The £1000 Ornament
Sitting unused in the corner of the office is the status symbol for business in the nineties: the personal computer.
Not quite unused, of course, because the bookkeeper is on it one day a week and the staff all play solitaire at lunch time! But it could be so different if just a short time were taken to consider how technology could help all aspects of the business develop.
The sales function of the business will always be based on a network of useful contacts but how much more efficient could this be if these contacts were built into a database of potential customers. New names can easily be added by purchasing a list of businesses in specific industries. If these are provided in disk form then using a contact management programme such as ACT, a mailshot of several hundred letters can be run in an afternoon. Interestingly, ACT has recently been purchased by Sage although integrating it with their accounts software may be a long way off.
Making those mailshots successful is another art in itself but again the ability of the database to contain whatever information you want will always pay dividends. Extra pieces of information might be the difference between getting that new piece of business or not.
Databases can also be used to smooth the running of your business. In our office every one of over five hundred tax returns arrives at the Inland Revenue before the 31st January deadline each year. Keeping track of those returns would be impossible without a good database. In our case, Microsoft Access has been developed using Visual Basic techniques to produce a database tailored to our requirements but far simpler techniques can be used.
It is often said that any business is just a series of processes. If true, then by identifying the processes that are regularly repeated and using word processing, spreadsheet or other packages extra efficiencies can be introduced and service levels improved. Once done you might even be confident enough to improve communications by introducing e-mail to the business.
Look around your office at the tasks that are being done. Could they be made easier? Ask your advisors. Ask your children. Don't get left behind!
