Technology is Power

I have always wondered what the impact of having automated technology, like automated lead management, schedule management, account management and payroll would do to a budding company.

Every enterprise level business has automated business tools.  They have CRMs for customer management, ERPs for enterprise accounting management, HRMS for human resource management, project management gateways for…  Well, you get the drift.

What would happen if we give the power of these tools to small and medium businesses?  What would happen if you gave the average small office organization the power to do more…  For less?

I have been doing some research lately on this subject and I’ve heard three general excuses on why people don’t operate a CRM:

• Cost is too high.  This is a multi-faceted issue…  Cost is not necessarily price – it includes:
  • System downtime
  • Training time – too steep of a learning curve
  • Implementation costs
  • Licensing fees
  • IT support costs
• Our current system works fine.
• We only have one person that deals with that.  No one else needs to know that information.  (This is typically the CEO talking about him or herself)

Unfortunately, these companies desperately need to hire someone in operations.

There are four rules about employees that we must remember:

1. Employees won’t always know what to do,
2. Employees won’t always do what they’re supposed to do, and…
3. Ultimately, they will quit. (or retire!)

The goal of every business should be to create a residual income, so why create a dependency on the owner or CEO?  Any good owner would want to move onto his next venture – and establishing the infinite loop is very important to the sustainability of your company.

For these CEOs that create a dependency on themselves, how do you enforce that your employees are following through with your requirements and tasks, and more importantly, that your customers are being handled properly if you’re, lets say, on a business trip to another country?

It would be great if you could check on the status of your business – your clients – your projects – and your employees from any computer, anywhere in the world, wouldn’t it?

Enter the Business Management System…  <more to come>

When does simplicity go too far?

One thing that always gives me a headache is the question of, “Are we going too far?”

Simplicity is excellent – Photoshop increases photographers’ efficiency by 10s of 100s of folds.  This is excellent, of course, to the photographer, because it enhances their ability to do their job.  This becomes a problem, however, because with the advent of 10 megapixel cameras, SLR technology and amazing do-it-yourself kiosks, the tasks that the non-technological professional photographer does to enhance the quality of their photos is self-destructive.  We can now duplicate effects that would take hours upon hours to do as a traditional professional photographer in a matter of seconds.

The problem with the simplification of software is the ignorance we gain by using it.  We lose respect for these who spend hours upon hours perfecting their trade, because we can duplicate what they do in mere seconds compared to what takes them hours, sometimes days to do.

I guess that ignorance is bliss, right?