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Entrepreneur Magazine
September, 2007
Tech check
Your business is growing, but is your technology keeping up?
by MIKE HOGAN, Entrepreneur Magazine
Growth is good. Managing cascading revenue, remembering new faces at work, finding enough desks, computers and space for everyone--these are the right kinds of problems to have.
But, of course, they're still challenges for a growing business. One of the thorniest? Managing the rapid turnover in your technology set--all those PCs and the stuff connected to them.
Big companies just turn the job over to a trained IT staff, one dialed into the knowledge base of best practices and procedures that have developed over decades of desktop computing. Cash-strapped businesses, however, have to improvise. But don't worry: There's good news.
First, it's time to recognize that you're pretty darn smart about tech, even though most of you downplay your skills and feel perpetually behind the curve. Really, it's not you; it's the industry. No one can keep up with the dizzying pace at which things turn over.
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Unfortunately, VoIP network installation can still be rocky, as Nurse Next Door discovered when it bought a six-line PBX phone system that wasn't a good fit for the fast-growing home heath-care company. The price tag was only $10,000, but co-founder Ken Sim figures it cost about $100,000 in lost revenue, poor customer service and churned clients.
"And that's a low estimate," says Sim, 36, who started the Vancouver, British Columbia, company six years ago with John DeHart, 34. Now Nurse Next Door is switching to Cisco's Unified IP Contact Center.
The total price tag will be approximately $1 million. But a strong communications backbone is indispensable for the uniquely outbound company, whose 30 call-center employees must schedule appointments for more than 1,200 nurse practitioners and whose revenue will reach $17 million this year. Nurse Next Door's field managers and finance department minimize repetitive paperwork by uploading timekeeping, billing and client information to HomeTrak scheduling and QuickBooks accounting programs, and now computing data and communications will be merged on the same network.
Managers use RIM BlackBerrys or HP Tablet PCs equipped with Kyocera Passport cellular cards to stay in touch. Canon Pixma iP90 portable printers let them print care plans for both clients and caregivers. Inside, each employee has a trio of flat panel monitors connected to his or her PC to work on multiple applications. Each monitor trio costs $750 but adds about $2,000 to the company's top line every year, says Sim.
