navigate: home: magazine: spring 2002: article

E-business training programs help small businesses compete By Susan J. Burlingame
William Shuffstall, Clearfield County senior extension agent, worked with the University of Minnesota to adapt a comprehensive curriculum for offering e-business ideas and solutions to owners of small- and medium-sized businesses in Pennsylvania. Stacie Bird—Ag Information and Communication Technologies	Though use of the Internet by businesses may make perfect sense to those who take it for granted, small business owners have little time to explore the possibilities for using the World Wide Web to make their own operations more efficient or to turn a greater profit. According to Clearfield County Senior Extension Agent William Shuffstall, director of economic and community development and coordinator of information technology, communities depend on the success of small businesses to keep the local economy strong.   “Most local growth in employment comes from small businesses,” he said. “They need to stay viable, because their communities depend on them to keep the economy going. Effective use of digital technology along with applying e-business strategies is the key to small business success.”   During the past three years, Shuffstall has been traveling the Commonwealth to help communities develop community information networks, “metaphorically and literally,” he said.   “We are helping communities understand what should be included in such a network. From the Red Cross to Little League and the Chamber of Commerce, communities can pool resources and exchange information by sharing it with one another over the Internet.”   Since small businesses are a critical component of community information networks, and because so many rural communities in Pennsylvania are hungry to make use of the Internet to support these networks, Shuffstall saw an opportunity to help small businesses learn how to use digital technology to run more successful operations. He found a highly successful program being used at the University of Minnesota, called Access Minnesota Main Street, which for four years has been training small business owners to make use of e-business and e-commerce strategies using available digital technology.   “We worked with Minnesota to adopt and adapt the Access Minnesota Main Street curriculum, gave it some Pennsylvania examples and put together a comprehensive curriculum for offering e-business ideas and solutions,” he said. Seventeen extension agents in 16 counties went through a training program to deliver the course to small business owners in Pennsylvania.   Using local evening sessions so business owners will not have to sacrifice valuable work time for travel or training, Penn State Cooperative Extension agents have begun delivering the 12-hour training program, now called Access Pennsylvania Main Street, to local small- and medium-sized business owners all over the state.   “It’s a very hands-on curriculum,” said Shuffstall, “and it accomplishes many objectives for those who take the course.”   He enumerated several components of the “e-business for small business” curriculum, including showing companies how to access resources for new markets and marketing information, form a business plan, build a Web site, partner with schools and local entities, keep up with state and federal regulations and search for potential suppliers. He also explained that delivering this course requires partnerships with community organizations, chambers of commerce and local colleges and universities. Hands-on training means students in the program need Internet-accessible computers to learn and practice their skills. A small fee is charged to cover lab costs, as well as development and growth of the program.   “The purpose of this whole initiative is to help small businesses learn how they can use digital technology to improve the bottom line of their business and ultimately strengthen their communities,” Shuffstall said. “People who have completed the program in Minnesota have reported they are using many of the ideas they learned in the sessions. We expect Pennsylvania business owners to reap the same benefits.”   “I believe firmly that Cooperative Extension has a role to play in helping communities to integrate information technology and apply it into everyday life,” added Dr. Theodore R. Alter, associate vice president for outreach, director of Cooperative Extension and associate dean in the College of Agricultural Sciences. “This educational outreach initiative cuts across our programs and has applicability not only for small businesses, but also for the food processing industry, agriculture and youth development programs.   “What really builds the robustness of a local economy is having a strong, local business base that exports products to the rest of the world,” Alter continued. “Profits come back to the community and make it strong. To the extent that Penn State can be part of building that local base, we can make a difference, not only to that local economy, but also to the global economy.”   For more information on Access Pennsylvania Main Street, contact Bill Shuffstall at 814-765-7878 or e-mail him at ebusiness@email.cas.psu.edu. The project’s Web site is at www.ebusiness.extension.psu.edu. An outreach program of Penn State Cooperative Extension