Sometimes I feel like an imposter in the world of software. My previous background prior to working at Spira was in running my own retail dry cleaning business. On the surface the software seems about as far away from the dry cleaning on the business spectrum as you can get. But after two years of time at Spira, I have discovered that, business is business, and when you distill the essence of a business problem down to its core, problems in the software business are not necessarily unique to the industry.
I distinctly remember the reaction of a close friend of mine when I revealed that I accepted a job at Spira, he spit out his beer, laughed and said, “why?” And it wasn’t, “why did I accept the job?” It was, “why did they hire you?”
My close friend knows me (and Spira) pretty well and he knew that I was not a technical kind of guy by any stretch of the imagination. And so, even though I could have done without the laughing and spitting out the beer part, his question was entirely legitimate. The answer was, that Spira had (and still has) lots of great technical people, but what they needed were more people with business minds and business backgrounds. And that is where I fit into the grand scheme of things at Spira.
So fast-forward to today and here I am, a marketing grad, charged with adding life to our website, proliferating our online presence and starting up a blog to disseminate the superior qualities of our software product to the world and I need a morning of time from our technical analyst at Spira to explain how RSS feeds work and how to incorporate them into our website. Thankfully our technical analyst (Jono) is patient with me and diligently explained the process of getting this done.
Despite my baby steps, (like the RSS feed lesson) I still feel like a bit of an imposter in the world of technology. It’s a bit of a load of my chest, a confessional of sorts, to reveal this to the world, but now you know, I can move on with things.
So in this blog (and pretty much all of my future blogs), you will not find me throwing around software jargon and technical acronyms. I will however, be talking about business. Efficiency, process, error reduction and operational issues are my “shtick” so to speak. These are core concepts to all businesses, large and small. These are the issues that Spira, on a consulting level and on a software level, can help your company to solve. Because if you are inefficient, lack process, live with errors and your operations are running the same way they did 10 years ago, then you are in for an awakening in the next ten years.
The leaders in your industry are adopting technology in all aspects of their operations and this is setting them up to be more efficient, more profitable, more responsive and more compliant. And in the process they are eroding your competitiveness if you are still running business as usual.
It’s a bit scary for those of you who are not technical like me. Having your key information, (billing, payroll, safety etc.) stored in a database somewhere is still tough for some of us to wrap our heads around. I always liked to be able to touch and feel the paper copies of my business, they seem real to me. But when I think about the changes we have seen to things like physical paper money for instance, then that fear evaporates. I have become so accustomed to, and comfortable with electronic money, (as have many of you reading this), getting comfortable with moving your business information to electronic digital form should not be the stretch that is for some. It should be, how fast can we get this in place so we can take advantage of the technology and the efficiencies it brings to our business. Let me give you an example from my dry cleaning past.
I can remember the day we began computerizing our front counters at our dry cleaning stores. We had these big clunky CRT monitors sitting smack dab in the middle of our counters and they immediately changed our interactions with our customers. At first it was negative. We were slower, the software had some bugs in it, we asked for addresses and other more personal information and on a customer service level it was a waaaay less personal experience than before.
It was a tough decision to make, very few were using the software, the company (Cleansuite Software) was local, (they can’t possibly be as good as someone from the States!) and it was about $5000 bucks per point of sale station for all of the hardware and printers and software. Not cheap at the time! But the software was fundamentally good, and the software company was responsive, and the benefits of the change began to emerge shortly after we put it in place.
Soon, I had daily reports at the push of a button that would take 45 minutes to an hour to prepare previously. Pricing was accurate and the 5-10% increase in sales due to proper pricing that the software company promised was real! Customers quit questioning pricing because it was accurate and consistent and you could read it! No more handwriting legibility and adding issues. Slowly, myself and my staff became faster with the software, and the software company continually improved the product and fixed the bugs.
The software also provided me with marketing information that previously I had not had before. I could track customer volumes to the penny and I truly knew who my top customers were (I was surprised by some of these results). I sent Christmas cards to my top 100 customers with free cleaning and implemented a standardized discount program so they could stop clipping coupons. I had a huge marketing leg up on any competitor that still chose to do things by hand.
Our customers got value from our computerized system too (besides the Christmas cards). I now had access to a customer’s history, starch preferences and little customer nuances that were previously hit and miss on whether they got done when we were writing things out by hand. I could track tagging, find misplaced items faster, record specific garment colours, fabrics etc. You get the idea.
All this from one business change; Computerizing our point of sale system. I have often used the same analogy when describing Spira. It is a point of sale system for field service companies. Sure the data is a little bit different but fundamentally it’s the same idea.
So what does this have to do with me being an imposter in the software world? Well even though I am not technical, my business experience allows me to recognize the value that a good software product can have for a company (whether it is dry cleaning or oilfield service). That is why, despite my buddy spitting out his beer at the news, Spira has turned out to be a good fit for my business experience even though I don’t speak the same technical mumbo jumbo as some of my co-workers.
If you are not technical, and your business experience is telling you that a software product like Spira could make the same sort of sense that Cleansuite Software did for my dry cleaning business. Get in touch with us and find out what we are all about.