How Green is Your Company?

According to a recent Women Impacting Public Policy survey of women entrepreneurs, the top three concerns they had were:

1. Health care costs
2. Energy costs
3. The environment

"Two-thirds of the respondents believe that global warming and environmental changes will affect them or their businesses and 45% want to see the government use both incentives and regulations to encourage businesses to encourage conservation."

While you may not be able to reduce your clients' health care or energy costs you can have an impact on the environment. Demonstrating how your company is environmentally friendly can lead to a significant increase in your bottom line - especially if you are selling to women entrepreneurs.

Does your company have a green policy and are you actively using it in your marketing and promotions?

IKEA Targeting Small Businesses

IKEA has traditionally targeted homeowners but as the housing market weakens the company is going after a new group of buyers to fuel future growth: Small business owners.

In the past 12 months, IKEA has started creating interior designs and products for entrepreneurs such as book store and salon layouts across the 29 locations they have in the United States. In April the company is also expected to launch a new website, ikeabusiness.com, where small business owners can discover new ideas for designing their offices and share them with other entrepreneurs.

According to Pernille Lopez, president of Ikea North America, "This is one of our biggest growth potentials." She expects business owners to eventually account for 10-15% of the company's sales. With 70% of IKEA shoppers being women, the company is also betting that women entrepreneurs will take kindly to bringing IKEA into their offices.

It will be an interesting development to watch. Many small business owners are price conscious and would welcome IKEA's products as an economic alternative to other suppliers. In addition, despite not having a strong existing selection of business furniture and accessories, entrepreneurs are already going to the stores to buy chairs, tables, storage solutions, and other products. An expanded selection is a logical extension of their existing lines.

What's even more interesting is if IKEA can develop their online community and get the small business owners to share their design ideas with each other online. Not known for having the most comprehensive, Web 2.0 website, it will be a exciting to see how the company takes on this challenge. Done right, it could be a powerful tool for IKEA and help them become the default name for many SMBs when they're thinking about improving the design of their offices.