When to Use Technology

Technology certainly plays an important role in our business and our industry. Our productivity and security products are technological wonders. New generations of our products are based on harnessing technology to provide more productivity, more security, or more information to our customers. In harnessing technology, however, it is important to remember that the technology is not an end in itself. One must remember the basic rule of selling. That is, all selling is about solving problems for your customers. For example, in our latest generation of automatic card shufflers, we use some quite sophisticated technology in handling the playing cards. This results in extending the life of the cards for our customers. This, in turn , results in substantial, easily-measurable savings for our customers. These savings more than compensate for the additional costs that our customers pay for this more advanced unit. Hence, by addressing our customers problem, specifically the cost of cards, we are able to solve our own problem, namely how to increase prices. This is, in our view, an excellent use of technology.

In business operations, technology is also important. However, again, care must be exercised in making certain that the technology is used as a tool, not an end unto itself. There are times when a simple spreadsheet really is superior to the latest and greatest system approach. Management must be diligent in evaluating the suggestions of the information technologists by asking one simple but crucial question: is this new gizmo or application truly appropriate for our business?