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9 Current and Emerging Trends and Tools
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Business technology is in a constant state of evolution, and it can be a maddening chore to try to keep up. It seems that every innovation begets an even newer version only a few weeks later. In some cases, the latest gizmo is only a marginal improvement on what went before, but there are significant trends and tools that simply cannot be ignored. In some very tangible instances, a company can be left behind while its competitors employ technological tools to expand and improve.
Disaster Recovery Part II
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They say that hindsight is 20/20. The March 2011 issue of SEMA News featured a Best Practices article on the how and why of disaster planning, calling special attention to acts of God and other sudden business interruptions (see callout box).
Now, eight months later, ATC Composites COO Chris Ripper strongly encourages SEMA News readers to revisit that article—and with good reason.
Just Hit Print
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Remember the Sci-Fi television programs of the ‘50s and ‘60s in which engineers of the future could stand in front of a computer device, order up practically any space sprocket or gizmo and watch it materialize in seconds, ready for use? Believe it or not, that future is here—and has been for some time.
While not as instantaneous as their fictional counterparts, there are computerized machines that can replicate solid, intricate 3-D objects in a process now being dubbed “3-D printing.”
Solutions That Deliver
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Marketers looking for an extremely robust tool to monitor social media should take a close look at offerings from Crimson Hexagon, evolve24 and NetBase, according to market research firm Forrester, a company with a longstanding reputation for objective market analysis. All three social media dashboards “excel in their data processing abilities,” said Zach Hofer-Shall, a Forrester analyst.
“Social media is changing the way companies learn from and understand their consumers,” said Patricia Gottesman, Crimson Hexagon’s chief executive officer. “Crimson Hexagon is dedicated to helping our customers harness the strategic value of social media and use this data to make meaningful business decisions.”
Trends for 2012
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SEMA’s Council Leaders Look to the Future
As the automotive specialty-equipment industry moves into 2012, SEMA News put out a call to the leaders of the association’s councils and networks to seek their views about what might be in store during the coming year. Their responses are instructive and should provide helpful insights for companies in every segment of the marketplace.


