Mom-and-pop shop. Corner stores. Neighborhood. Community. These are some of the commonly used terms to refer to what some call the heartbeat or backbone of America – small businesses. There are almost 28 million small businesses in the U.S., and more than 22 million are self-employed with no additional payroll/employees. More than 50 percent of the working population in the U.S. works in a small business. Last year, Small Business Saturday generated $5.5 billion in sales, celebrating local shops in various communities across the country and competing with giant holiday shopping days like Black Friday and Cyber Monday (News - Alert).
Forbes Magazine recently named 8x8 (News - Alert) one of “America’s Best Small Companies” for 2013 -- a list that ranks the top 100 public companies with under $1 billion in annual revenue based on return on equity, sales growth and earnings growth over the past year and past five years. It also recognized the cloud communications and collaboration solutions provider as No. 10 on its list of 20 Fast Growing Tech Stars.
8x8 (News - Alert) offers solutions to help organizations enhance their communications. It provides voice, video, mobile and unified communications for SMBs and distributed enterprises, helping with services such as contact center solutions, Web conferencing, online productivity, flexibility and integrated phone systems. It powers business phone systems for more than 30,000 customers, including RE/MAX Tri County, Farmers Insurance, Allstate Idaho Falls, Thrive Senior Living and McLarens.
“We are very proud to be named one of the top 25 Best Small Companies in America by Forbes,” said Vik Verma, 8x8 CEO, in a statement. “The hard work and dedication of our employees and their focus on bringing a full suite of high-quality cloud communications and collaboration services to businesses worldwide has made our company a segment leader. I am thankful to them, in addition to our shareholders, customers, partners and suppliers, for helping us achieve this outstanding recognition.”For a demo to see how 8x8 communications solutions, including virtual office, virtual contact center, business VoIP and VoIP equipment, can benefit your business, click here.
Edited by Blaise McNamee