These Are The Essentials Your Small Business Needs To Survive

Julie Starr • March 16, 2023

One out of every two small businesses fails—challenging odds to say the least. However, there are ways you can maximize your small business’s chances of succeeding and thriving. Read on to find out what they are. 

Human resources

Whether you have your in-house team or outsource human resources to a consultant, having someone managing the most valuable resource in your small business will increase your chances of success.

Human resources can help you with all sorts of things such as recruitment, and retention as well as disciplinaries, and even letting people go if it comes to it. All, while leaving you free to dedicate your time and focus on the rest of the tasks that need to be completed for your business to thrive. 

Marketing and advertising

Every business needs to make use of marketing and advising if they are to reach their true potential. This is because marketing and advertising make sure that the people that most want your product or service know that it and your business exist. 

 

Of course, the type of marketing and advertising you use will depend on a range of factors including your budget, and what will most appeal to the target market you are trying to attract. Whether you are looking for more sales in the short and long term will play into this as well with PPC advertising being better for the former, and SEO marketing for the latter. 

 

Quality control procedures

If you want your business to be successful, then you must have quality control procedures in place. Such procedures aim to check the quality of each unit of product or service to ensure it remains high, and customers stay satisfied. 

 

Generally, quality control tends to be easier to check when you are making a physical item as there will be some manual actions you can do to test the product. However, quality control testing is still possible when you are offering a service, you just need to focus more on employee attitude and performance.


If you have a product-based business, then the quality control procedure is something you must do at all points of your manufacturing process. You must be proactive and consider what items and procedures you need in place not just to properly check your products, but to also prevent any issues. This also means considering the things you are doing before and after product development. A good example of this is the packaging process. Not only do you need to have high-quality packaging to store your items and pass the quality process, but it also matters how you look after the packaging. There are many things you can use, for example, un packaging containers that will keep them protected and ready for use and shipping.

 

The right equipment 

Another essential that your small business needs to thrive and survive is the right equipment. Although, what equipment is right will very much depend on the type of business you are running. 

 

For example, a sales-oriented business will need registers and card payment terminals, as well as stock bar code scanners. However, the manufacturer business will need items like this   ball nose end mill  which is a specialist tool that can be used to create mold and dies and turbine blades, and every business will need the best fiber internet provider in the area. Indeed, without these very epics list items some businesses would just not be able to function, so investing in good quality, and making sure you have a secure supply chain is well worth your time if you want your business to succeed. 


A fully optimized website


Also, investing in a professionally designed website is a strategic move that can significantly contribute to the growth of your business with minimal hassle. A well-crafted site not only establishes a strong online presence but also serves as a 24/7 virtual storefront, reaching potential customers around the clock. Experts like Cullen Fischel can provide you with a website with intuitive navigation and user-friendly features to boost your customer engagement and conversion.

 

Risk management

Another thing that every small business will need to be successful is a good grasp of risk management. Risk management is all about identifying the things that could pose a threat to the success of your business and coming up with proactive ways to deal with them, if not avoid them altogether. 

 

Smart Sensors, Smarter Supply Chains: Enhancing Traceability in Food & Beverage

By Julie Starr • June 20, 2025
In today’s competitive food and beverage (F&B) landscape, traceability is no longer a compliance checkbox—it’s a differentiator. The ability to track every step of a product’s journey, from origin to shelf, is vital for regulatory accuracy and to ensure brand integrity, supply chain agility, and consumer trust. Add smart sensors to the mix: the quiet, tireless observers revolutionizing supply chain intelligence. Traceability Has a Data Problem Despite digitization across many F&B operations, most traceability systems still rely on fragmented or manual data inputs. Batch numbers, barcodes, and handwritten logs often stand between a supplier and clarity when things go wrong. This approach struggles with latency and scale. When contamination or delays occur, root cause analysis is slow, costly, and damaging. Smart sensors shift this paradigm by embedding real-time, contextual intelligence into every stage of the supply chain . Whether monitoring humidity in transit or recording fill-level precision in bottling plants, they remove the guesswork by turning physical conditions into structured, time-stamped data. From Passive Monitoring to Active Optimization Sensors used to be reactive tools, alerting operators to anomalies. But smart sensors now play a proactive role in process control. They measure, and they interpret. For example, temperature sensors embedded in cold chain logistics can dynamically adjust cooling systems or flag threshold breaches before spoilage occurs. These advancements reduce waste and loss at a systemic level. In a production facility, smart sensors integrated with PLCs can enforce recipe compliance, verify clean-in-place processes, and detect micro-stoppages in real-time. This enables operations to pivot faster and isolate inefficiencies before they cascade downstream. Trust is Built on Transparency Consumers are paying more attention to what they eat and drink. They’re looking beyond labels, expecting visibility into how ingredients are sourced, processed, and handled. Smart sensors make this level of transparency achievable —without burdening manufacturers with excessive manual oversight. By capturing metadata throughout production and distribution, these sensors create a digital footprint that’s tamper-resistant and instantly accessible. When this data is integrated with a central platform, brands can respond confidently to audits, recalls, and quality assurance challenges with a level of precision that would be impossible through legacy systems. Intelligence Without Infrastructure Overhaul One common misconception is that adding smart sensors requires a top-down reinvention of supply chain infrastructure. In reality, companies can deploy edge sensors in a modular, scalable way. Many modern solutions offer plug-and-play functionality, allowing for fast integration with existing machinery and MES systems. This is where suppliers like alps-machine.com are reshaping expectations. Rather than pushing proprietary ecosystems, they design sensor-ready equipment with interoperability in mind. This future-proofs investment and keeps businesses nimble in the face of regulatory or market shifts. Designing for Data Longevity Sensors are only as powerful as the context they capture. A smart implementation ensures the data collected can be standardized, stored securely, and accessed meaningfully across departments. This means moving beyond local dashboards toward centralized, queryable datasets that inform everything from supplier contracts to marketing claims. As AI and predictive analytics become more accessible, these data-rich environments will unlock new capabilities—such as predicting demand spikes based on real-time freshness indicators or adjusting production schedules dynamically based on in-transit sensor feedback. Final Thoughts: Smarter Isn’t Optional Traceability isn’t solved by more paperwork—it’s solved by embedded intelligence. Smart sensors don’t just help businesses know what happened; they help prevent the wrong things from happening at all. For companies in the food and beverage sector, adopting smart sensors is less about chasing innovation and more about enabling resilience, speed, and confidence in every decision.

Eco-Friendly Garden Prep: Summer Tips for a Greener Business Space

By Julie Starr • June 5, 2025
If you're lucky enough to have a garden as part of your business, taking some time to set it up for summer is a great investment of your energy. Not only will it be ready for your customers to spend time in, but you can also incorporate some eco-friendly elements into it. Many people just think about the property and what eco-friendly updates they can make , but there are plenty that you can implement in your garden. This gives you the best of both worlds. You own a sacred and beautiful place for your customers to spend their summer, and at the same time, you can do your part for a better planet. If this is the route you want to take, then you also need to consider how to do this with the different seasons. To help you on your journey, here are some top tips for preparing your garden for summer. Plant trees and flowers Planting trees and flowers in your garden is a must. It will make a beautiful scene of nature for everyone to enjoy. Trees will provide people and animals with shade, as well as provide a habitat for wildlife. More trees are needed in the world because they purify the air that we breathe. Flowers, especially if you plant with pollinators in mind, can be an excellent way to attract bees and butterflies, which contribute largely to the earth. Use natural pest control When preparing your garden for summer, you can do this more sustainably and kindly by using natural pest control. Simply by planting trees and flowers, you are likely to attract lots of different wildlife, some of which may destroy your efforts. While all wildlife should be considered, you may need to take measures. Some better and more eco-friendly ways you can do this, as opposed to spraying toxic chemicals onto your plants and into the air, you can implement companion planting, using protective nets over your crops, choosing resilient plants, using natural repellents, and encouraging natural predators so nature can do its thing. Maintain your garden Maintaining your garden in itself can make it more eco-friendly. Composting your garden waste regularly, and kitchen waste can help you to reduce overall waste and create nutrient-rich soil. This is a great cycle of sustainability. You can also keep on top of things that need cleaning and replacing, so you can recycle the materials for other garden structures and projects, and repurpose things around your garden before they become waste. If you have features in your garden like a swimming pool, then a regular pool maintenance service is going to be vital in keeping your water consumption to a minimum, as when it is cleaned and maintained, it will need to be drained and refilled less as well as using less energy. You could also consider how you can use natural purification methods to reduce chemical usage and support biodiversity right in your backyard. Your garden is just an eco-friendly project waiting to be built. Use these top tips to help you get started.