In 1997, Sixdegrees.com  for the first time ever allowed users to create an online personal profile, to set “Friends” lists and to view contacts’ “Friends” lists. Compared to the achievements reached until present days, this kind of services seem simple and rather limited. 

However, for the first time ever, a website allowed users to bring together all these functions inside an only environment. According to the definition of a network of personal relationships and connections created to grant personal and / or corporate favors, Sixdegrees.com became the first real Social Network. Since 1997, the evolution of main social networks had been very quick and led to the institution of brand new forms of contact and communication, which had never been explored before.

As far as the development of corporate and entrepreneurial activities is concerned, Social Networks  play a key role. Indeed, social networks represent an important tool for the process of internationalization of companies. In particular, social networks are essential for the identifi  cation of new opportunities and facilitate the access in foreign markets. Moreover, thanks to improved international business notions and the development of formal connections beyond national borders, social networks became real mediators for the internationalization.

Leading knowledge and information, social networks help to identify potential partners with whom companies can collaborate, thus helping the improvement of international business practices and orienting the business target of SMEs toward foreign markets.

The uniqueness of social networks does not only lie in favoring matching between users who do not know each other within the same web environment, on the contrary, in allowing users to set and manage real contacts networks. The creation of a network of contacts around the personal and corporate profi  le, however, does not represent the only variable leading to the development of an entrepreneurial project: besides the validity of contacts, the environment of the network has to be considered, in particular as far as SMEs are involved.

Across its years of experience, Swiss Business Group AG, Swiss company dealing with internationalization of companies, collected a wide network of contacts, often difficult to manage properly. After the analysis based on social networks and the impact they produced on the activities of SMEs, Swiss Business Group created a new concept of social network, a network which can assist companies during the process of internationalization, thanks to an efficient and functional management of contacts and activities: Start2Business. Start2Business ain’t a social network, however it can be defined as a “Corporate Business Network”, term which identify a working environment within which users can develop their own network of contacts, and manage it thanks to the many Web 2.0 tools, which are available on the platform. 

If SMEs find in social networks a sort of intermediary for the development of their process of internationalization, in Start2Business SMEs have at their disposal a set of integrated tools, which allow such development in an effi  cient way and, most of all, specifi  cally devoted to success.

Thanks to its structure which is strictly oriented to the implementation of business activities, Start2Business daily supportsentrepreneurial activities, and the activities of SMEs all over the world. Start2Business offer a high-level working environment, inside which users can find companies introducing selected business projects, and qualified subjects who actively collaborate to develop these projects.

For this reason, Start2Business has become the tool for the internationalization of SMEs which are member of many associations, thus enriching the network and the potentiality the same network can offer to its users.

In a market which is becoming more and more global, SMEs present needs,especially in the field of internationalization, which are more oriented to the disposal of valid and efficient tools. These tools aim at being successful in the mediation with new markets and opportunities, in a structured way.

Start2Business can offer these opportunities: a corporate business network

serving SMEs.

Join us in S2B you are welcome