More than 40 years ago, Intel founder Gordon Moore famously predicted
that the number of transistors on a chip would double every two years.
Known as Moore’s Law, this observation has helped to fuel a technology
revolution. Certainly, the computer age has transformed the way that we
do business. And for the foreseeable future, rapid technological
improvements will continue at a blistering pace.
“New technology translates to productivity,” says Hormazd
Dalal, president of Castellan Inc. “Productivity translates to one of
two things — an increase in revenue with the same operating costs,
lower operating costs or both.”
Smart Business spoke with Dalal about why
the costs associated with new technologies are shrinking, which ones
are most important for business owners to take advantage of, and what
advancements he envisions in the future.
Why is investing in new technologies so crucial?
There
are two types of new technology. One is advancements and improvements
to existing technology, which typically bring more stability and
security to an existing product.
The other is a new product which will enhance
productivity. A good example of this is the advent of Adobe PDF. Today,
information travels faster because of the ability to scan documents,
e-mail them to someone’s desk, work with the documents digitally and
then send them back. Transactions now take place electronically.
It is important for businesses to save the time that is needed by availing of these new technologies.
How affordable is new technology?
It’s
becoming more and more affordable. Ten years ago, the ability to
digitally read a document was only available to the largest companies.
Today, you can go to your neighborhood store and buy software that is
able to optically read your documents. There is even dictation or voice
recognition software available now. These are technologies that
required a lot of processing power and million dollar computers in the
past, but are now available on PCs.
What technologies are most beneficial for business owners to use?
Technologies
that will speed up the processes and make them more cost-efficient. An
example would be a customer that is processing insurance claims and
receives these claims by paper. If the insurance company has the
ability to send them electronically, not only is it more cost-effective
for the insurance company, but the volume of claims that the processing
company can handle can double with the same amount of resources. I
refer to that as Electronic Data Interchange, or EDI.
How can remote access capabilities help improve productivity?
Remote
access creates tremendous efficiencies. You should no longer be tied
down to your desk in order to work. Let’s say that you go out to lunch
and, upon returning to the office, you have five phone calls that you
have to return, a task that could take 30 to 45 minutes. If you had the
technology that allows you to take those calls while you were out, you
could have handled each of those calls on the spot.
How do you apply technology to track prospects and customers?
The
buzzword is ‘customer relationship management’ or CRM software. Six to
seven years ago, only the biggest companies developed this software.
Today, it is available to small businesses through desktop applications
like ACT and GoldMine all the way up to Oracle and Microsoft CRM
products.
CRM software enables you to pull all customer
information and correspondence immediately. If a customer calls you,
you can pull up the last person that worked with him or her and all of
the notes that are in the system.
What types of new technologies do you envision in the future that will increase business productivity?
Any
technology that enables and facilitates communication and collaboration
with your coworkers, customers and vendors will be an area of growth.
An example of a collaboration tool is the ability
to schedule an appointment, which is currently available in most
messaging applications. Rather than just entering a date into your
calendar, you can check the availability of coworkers and have an
acceptance automatically enter an entry into your calendar. The next
suite of applications for Microsoft will concentrate more on
collaboration and will allow multiple people to work on the same
document quickly rather than having them print it out, revise and send.
This type of technology is already out there. The one difference is
that, as time goes on, it will become less cumbersome and easier to
use.
The end of the year will bring a major shift in
computing capabilities. Microsoft’s long-awaited Vista operating system
will be released along with new versions of Exchange and Office. These
new products will all support 64-bit processors, which will be readily
available by mid-2007 and mainstream by mid-2008. This shift will be
similar to the advent of the GUI (Graphical User Interface) from DOS.
HORMAZD DALAL is president of Castellan Inc. Reach him at (818) 789-0088, ext. 202, or [email protected].
