CHANGE IS INEVITABLE
As a business person, this phrase should be deeply ingrained in you. Sure, consumers aren’t spending like they used to, and unemployment is through the roof. Precious metal values have skyrocketed, Chapter 11 and Bankruptcy notices have developed into their own newspaper section, and you probably don’t have to drive too far to find a house in foreclosure. It’s hard to believe we were ringing in the new millennium just a decade ago. Times could certainly be better, but they will change. Everything does.
Our kids were just singing along with Barney what seems like just a few years ago, and now they want to borrow the car keys. That brand new smart phone you just bought last week? Turns out the new and improved model is coming out at the end of the month. The Tampa Bay Rays are no longer the doormat of the American League. Things change.
You would have to be living under a rock to be oblivious to the advances that have been made in technology in just a little over a decade. Think back to 1996. The web was still young, e-mail was in its infancy (second best to fax machines by a mile), pagers were in vogue, the Star Tac was the new must have gadget, and Intel was still on their first Pentium series. We used 1.44MB “floppy†disks, the common hard drive was measured in megabytes, we were still impressed by Windows 95, and we were listening to music on cassette tapes.
Look at the world now. We have mini computers in our pockets and in holsters on our hips. A single song will not fit on a 1.44MB floppy disk (if you could even find a floppy drive to copy it), yet we can now carry our entire music collection on a device no larger than a wallet, and a good chunk of that collection on something the size of a pen. We can contact anyone, at anytime, from anywhere, and we even have a choice of how to do that. Talk? Text? Email? All of the above? Technology is advancing quicker every year, and it doesn’t seem to be letting up anytime soon. The challenge for us as business people is to either keep up with technology advances, or be forced to change due to our inability to do so.
First and foremost, you should have an email address, and use it. Regularly. People are growing more likely to reply quicker to emails and texts than phone messages. Those mini-computers in our pockets keep us more closely linked to our email than we are to our office phones, largely because you can’t take your landline with you to lunch or to that meeting across town. If you own or manage a Company, you should have 24-hour access to your email messages, because your competitor probably does.
If you have a fax machine to satisfy your vendors or customers that don’t have a computer, that’s understandable. If you have a fax machine because that’s the only way you receive orders other than the phone, time to rethink that strategy. Fax machines are going the way of the floppy drive. At least you’ll get some desk space back.
For all you managers out there, if your computer system is old enough to vote, you should be looking to see if there’s a newer version. If you’re simply unhappy with your old system, it’s possible a pre-packaged software system like QuickBooks or Peachtree may fill your needs. Many older systems started prior to 1996 were based on much older software, written for clunker machines, and if the continually shrinking size of the PC is any indication of what these “small†programs can do, take the time to get familiar with them.
Make sure that your current system applications and level of computerization is sufficient to meet your Company’s needs now, as well as five and ten years from now. Being able to obtain and provide information immediately has become the norm. If it takes two days every month to manually reconcile supporting ledgers to generate monthly reporting, chances are you should be looking for something new. Most of the new computer system applications are fully integrated, and reconciliation is virtually automatic, since everything is in one system.
If your inventory system is largely comprised of “Ask Mikeâ€, a change might be in order. What if “Mike†leaves the Company unexpectedly? It might delay that inventory report that’s due at the end of the month. Refer to the above paragraph.
If you don’t already have one, look into getting a website. Regardless of your industry, we live in the age of Linked In, Twitter, Facebook, an exhausting 24 hour news cycle, and with social networking, a 24-hour advertising cycle as well. You and your Company should be on these sites. Even if you’re uncertain how they can help you today. Mark your territory, get your username while it’s still available.
Our world is being linked via wifi and the internet. With phones that are probably smarter than your home computer, everyone will have immediate access to the internet 24-7 in the very near future. Your potential customers are already starting to look for their next vendor via a search engine, and it’s very possible that your current customers may find their potential replacement for you the same way. Even if you set up a website just to get your name into cyberspace, do it sooner than later. Once your site is up, work on making it work for you.
For you and your business, things like customer demand, fuel and shipping prices, interest rates, and material costs are all constantly shifting. We can’t control these things. We have to control what we can, and try to navigate through the things that we can’t. One thing that can certainly be controlled is what you do with your Company, and how you position yourself for the future. If you don’t change with the times, someone else will. Change is inevitable.
You would have to be living under a rock to be oblivious to the advances that have been made in technology in just a little over a decade. Think back to 1996. The web was still young, e-mail was in its infancy (second best to fax machines by a mile), pagers were in vogue, the Star Tac was the new must have gadget, and Intel was still on their first Pentium series. We used 1.44MB “floppy†disks, the common hard drive was measured in megabytes, we were still impressed by Windows 95, and we were listening to music on cassette tapes.
Look at the world now. We have mini computers in our pockets and in holsters on our hips. A single song will not fit on a 1.44MB floppy disk (if you could even find a floppy drive to copy it), yet we can now carry our entire music collection on a device no larger than a wallet, and a good chunk of that collection on something the size of a pen. We can contact anyone, at anytime, from anywhere, and we even have a choice of how to do that. Talk? Text? Email? All of the above? Technology is advancing quicker every year, and it doesn’t seem to be letting up anytime soon. The challenge for us as business people is to either keep up with technology advances, or be forced to change due to our inability to do so.
First and foremost, you should have an email address, and use it. Regularly. People are growing more likely to reply quicker to emails and texts than phone messages. Those mini-computers in our pockets keep us more closely linked to our email than we are to our office phones, largely because you can’t take your landline with you to lunch or to that meeting across town. If you own or manage a Company, you should have 24-hour access to your email messages, because your competitor probably does.
If you have a fax machine to satisfy your vendors or customers that don’t have a computer, that’s understandable. If you have a fax machine because that’s the only way you receive orders other than the phone, time to rethink that strategy. Fax machines are going the way of the floppy drive. At least you’ll get some desk space back.
For all you managers out there, if your computer system is old enough to vote, you should be looking to see if there’s a newer version. If you’re simply unhappy with your old system, it’s possible a pre-packaged software system like QuickBooks or Peachtree may fill your needs. Many older systems started prior to 1996 were based on much older software, written for clunker machines, and if the continually shrinking size of the PC is any indication of what these “small†programs can do, take the time to get familiar with them.
Make sure that your current system applications and level of computerization is sufficient to meet your Company’s needs now, as well as five and ten years from now. Being able to obtain and provide information immediately has become the norm. If it takes two days every month to manually reconcile supporting ledgers to generate monthly reporting, chances are you should be looking for something new. Most of the new computer system applications are fully integrated, and reconciliation is virtually automatic, since everything is in one system.
If your inventory system is largely comprised of “Ask Mikeâ€, a change might be in order. What if “Mike†leaves the Company unexpectedly? It might delay that inventory report that’s due at the end of the month. Refer to the above paragraph.
If you don’t already have one, look into getting a website. Regardless of your industry, we live in the age of Linked In, Twitter, Facebook, an exhausting 24 hour news cycle, and with social networking, a 24-hour advertising cycle as well. You and your Company should be on these sites. Even if you’re uncertain how they can help you today. Mark your territory, get your username while it’s still available.
Our world is being linked via wifi and the internet. With phones that are probably smarter than your home computer, everyone will have immediate access to the internet 24-7 in the very near future. Your potential customers are already starting to look for their next vendor via a search engine, and it’s very possible that your current customers may find their potential replacement for you the same way. Even if you set up a website just to get your name into cyberspace, do it sooner than later. Once your site is up, work on making it work for you.
For you and your business, things like customer demand, fuel and shipping prices, interest rates, and material costs are all constantly shifting. We can’t control these things. We have to control what we can, and try to navigate through the things that we can’t. One thing that can certainly be controlled is what you do with your Company, and how you position yourself for the future. If you don’t change with the times, someone else will. Change is inevitable.