Methodologies for Maximizing Technology

Were a technology services company, so technology goes hand-in-hand with everything we do and provide. That said, its not at all obvious how technology can assist who we areultimately a services providerto the extent that we see increased profitability.

The magic for us has been the early adoption of a home-grown work-flow information system that has effectively automated our entire business. Our own Killer App, the Dataprise Job Manager, has allowed us to grow and scale our business successfully over the years . Authored by myself , its sometimes called the Job Mangler , and while I take these jibes in stride, the Dataprise Job Manager has grown to be an integral part of the way we manage and perform our business. Our home-grown enterprise system provides:

• Contact management , including prospect and lead tracking.

• Contracts management , including contract templates, revisions and pricing.

• Job Management , including job execution tracking, service delivery, assignments and work-flow.

• Time Management , consisting of time tracking on a per job basis.

• Invoice Management , comprised of automatic invoicing and financial analysis.

Over time, our Job Manager has grown to accurately model the way Dataprise does business. The lesson weve learned is this: in business, technology should always be leveraged to replicate and accelerate a proven business model. Unfortunately, too often companies find themselves redefining the way they do business to match the capabilities (or deficiencies) of an available or given technology. As a technologist myself, Ive found that this is a big mistake. Technology is only a tool and can rarely provide a base efficiency that is important enough to change the way a business should operate (two such examples of fundamental technology improvements that have changed the way businesses operate are the advent of electronic mail and the Internet). Make the technology reflect your business, not the other way around.

At Dataprise, our Job Manager has eliminated data redundancies, improved our information accuracy and increased the speed in which we can do business. We couldnt scale or compete effectively without it.

And it definitely increases our profits. Contracts can be turned around in minutes, not hours. Time entry is automated and requires very little overhead to track. Invoices are automatically generated at the end of each month. There is little doubt that the right technology positively affects the bottom linefor companies of any size .

The trick lies in convincing even small business owners that the right investment in technology can pay off for their business.