Forums originated as electronic bulletin boards for members to discuss topics but in the past decade, they have been proven useful inself-serve problem-solving environments where users can both search forand as experts or moderators provide answers to technical problems. In small companies, however only 10% of organizations have deployed forums for customers and or partners, yet that is expected to grow significantly in 2009 as organizations transform the cost of their support structures. More users in small companies consume forum posts than in large companies, so they are well aware of the potential of the software and service.

Small organizations that operate forums also have higher customer satisfaction, higher employee satisfaction and higher market share than small firms that do not.

Small companies are defined by Brockmann & Company as those organizations with less than 100 employees.