SBA Conference Award Winners Reaffirm Importance of Technology[includes/headerinclude.htm]

This year's SBA National Small Business Week 2001 conference underscored just how important information technology (IT) is to the success of small businesses.

Among the state's Small Business of the Year awards, the SBA compiled some very telling statistics regarding the winners' use of technology.

Bear in mind, only 9% of the state award winners are industry-classified as "computer technology".

So the balance of the winners, the roughly 90% who are outside of computer technology, are still highly dependent on various hardware, software, and telecommunications resources.

For the conference, the SBA published a booklet, "Business Tips from the Winners", where nearly all of the conference award winners chimed in on what they thought others could glean from their years of experience and success.

Winners' Thoughts on Technology

We sought out to discover some words of wisdom from winners on how they use technology to drive business results. Here are two of the highlights.

"…make sure you separate operations from technology so that you have at least one primary person focusing on the business day-to-day events and at least one other watching the technology or engineering side."

Keith Johnson, President
ThermoAnalytics, Inc.
Calumet, MI
Regional Prime Contractor of the Year for Region V
Develops thermal modeling software

 

 

"From two sources, (there are) two different pieces of advice that are very important to Fish Mart's success. (We've been) …constantly upgrading how we market ourselves to our customers - from monthly four page flyers/newsletters to four page color brochures, a huge Fish Mart notebook for our retailers, a video, and now a PowerPoint slide show. The second comes from a company we hired that specializes in helping companies better manage themselves. We developed two reports in particular, by which I run the business. A gross margin report by inventory items and departments and a margin report by customer. These are run weekly and gleaned for any information to help make good business decisions."

Laura J. Reid, President
Fish Mart, Inc.
West Haven, CT
Connecticut State Winner
Distributes tropical fish and pets to retail pet stores and aquariums in the Northeast

Utah State Winner, John P. Porter, president of Focus Communications (Ogden, UT), also credits much of his firm's growth to investments in technology and telecommunications. Founded in 1995 with just two employees, Focus Communications now has over 450 employees and provides inbound and outbound telemarketing services.

Porter places strong priorities on technology investments, right in their mission statement, and explains how "customer satisfaction is directly correlated to technologies".

Focus also continues to scale up its technology base during growth to attract new clients.

Disaster Recovery Heroics

In addition to each state's winner, the SBA confers the Phoenix Award to individuals and their organizations for remarkable disaster recovery achievements.

In September 1999, Hurricane Floyd nearly wiped out a small manufacturer of liquid and powder coatings, primarily for the automotive industry. Sentry Paint Technologies of Darby, PA sustained extensive damage from an adjacent creek, as 17 feet of floodwater was swept into their building.

Sentry Paint Technologies president Benjamin Breskman, in his acceptance remarks at this morning's Phoenix Awards Breakfast , was very humble and credits his company's survival to the efforts of 18 incredibly loyal employees, working around the clock to rebuild the factory.

The write-up for Sentry Paint Technologies in the conference guide also discusses how all their paint formulas were lost when their computer system was damaged during Hurricane Floyd.

In addition, the hard copies of these documents were also soaked and had to be sent out to be freeze-dried and sorted before they'd be useful again in their manufacturing process.

The Chief Home Officer

Rounding up our lineup is SBA's Small Business Journalist of the Year: Jeffrey D. Zbar of Coral Springs, FL. Nominated by the Small Business Development Center at Florida Atlantic University, Zbar writes about small businesses and home offices for several magazines, newspapers, and web sites including the Fort Lauderdale Sun Sentinel, FreeAgent.com, Entrepreneur Magazine, Writer's Digest, and MSNBC.com.

Self-described as the Chief Home Officer (http://www.chiefhomeofficer.com), Zbar not only writes about home offices, he's worked from his home for over a decade as a very successful journalist, speaker, and consultant. His third and newest book, due out this summer, is SAFE@HOME - SEVEN KEYS TO HOME OFFICE SECURITY.

Zbar maintains an active web site where you can read his Tip of the Week, take in Home Office Success Stories, and tap into Zbar's hyperlink collection of SOHO Resources.

The Bottom Line

Are you wondering how you can compete with some of the U.S.'s most successful small businesses? Why not start by comparing the above statistics and success stories to how your small business leverages technology. Like the old adage says, "you gotta' have the right tool for the job."

 

Send your comments and feedback to letters@smallbiztechtalk.com.

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