Technology: How It Effects The
Value of Your Business
- By
Stephen J. Kerr
Every business owner has a different opinion
on how much new technology their company needs. We are speaking about
both the technology used to produce your products and the very "mediums"
themselves. Our firm represents the full spectrum of media content providers,
from traditional printing companies to the most high tech Internet Web
page designers. We can tell you, with some certainty, that the way companies
apply technology in the creation of products and services and utilize
technology to deliver the content are two of the most critical factors
that raise the value of media companies.
Many of our clients are book publishers and the
world of Internet Web pages and CD-ROMS are mostly foreign to them. For
these companies it is the use of computers for editorial, design and
layout and that may bring them the highest benefits. Our video and film
clients are more in tune with the digital world and employ both digital
and tape based editing to complete their projects on tape and as CD-ROMS.
The printers we work with who employ the most labor saving equipment
in their pre-press departments are among the most profitable in the industry.
I have a saying, "Computers do not create
even one minute of leisure time, they just allow us to do more".
The productivity that each employee enjoys by utilizing computers on
their job should make their hours more productive and more profitable
for the employer. This in turn lowers labor costs and should lead to
higher profits. The question is - Are you using technology to it s maximum
labor saving effect?
Many business owners look at technology as if
it were a river running across their path. They know that they must get
into the river and swim if their company is to ever emerge as a leader…
but, where and when do they get in? They wonder, how deep (expensive)
is this river and do they get in now or move up stream where the river
(technology) is more advanced. Do they wait until the river changes course
(CD-ROM, CD-I, DVD, Internet) or get in now and just do their best.
It is important for every business owner to understand
that technology is not an obstacle, but a path to higher productivity,
lower labor costs and eventually - more profits. These all lead to a
higher value for your company if you ever choose to sell it.
It is not just higher profits that make
a technology rich company valuable. Technology savvy companies make attractive
acquisitions because they can bring much needed productivity and service
gains to larger companies who find that it is cheaper to purchase the
technology than develop it inside their own organization. For example
a video post house may purchase a computer animation company to help
capture a studio client, or a large commercial printer may purchase a
high tech pre-press service bureau to satisfy their clients' needs for
computer file output, or a publisher may purchase a CD-ROM producer to
migrate their print content into multi-media. Whatever the reason, technologically
advanced companies often find themselves the entrée for technologically
hungry buyers.
An information ravenous world awaits the advancements
in modem transfer rates that are looming on the horizon. While copper
wire bound modems can presently communicate at speeds up to 28,800 bits
per second, coaxial cable, fiber-optic and satellite connected modems,
soon to be offered through the TV cable and phone carriers, will rocket
data along at over 500,000 bits per second. Zenith, Motorola, Hewlett-Packard
and AT&T are investing heavily in this technology which will allow a
user to download an 18-megabyte JPEG file in about 12 seconds. Web sites
will look more like multimedia TV stations than repositories of text
and data.
Where will your company be then?
Where will your company be when the average consumer
can get access to so much information, so fast. Just as it is
certain that computers do not create any leisure time, the access to
information just fuels the need for more information, IE: The
more information you can get, the more you want.
Your company is an information gatekeeper. By
creating, perfecting and disseminating information, a toll (sales) is
paid by everyone who wants access to that information. The more ways
that people touch your information, the more tolls you can charge them
for access. If you put out the same information as a seminar, book, audio
cassette, video tape, CD-ROM and Internet Web page, you are maximizing
the number of ways that you can charge the public for that same slice
of knowledge. Think about it. How many ways could your company
charge the public for access to the same information that you possess?
A book is a messenger, a video tape is a messenger
- the Internet is a messenger. You are the gatekeeper, you have what
people need - knowledge. But are you using technology to deliver the
information in all the forms that people need it ? Probably not. You
must have the utmost confidence in the knowledge/information that you
are disseminating. Can you think of a single way that the Holly Bible
has not been repackaged and delivered to a spiritually hungry world.
One can find full versions of the Bible on the Internet, in CD-ROM, on
video, on audio cassette, as software and still available in the ever
reliable, printed word.
If you want to maximize the value in your company
- invest in technology. People pay for information. Corporate giants
pay well for media companies that use technology particularly well to
process and sell information. Small companies are often the first to
discover hidden wells of knowledge - and to drink from them. Big companies
are good at irrigating the lands with that knowledge and reaping the
harvest. All symbolism aside. If you are very good at using existing
technology to maximize the information output of your company, there
is a good chance that someone else will covet your productivity and would
be only too happy to pay you handsomely for it.
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