Last month I discussed how the early days of the Internet boom spawned an almost irrational enthusiasm for all things related to the Web. We also discussed how Windows software shipments have continued to grow despite predictions of its death and how each technology has its own unique strengths and weaknesses that you need to understand in order to develop a sound technology strategy. This month we begin explaining a set of rules of computing that will help you maximize the return on your information technology investments. The first several rules concern larger business issues. We’ll get to specific technology comparisons a bit later on in the series.
Rule #1: Computing is Free, Usability is Key
One of the most amazing technological transformations of the past century occurred in the 1990s as the cost of computers fell by more than half while the power of these systems increased by a factor of more than a hundred. Indeed, a desktop computer costing $1000 has more power than that available to the entire Apollo moon program. While it isn’t quite “free,” computing power is so extraordinarily cheap that deciding whether to automate a task in your business should be determined almost completely by whether the costs in staff training time are offset by improvements in your bottom line.
A Fictional Case Study:
“Flab to Fab” is a health club in the Midwest where 3 full-time sales people labor to keep prospects coming in the door and buying memberships. Currently, the salespeople walk prospects through the facility, explain the services available and, hopefully, take them to a private office where they can sign them up as a member. In the office, they explain membership terms and ask prospects to read and sign the club’s standard membership agreement. Everything is done by hand and, at the end of the day, new agreements are dropped off to the accountant for processing.
Is it worth automating Flab to Fab’s sales operations?
An automated solution will require three computers, a set of networking hardware (a router and some cabling) and a club management product. The cost? Fiveto nine-thousand dollars or about one to two months of a salesperson’s salary. Amortized over a five-year life expectancy, the monthly cost is $3 – $5 per day: almost negligible. However, that still does not mean that this investment is a good one! The real issue is whether the salespeople can master and use the system in less time than if they continue to do things via paper (which needs no training). This is a far harder thing to assess but, indeed, it is the only thing really worth assessing. If the salespeople just use the software to send electronic copies of sales receipts to the accountant rather than walking over with a piece of paper, then the time needed to train them to use the new system will easily outweigh the negligible advantages gained. That is, even if the software were truly free, it would not be worth automating sales.
If the software offers features that can truly improve the sales department’s ability to reach out to prospects and members with targeted sales efforts then it may – or still may not – be worth purchasing. The real question is whether the system is easy enough to learn that all of the sales management features actually translate into real sales.
It is not at all uncommon for software with a broad range of powerful features to be no more useful than a paperweight due to the difficulty of mastering these features. Purchasing such a package can, and will, result in a net loss to your business! This is not a hypothetical case: one major vendor to the fitness industry includes essentially a no help system with their notoriously difficult-to-use and very expensive software (don’t worry, though, for thousands of dollars more, they’ll actually show you how to use it).
When purchasing technology, it is critical that you look beyond the vendor’s feature list and ask whether the software’s overall design, help system and tutorials actually result in a functional, useful product. This is far more important than cost. Chosen wisely, technology can propel your business to a whole new level of effectiveness and efficiency. Chosen otherwise, it can be very expensive indeed!
Dr. Mark Brittingham is President of BSDI. He can be contacted at 888.BSDI.FIT, or by email at Info@BSDI.cc, or visthttp://BSDI.cc.
