The content in this site is targeted at entrepreneurs and anyone who is running a business or non-profit organization, or is a senior manager with line responsibility in those organizations. Clearly, not all articles will be meaningful to all individuals. Similarly, articles will be relevant at different times as day-to-day operational issues emerge, and they always do.
There are over 18 million businesses in the United States. The demographics of those businesses is surprising to most of us. Of the 18 million businesses, about 5,500 are public corporations with the rest being privately held. Of the 5,500 public companies, we only seem to hear news about a few dozen of the major companies. More surprising is the fact that over 97% of the 18 million companies employ less than 50 people! Assuming, on average (heavily weighted by the number of small companies), there are four people in each organization involved in senior management positions, the target audience for this site is at least 60 million individuals. Perhaps a more appropriate title for this site, instead of CxO-Atlas, would be Manager-Atlas. Even that title neglects a large number of individuals that are either thinking about or are in the process of starting a company. Sources indicate that there are 27 million entrepreneurs in the United States pursuing new business opportunities. It is estimated that half of all company employees think about or are planning to start their own companies. Many of the articles in this collection are applicable to this segment as well. The result of these statistics is that it is not unreasonable to assume the potential size of this market could reach 100 million individuals in the United States alone. Although the business climate in other countries varies, the total, world-wide applicable audience could approach 200 million people, a startling total!
Although most of the companies are small, they face most of the same problems that the giant public companies face. The biggest difference is that most of these smaller companies do not have the same depth or level of expertise that is required in so many areas. Further, individual issues that arise can be far more significant for smaller companies that do not have the financial resources, reputation, or other business inertia factors of their giant counterparts. For example, if a major public corporation misses the sales expectations set by Wall Street, their stock price may take a short-term hit. For a small company, a similar miss may result in them missing payroll or even going out of business.
Not only are the issues the same for small and large companies, but the success equation is the same. That success is achievable only by adequately addressing many specific activities that can be thought of as variables in the success equation. Some of these variables are sales, marketing, product or service development, order fulfillment, customer service, finance, accounting, human resources, facilities management, and purchasing. Note that these variables require the same level of focus for every company, and that focus will vary from time to time or as the dynamics of the market change. Think of each variable as having a coefficient that varies for each company and also varies with conditions. For example, some companies may need to invest heavily in their distribution channel while others need to spend an equal amount of time and energy on prospect awareness. Or, some companies may need to provide a considerable amount of after-the-sale customer support while others may have to carefully manage their perishable product inventories. The 500 articles included in this site’s collection are intended to address most of the potential success equation variables and issues that commonly occur with them.
The first sentence in this article stated that the site is applicable to non-profit organizations as well as all businesses. There are over 1.5 million non-profit organizations registered in the United States. The notion that for-profit and non-profit organizations are fundamentally different is not true. If one substitutes the term donations for revenue, or fund raising for invested capital, or service recipients for customers, the similarities are remarkable. It can be argued that many non-profit organizations could benefit from the material covered in this collection even more than the for-profit companies.
Finally, there are hundreds, perhaps thousands, of extremely well-written business books available today. Browsing the shelves of the business section of a book store or searching online reveals only a sampling of the available material. Books and web sites with far more detail than this site are available that cover every subject of every article in this collection. Some users may find it useful to think of this site as a quick summary or as a starting point to begin their research into the subject, and then pursue more detailed information elsewhere. The five minutes that it takes to find, read, and, perhaps, download an article from this site may be useful, and might cover the subject in enough detail to negate the need for further research. Each user can decide for themselves.
So, in summary, if you are in an organization and have responsibility for some facet of it, then some of the material contained in this site’s collection is for you. Filter, browse, select, read, and download as you see fit. It’s free and does not require a lot of time.
