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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 (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 makes 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 multimedia. Whatever the reason, technologically advanced companies often find themselves the entree 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 maxi-mizing 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 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 reap-ing 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 some-one else will covet your productivity and would be only too happy to pay you handsomely for it.