The fabled confrontation between David and Goliath tells how a tiny combatant defeated a much larger one by using a smarter weapon (in David's case, a slingshot).

her smart weapon — electronic business, or e-business.

If your company is using the Internet on only a limited basis — or, worse yet, not using it at all — it's time to look at how e-business can increase your profits and help you gain a competitive edge.

1. The proof is in the profits.

Need proof that small companies can be e-business visionaries? Take a look at the most recent Growing with Technology Awards sponsored by Cisco Systems. The award program recognizes businesses with up to 1,000 employees that exemplify the best use of networking technologies to expand their businesses.

From among 300 entries, a seven-person panel of independent judges selected 12 winners and runners-up. Four of these 12 companies, called "trailblazers" by judge Mark Quinn, district director of the U.S. Small Business Administration, had 30 or fewer employees.

Some of the e-business achievements of these small companies include:

• Increasing revenues and/or profits
• Developing a new market or expanding an existing market
• Moving from a local or regional market to a national or even international market
• Giving new meaning to customer support, customer feedback, supplier relations or business partnerships

2. E-business has many forms.

Every small business is unique — a product of its market, resources, management, vision, competition, challenges and opportunities. Similarly, there are many possible e-business initiatives that a company can adopt, including customer care, e-commerce, financial management and so on. The question is: What is right for your business? Is your company's most important concern:

• Connecting with customers?
• Supporting field salespeople?
• Increasing market share, opening new markets or bringing in new revenue?

A qualified, knowledgeable reseller will be able to offer valuable guidance on e-business initiatives to match your strategy.

3. The foundation is the network.

Updating your corporate network may not be the most glamorous part of an e-business strategy, but it is absolutely essential. Many small businesses build their networks with consumer-grade network routers and other components that were never designed for the demands of e-business.

Your network must provide three capabilities in order for your e-business strategy to deliver results:

• Security. Perhaps the biggest concern that companies have when they consider conducting business over the Internet is security. Denial of service attacks, identity theft, spam, viruses and Trojan horses are very real dangers. Perhaps more prevalent than external attacks is the damage that employees can cause to company networks, either inadvertently or maliciously. A solid network foundation should incorporate different levels of security at multiple layers of the network. This helps prevent security gaps that can lead to costly breaches.

• Availability. Once your e-business initiatives take off, you will not want them to falter due to congestion on the network (resulting in sluggish response times or, worse yet, a network crash). Even a basic network foundation should incorporate availability features to ensure that the network is always in business to serve your business.

• Quality of Service. A basic IP network is designed to give all traffic the same "best effort" delivery service. You may want your financial data to take precedence over e-mail traffic, but your network won't make that distinction unless it is equipped with Quality of Service mechanisms. Quality of Service is an extra level of intelligence that enables equipment like routers and switches to prioritize traffic and guarantee bandwidth based on these priorities, making sure that your time-sensitive or high-priority applications perform as expected.