business Centers (WBCs), or SCORE where small businesses can receive hands-on mentoring and training to help them understand their opportunities and growth potential.
SizeUp empowers small businesses to make smarter choices by providing many of the same types of business analysis large corporations use – for free. Big businesses are more able to afford hiring expert consultants or have internal staff experts to interpret massive data and help make informed decisions. Small businesses typically cannot afford to do this, so they are at a competitive disadvantage. SizeUp helps level the competitive playing field by providing this data to small businesses at no cost.
The SizeUp tool is available at www.sba.gov/sizeup.
Note: GIS Planning, Inc., the company that created SizeUp, has licensed the tool to SBA for one year. SBA's acceptance of this product is not an endorsement of the opinions, products or services of GIS Planning, Inc.
About the Author
In his role as the Agency’s Associate Administrator for the Office of Entrepreneurial Development, Mr. Chodos is responsible for overseeing the agency’s counseling and training resources and programs for America’s entrepreneurs.Contributors
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Comments
katewinter | Window Shopper | 9/17/2012 - 3:53 pm
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