Performance: - IT Hardware is expensive - a factor that has to be considered when hosting an application for a business. The .NET platform utilises IT hardware more efficiently, thus significantly improving performance. This reduces cost required to make a large application run acceptably and increases number of applications that can be simultaneously hosted on a single machine.

Time: - The .NET framework provides a powerful collection of code libraries covering all major areas of IT. By harnessing power of these libraries, developers can write an application using far less lines of code. This reduces time taken to complete solutions significantly. As well as this, ability to re-use code in .NET is made easier, thus reducing development time even further.

Perceived Quality: - The .NET framework provides more flexibility than any other framework available. This gives developers more choice when creating a solution for a client and makes it simpler than ever before to add useful value-added features, currently only found on highest quality sites. The improvement in quality that can be achieved using .NET means that a Software company's brand can be developed by guaranteeing higher quality software than its competitors.

These are just some of many benefits that .Net can offer your business.

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By accessing your suppliers’ stock levels, lead times, order status and other information as if it were your own, you can better manage warehouse inventories or production schedules; and therefore provide a more reliable service to your customers. Being able to make, track and settle orders online will further increase your responsiveness to your marketplace.

Allowing your customers access to similar information and services from your organisation will bring more realistic and timely orders, that your customers know already you will be able to fulfil. Integrating your customers will also enable a much more intelligent analysis of your product line: spot an under-performing product before it impacts your bottom line; increase marketing budget for a product that has potential to go through roof or implement an on-demand (or as near as possible) production process to minimise your exposure through stock levels.

This is not a task to be undertaken lightly, as technical issues involved with integrating different systems that have been implemented by companies in your supply chain are less than trivial. On other hand, trying to persuade same companies to switch from their existing systems to a common platform is likely to be next to impossible. This is where good middleware will come to your rescue.

Why is all this relevant to SME’s? The SME sector is quickly becoming more reliant on technology, and problem of integration has started to filter down to them. Many SME’s are using a few incompatible applications to automate their processes; and have no idea how much integration could benefit them.

So what should I do? If you have only just started, or still have relatively little reliance on your IT systems, a data warehouse style approach may be most applicable. This can work well from a clean slate, although there are some caveats: Bear in mind that to gain cost-efficiency, you must remain locked in to one software vendor, or your integration costs will far outweigh potential gains. This carries with it a certain amount of risk in case vendor withdraws support or even goes bust.

For most SME’s a middle-of-the-road approach is preferable: continue using standard off-the-shelf software such as Microsoft Excel, Access, ACT, Sage etc to store and process information; but use customised middleware on top. This will not only save effort and ensure consistency; it can also be used for reporting, or can incorporate newer, more demanding applications such as predictive software.