YOU ARE IN TECH WHETHER YOULIKE IT OR NOT
We have reached a point where no matter what business you are in, you are knee-deep in technology. Farmers, steel makers, ice cream store owners, and landscapers are not exempt— the standouts in these supposedly low-tech businesses are often using technology to blow away their competitors.
Many would argue that Wal-Mart’s dominance started long before they got so huge; they’ve had an operational edge for more than two decades because their supply chain technology was better. General Electric’s management and planning philosophy get a lot of press, but what you don’t read so often is how much of the company’s business has moved to the Inter-net—billions and billions of it every month.
You don’t need to be one of the biggest corporations in the world to make the most of technology. In just the past few years, I’ve witnessed a tremendous number of seemingly “old world” companies that have been transformed by the latest technology. The Candlewic Company of Doylestown, Pennsylvania, has grown their candle- and soap-making supplies business by leaps and bounds over the past few years. Technology has allowed owners Bill and Dave Binder to reach and serve a much broader market of resellers and enthusiasts. From the point of automated order entry all the way through the UPS-designed “pick and pack” system, technology now al-lows Candlewic to deliver on what their customers really want: small, infrequent purchases. These orders would have been wholly unprofitable just a few short years ago. Now this segment encompasses most of their growth.
In 1995, a company called Tool Shack was a small, one-location commercial tool reseller in Las Vegas, Nevada. Today, Mytoolstore.com, run by the same team, has grown into a multimillion dollar online trailblazer. While most small tool resellers are shaking in their work boots over big-box retailers such as Home Depot and Lowe’s, MyToolStore.com ships well-known brands such as Makita, Bosch, and Ingersoll-Rand to all 50 states and 90 countries around the world. Who would have guessed that technology would allow a Nevada-based company to grow with sales into Asia, Latin America, and the Caribbean? Sprint named the company “2002 Innovative Business of the Year” because of its outstanding application of technology to grow and enhance the business.
