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Don’t Curse
The Computer
BY FRED ODE
Computer crashes and lost
documents, viruses and pop-ups, unhelpful
help-desks and hard-to-understand
documentation—technology can be frustrating
for everyone, even for advanced
users. For novice users and the cyber phobic,
it can be downright scary.
Despite the frustrations—and fear—
that technology can bring, it does help
people accomplish a great deal more in
far less time. Business owners and managers
have no choice but to find ways to
use technology to improve their businesses
now and in the future.
WHY TECHNOLOGIES FAIL
In most cases, technology does not fail;
the methodology used to select it fails.
Many view new technology purchases
as quick fixes to isolated problems instead
of integrated and practical, long-term
solutions.
Relying on outdated technology also
can present a big problem, especially in
construction. For example, contractors
that are proud of their “sophisticated”
use of spreadsheets for job costing and
estimating have no idea how inefficient
these methods have become. Twenty-six
years after the first spreadsheet program
was introduced, industry-specific applications
can now handle specialized functions
faster, easier and at relatively low
costs. If a contractor still uses spreadsheets
for accounting or estimating functions,
the last thing he should consider is
PDAs in the field or document imaging
in the office.
Every business, at any given time, reaches
a certain threshold in its use of technology
and must identify where the company
is, and take aim at where it would like to
be. There is nothing wrong with being behind
in technology, as long as something
is being done to close the gap.
In his book, “Good to Great,” Jim
Collins studied Fortune 500 companies
over a five-year period and described
what distinguishes good to great companies
from all the rest.
“The good-to-great companies used
technology as an accelerator of momentum,
not a creator of it,” he said. In other
words, technology in and of itself will do
nothing for a business; it will only accelerate
what the company already does well.
TECHNOLOGY SUCCESS IS AS EASY AS ‘GAP’
Following is a practical, common-sense
methodology to find what technology
helps a business become even better,
called GAP, or gather, analyze and plan.
1) GATHER. The gather phase is
the most lengthy and time-consuming,
but also the most important, and no person
or process should be left out.
Who must be included in the gather
stage? If possible, every single employee,
or at the very least, department managers,
should be interviewed. Gathered
information comes from two types of
questions:
• Fact questions help define job descriptions,
tasks, technologies currently
used, reports used and prepared regularly
and procedures in place.
• Concern questions examine frustrations,
redundancies and inefficiencies.
In addition, it’s important to talk to
technology suppliers (such as network
and hardware suppliers) and construction-
specific technology suppliers (including
project management, estimating
and job-cost accounting software vendors).
Finally, interview people outside
the company who are affected by the
technologies, or lack of, including clients,
subcontractors, lenders, attorneys
and CPAs.
2) ANALYZE. In many cases, the
researcher will have a “eureka” moment
during the gather phase where the technology
answer becomes so obvious that
further analysis becomes unnecessary. For
example, the gatherer determines that
the company already has the technology
in place that it needs, but staff members
are not using it or have reverted back to
old methods. Clearly, additional training
is required and management needs to
motivate everyone to get on board.
When solutions are not so obvious,
the first goal of the analyze phase is to
sift through the information and identify
problem areas. To do this, every technology
area of the company should be organized
into various categories. The typical
construction company may include such
categories as hardware/system, estimating,
job cost/accounting, communications
and company-wide software (such as
Microsoft Word, Outlook, Excel, etc.).
Next, inefficiencies and problems need
to be identified within each category
and company-wide. Some problem areas
will be easy to address while others
will require more investigation. When
nearly every office employee complains
of frequent system crashes, for example, a
hardware problem is immediately identified.
Meanwhile, a first look at accounting
and estimating practices finds that staff
members are happy with their methods of
recording and tracking job costs. A little
more digging, and inefficiencies become
apparent because employees are entering
the same information numerous times in
different systems.
The goal for this stage is to identify
what solution or solutions the company
should consider. Whether it includes a
technology purchase or a complete technology
overhaul, every cost must be identified
and weighed to every benefit. Costs
include not just the dollar amount of purchasing
technology, but also the people
and time costs needed to get this technology
up and running. Benefits also need
to be clearly defined and based on fact.
“Better billing” is not a reason to switch
technology, but perhaps “billing that offers
AIA, percentage of completion and
custom-designed invoices” is a solution
worthy of consideration.
3) PLAN. Based on all the information
gathered, as well as careful analysis
and prioritizing, a company can make a
final decision regarding new technology.
One individual or an entire team can review
the short list of technology solutions.
For each solution, discuss strengths and
weaknesses as well as costs vs. benefits.
One person must take the lead to sell the
solutions to management, and once management
is sold on the concept, it’s time
to gather, analyze and plan, yet again.
Double GAP is essentially the highly
focused, drilled-down version of GAP.
Here the company begins gathering information
on the technology of choice
from the Internet, trade journals, associations,
peers and trade shows. Analysis
means building the short list of specific
products and vendors and selecting the
solutions that best fit the needs of the
company. Planning involves working
with a technology vendor, arranging
training, setting goals and timetables for
implementation.
Finally, implement the new technology.
But, as is the case in nearly every
other area of business, rarely will things go
precisely as planned. Companies always
need to review, assess and modify. Most
importantly, managers must make sure
employees are accepting and enthusiastic
about implementing new technology, or
the whole GAP process will have been
for nothing. This is more likely to happen
when individuals come to understand how
new technology will make their jobs easier
and benefit the company as a whole.
The GAP method of selecting technology
doesn’t offer any miracles or quick
fixes to technology dilemmas—just a new
way of approaching a topic that many
contractors find muddier than dirt.
Before beginning the method and
considering any new technologies, keep
one thing in mind: technology by itself
does not solve problems. It should be
used to leverage strengths a company already
possesses. Chosen wisely, technology
can and should seamlessly integrate
with the business to increase productivity,
efficiency and profits.
Ode is CEO/chairman of Foundation Software.
For more information, call (800) 246-0800 or
email fred@foundationsoft.com |
