Entrepreneurs explain how they select people to guide them in their search for new or upgraded systems and why.
When it comes to automation, whom you pick to guide you matters as much as what you choose to install
Deciding what kind of information technology (IT) is best for your business is no easy task. Should you install IBM-compatibles or Macs? Do you need custom-made software, or will an off-the-shelf accounting package do? Are a network and E-mail in order, and if so, which providers should you choose?
Consultants may not be the ones to go to for answers. According to the research firm Dataquest, Americans will spend $9 million on computer consulting services in 1995, 38% more than they did two years ago. But only 4% of people who use computer consultants, says a recent Business Intelligence survey, are satisfied with the help they receive -- help that costs anywhere from $40 to $150 an hour. The combination of big bucks and less-than-optimum advice may have more and more company owners turning away from "experts" and to laypeople they trust -- everyone from mothers-in-law and college whiz kids to business managers and local retailers.
We asked half a dozen entrepreneurs to tell us who guides them in their search for new or upgraded systems. Their choice of technology gurus may surprise you.
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Jos Kleynjans
CEO of Pittsburgh-based Trading and Manufacturing Industries (TMI), a strip-door manufacturer with $5.3 million in sales
If a technology decision will affect the whole business, then we make the decision as a group. For example, when we were thinking about automating, we discussed the decision with everyone who would be involved, no matter what position he or she held in the company. My wife, Annie, who is TMI's controller, played a large part in the process, too. She attended a six-week seminar on automation that was a valuable source of information.
After we had a general meeting and everyone agreed that we were ready for automation, I appointed one person -- a salesman who had sold computer systems before joining TMI -- to write a description of every document we had in the company. I also asked him to make a flowchart showing how long documents were used, when documents were destroyed, and what each document's purpose was. That gave us a complete outline of what we needed. Then we invited four computer suppliers in, told them what we wanted to accomplish, and gave them 30 days to give us a proposal for a system and an explanation of why we should choose their system.
Next, the suppliers came to TMI and gave a presentation to our seven department heads, each of whom already had a copy of the price quotations. After the presentation I asked the department heads to let me know their preferences.
Five of the seven chose the same supplier. So we invited that company and the second-choice company to make another presentation to our group. This time we asked more pointed questions. When the second-choice company couldn't tell us why we should choose its system over the first-choice company's, we decided to go with our first choice.
I trust my department heads to make technology decisions because most of them have worked for other companies where they've had to make similar judgments. Often I make a technology decision in my own mind but don't express it until the group reaches a decision. If I don't agree with the group members, then I challenge them. If they can prove me wrong, I accept their decision. But sometimes I prove them wrong.
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Robert Jacobson
President of Worldesign Inc., a virtual-reality design studio in Seattle
We have only five employees, so we pass the responsibility for technology decisions around, depending on what the particular need is. For example, we finally decided to network our computers. At least three of us had opinions on the subject, so we met and discussed them. First, we compared the technical capabilities and prices of different systems. Peter Wong, our vice-president for applications and development, listened to all the opinions. Once we had a general agreement on what type of system we needed, he took all the information and made the purchase, because he has a background in networks.
We would never have one person act as a technology czar. If you don't make decisions by consensus, people become unhappy and may go out and buy their own equipment, which would lead to chaos. For instance, when we bought word-processing software, we all agreed it had to be a package with which we were familiar and that was readily available and affordable. Then someone who had time bought the package.
The only drawback: the process can be slow. If we ever reach total deadlock, I could use my authority and make a decision alone. Thankfully, we've never reached that point.
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Stan Wetherell
Cofounder of the sign franchise Sign It Quick and co-owner of the $1-million Sign It Quick store in Columbia, S.C.
Primarily, I make the technology decisions. I have an associate's degree in engineering, though most of the technology decisions I make don't relate to my engineering background. I got my degree in 1972, and times have changed.
So I do make mistakes. I hired a man who's been selling us computers for a long time to put in a computer system for graphics. He's also knowledgeable about software -- specifically, point-of-purchase and accounting software. Turned out he didn't understand what the requirements are for a graphics computer. I spent $3,800 apiece on two computers he said I should buy, and they were not as good as the $2,000 computer I got from Best Buy a year later. I put the three computers side by side, and the ones I'd spent the extra $1,800 on were slowpokes. I've ended up using them around the office for bookkeeping and to record sales data, but they're far beyond what we need for those functions.
The next time I go outside the company for help in a technology decision, I'm going to talk to several computer experts and make sure I get references from people, preferably those in the sign industry, who've used the recommended products.
