The technological tools needed to set yourself up in business used to be pretty simple. A couple of hundred business cards from the local printer. Some phones, and maybe a fax machine and photocopier.
Now, there's a bewildering array of complex and sometimes expensive options confronting a small-business owner, and the choices can make or break a company.
According to a just-released Ipsos-Reid online survey of 855 Canadian small businesses commissioned by Microsoft Canada, 82 per cent of small-business owners agree that adopting technology is the key to increasing productivity and competitiveness.
Well sure they do, but just how can they make that happen?
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Let's begin with e-mail. You simply have to have it, or you risk losing business to competitors who do. Of course you'll want to chose an e-mail address that instantly conjures up your business. I know a pizzeria in New York that spells its name one way (Viny Vincenz) on its trucks, but differently (Vinny Vincenz) on its website. Luckily, their pizza is so good that people don't care, but do pay attention to detail.
Should you pay for your business e-mail service? After all, Microsoft's Hotmail, Google's Gmail and a host of other providers will give you completely free electronic mailboxes. But let's face it, do you really want your corporate e-mail associated with the same service that people use for posting refrigerators for sale and missing pets?
There's also the issue of support. Free e-mail providers are not going to be very helpful if you are suddenly overcome by spam or other e-mail problems. Those who get paid monthly should at least try to help you out of a jam.
The next step up the techno ladder is to have a website. One of my least favourite questions is "How much should I pay to get my website built?" The prices are all over the map. There are local companies that will charge you thousands of dollars to custom build and maintain your website. There are folks in India who do it for 3,500 rupees, which is under $100 Cdn. It really depends on what you want your website to do.
For a very basic corporate awareness site, it's hard to go wrong with the toolkits provided by the web-hosting companies. As an example, for $25 US a year, Burnaby, B.C.-based Doteasy, Technology, Inc. will register your chosen domain name (if available,) host it, which means giving it a place to live, and give you access to some template-driven sample websites. I created the website www.jwdavidson.org for a non-profit organization in under an hour using their kit. It may not be the most spectacular site on the planet, but it hasn't made the list of the World's Worst Websites either.
This company also throws in 10 e-mail accounts so you can be president@joeblow.com, as well as sales@, support@ and for that matter, chiefcookand bottlewasher@. On the Internet, nobody has to know they all lead back to you.
In fact, the Internet provides ample room for small companies to "look big" with online catalogues, e-commerce ordering and credit card processing. Any number of firms will handle all these details, for a fee. My suggestion here, for banking and legal reasons, is to stick with a provider that's based in your own country. You just don't want to run afoul of some other country's tax and currency regulations.
Small businesses, especially those that have people on the road or in different locations, can make excellent use of instant messenger (IM) products. In fact, that's basically how this newsmagazine is put together, with writers, photographers and editors all linking in through messenger chats. For IM it's probably just fine to use a freebie, since you'll be talking mainly to your own people and image is not an issue.
You could get fancy and offer online chats with potential customers. This can backfire, however, if you don't have somebody competent monitoring the incoming line at all times. Having a "talk live to a rep" button raises customer expectations. While checking website prices, I found myself engaged in an unsolicited live chat with a web developer who was burning the midnight oil somewhere in India. But his greeting didn't exactly inspire confidence: Prashant: ok so wht u want for us "Probably nothing," was my answer.
Oh yes, you'll need a business telephone. Traditionally this was the exclusive domain of what we now call the "incumbent provider," companies such as Telus and Bell. Now, there's a wide range of outfits flogging Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) with some attractive pricing.
You can also benefit from some useful features such as getting your voicemail messages sent to you as e-mail attachments. Check carefully because some VoIP providers are sticklers about using their services for faxing and for business purposes. Of course, a lot of people run their small business quite happily from a cellphone that never leaves the owner's side.
There are some spiffy technological innovations that are "just around the corner" for innovative small businesses. One is m-commerce - sending of messages to the cellphones and two-way pagers of people who are in a particular location. You might offer them a time-limited discount or a special incentive.
Ad company Viacom Outdoor has just launched a series of 66 Digital Escalator Panels at the Tottenham Court station in London's Underground. These bright poster-sized screens display cascading images on the walls alongside of escalators and even play clips from the latest Jack Johnson album. They can beam out messages to Bluetooth-equipped cellphones. Tim Bleakley, joint managing director at Viacom Outdoor, calls it "a fantastic glimpse into the future" and a way to reach "a highly valuable captive audience."
And therein lies the cautionary tale.
Technology must always serve the customer's needs and real desires. Entertain and delight people, don't annoy them. Otherwise, they may say to you what I said to poor Prashant back in India.
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(Tom Keenan is a professor at the University of Calgary and an expert on technology and its social implications. He can be reached at keenan@businessedge.ca)
