As a CEO, you don’t have to be a
computer wizard to find the best
technology to run your business, says John M. Cachat, founder, chairman
and chief vision officer of IQS Inc.
Instead, your job is to have a clear
understanding of what it is your company does and what technology you
need to make it run more smoothly
and efficiently, Cachat says. “You
focus on the business part because
that’s your expertise,” Cachat says.
IQS provides integrated quality management software to companies in the
manufacturing sector. And Cachat
says it is a rare instance in which manufacturing companies, or businesses in
any type of industry, should look at
developing their own computer system.
“That’s your lifeblood,” Cachat says.
“It’s the information flow in your company. They’ve got to be treated with
respect.”
One of the best places to start when
making technology plans is with a software supplier.
“You don’t really need a consultant to
tell you how to go about this,” Cachat
says. “Bring in suppliers, explain to
them your business, define your expectations and see a functional working
demo. The functional working demo is
important — not a PowerPoint. I don’t
want a guy to come in and talk to me
about theoretically improving cash
flow. Show it to me.”
And once you choose a system, you
need to have a solid means of getting
employees on board.
“Most people only know about 5 percent of a word processor’s capability,”
Cachat says. “They learn what they
had to learn to type a letter or to do
what they wanted. Make sure you document how to use the app, you train
them, retrain them, and then you go
out and audit to see if they are following it.”
“I have found in my own company
people that perceive, ‘I’m a sales guy, I
don’t have to do that; I’m an engineer,
I don’t have to do that.’ At some point,
regardless of it being a big or small
company, you have to say, ‘Well, no,
actually, that is your job. If you don’t enter this in the system, I don’t get the
report, and we can’t make good decisions.’”
You also need to be diligent about
explaining the objectives of the new
system to employees and defining the
employees’ role in using it. And you
need to develop a means of tracking
the system’s effectiveness.
“Did the costs go down? Did the
inventories go down? Is on-time delivery better?” Cachat says. “Are your
customer problems down? Monitor it,
not once a year or 18 months later but
weekly and monthly. Those are how
I’m going to see if it’s working.”
One of the best ways to encourage
employees to buy in to the new system
and use it is to make use of their work
at meetings.
“The computer system Golden Rule
— if I agree to enter the data in the
system, you agree to use it,” Cachat
says. “If I see that showing up in a staff
meeting or a bulletin board or somewhere, I say, ‘Yeah, I entered the stuff
to show that.’ They’re kind of proud of
it. They’ll stay late to get the data in so
the report is current versus a week
goes by, a month, three months and no
one is looking at it.”
HOW TO REACH: IQS Inc., (440) 333-1344 or www.iqs.com
Don’t wait for the crisis
One of the best times to implement a
new computer system is when business
at your company slows down, says John
M. Cachat, founder, chairman and chief
vision officer of IQS Inc.
“When a crisis hits and you’ve got a
major customer that is going to take you
off the approved supplier list because
you can’t do some of the quality practices, that’s a bad time to put in systems,” Cachat says. “You’re going to
make fast decisions. You’re not going to
train, and you’re going to try to ram it in
the company. The people will revolt and
say, ‘I don’t want to use this.’”
IQS provides integrated quality management software to companies in the
manufacturing sector, and a common
mistake that Cachat sees is companies
that get carried away with the latest and
greatest technology wave that has just
hit the market.
“The IT guy will always want the greatest and the best, whatever he just read
about,” Cachat says. “If the software
doesn’t meet all those technical criteria
but does everything the company wants
it to do, buy it.”
Companies can also consider outsourcing their technology management
to a company that specializes in doing
so.
“If I don’t have the expertise, it’s a
good idea,” Cachat says.
Doing so also allows you to pay
monthly rather than investing in a system as a capital expense.
“Instead of spending $30,000 in capital, I can do $1,000 a month for 36
months,” Cachat says.