“I can’t believe my parents ran their business without a computer,” exclaimed my friend during a tour of their business in Upstate New York. She was aghast the family business was run by nothing more than pen and paper. Glancing around I noticed a fax machine was the newest technology there.
She asked me to visit her family business with the hopes of growing the company and modernizing the office. Based on the numbers the company is currently profitable even with three vendors and about a dozen large customers.
After taking the grand tour I reminded her that business is about making money, something we sometimes forget. Technology isn’t necessarily part of a business’ function. After all, the core purpose of any business is to make money. Business schools teach us the fundamentals of making money and spend next to no time talking about technology.
Most businesses can run perfectly fine void of technology. In fact, I would bet that all businesses would function. Businesses like the newspaper might have to adapt and manually typeset pages, accountants would have to file claims manually and engineers would be forced to sit behind a drafting board, but everyone could profit.
Technology’s part in business is to streamline operations and make our work more productive. A company with a handful of vendors can easily fend by placing handwritten or typed orders over a fax. Inventory and accounting in my friend’s business is done by comparing physical inventory against orders and receipts, an audit that should be done with or without computers.
As business owners we sometimes get hung up on new technology to run our businesses. The newest tablet based point of sale system is flashy. 27″ monitors are easier on the eyes but probably won’t make us more money. Salespeople pushing superfast internet sure are glib with their presentation, but once it’s installed it doesn’t affect the bottom line.
I was almost kicked out of my friend’s business when I suggested they do nothing. She wanted an instant solution she and her sister could implement to automate the front office. Her ideas included wireless, remote computing, tablets and cell phone apps that could be used to modernize the office. “Do the office staff a favor,” I said, “buy them new adding and fax machines.”
Several factors go into if, how and when to modernize a business. Deciding whether it will positively impact the overall profit should be the only criteria. There’s no argument that adding computers will force office workers to learn a new system. In addition, new staff may need to be added in order to retool the office and train existing employees. All of these cost money.
Like I said, nowhere in my many years of business school did they teach me that computers are necessary for making money. Yes, computers definitely help us make our business functions more streamlined, but do they generate profit? I know this sounds funny coming from the technology guy’s mouth, but all any of us business owners are trying to do is be profitable.
Walk into any of my stores and look at how I run my business and you won’t see any computerized accounting system. Fifteen years ago I decided the business, or money, end of the company doesn’t need to be digital it only needs to work. To this day I still handwrite customer orders and invoices and tally the numbers on a pocket calculator at the end of the day.
(Jeromy Patriquin is the President of Laptop & Computer Repair, Inc. located at 509 Main St. in Gardner. You can call him at (978) 919-8059 or visit www.LocalComputerWiz.com.)