If you listen to country radio, you’ve likely heard Miranda Lambert’s song “Automatic”. She brings up a lot of good points about change and one in particular brought to mind our previous post about not losing the good stuff as we transition to new ways of doing things. Miranda sings “shifting gears ain’t what it used to be,” and if you’ve gone car shopping in the last few years you know exactly what she means. Manual transmissions are the exception, not the rule. There have been a number of stories in the news lately about carjackings foiled because the would-be thieves couldn’t drive a stick shift. It’s a skill that we don’t promote the way we used to. New car lots today are full of vehicles equipped with driver convenience options and that’s great. Making cars safer and helping drivers identify and react to potential threats can save lives but the next generation of drivers may not learn to drive as well as the generation before them did. Thanks to backup cameras and blind spot warning devices there is a fail safe mechanism to warn us if we don’t look around as carefully as we should. What if new drivers learn to rely on this technology instead of turning their heads and scanning the area? This could be a really bad thing. We know this well. The last thing you do is take something away that's valuable. We're very careful about unintended consequences when introducing new features into our online inventory management system.
The same can happen to your small business. If you lose skills that you no longer use frequently or fail to teach new employees these skills it can negatively impact your business. Using technology can make some tasks quicker and easier to accomplish but it’s important to remember how to complete critical business tasks without the aid of electronic devices and software solutions. What if the power goes out? Would you still be able to run your business? Do you have an offline way to process sales? It's great the you're using ecommerce and our online inventory management system, but you still need to prepare for the worst. What happens if our online inventory management system goes down for an hour? How do you keep track of things until it's back online. Now this never happens, of course, but it doesn't mean you shouldn't be prepared.
Our ancestors possessed a variety of skills that we no longer practice. It used to be common practice to teach young women how to sew and embroider. How many people do you know today that are capable of making an outfit or a tapestry? The number is likely very small. Even a skill as basic and necessary as cooking has changed over the years. Thanks to frozen food, microwaves and a proliferation of fast food restaurants people no longer need to allot much time to preparing their food. While it is convenient and allows us to devote time to other pursuits, there is great debate over whether our current eating habits are good for us. Today, cooking from scratch is often reserved for special occasions such as holidays. It seems this is a skill that is fading from popular culture as well.
Take a hard look at your business. Are there any skills or talents that contributed to your early success? Are you still doing things the same way? If you’ve implemented any new technologies that assist in these efforts are they enhancing your offerings or replacing them entirely? If you took our advice on process mapping you can review the documents now to see if these improvements are really making a significant difference. Another possible detriment is the loss of the personal touch. Art used to be drawn by hand, now many use computers to create their works. This can be faster and allow for numerous reproductions of a piece, which often reduces the cost and makes art accessible to more of the population. It can, however, reduce the uniqueness of the art and smooth out some of the imperfections that make art so personal.
It’s important to use technology to your benefit without letting it take over and destroy any of the unique elements that provide your company’s competitive advantage. One area where you can safely let technology take over is inventory management. Our online inventory management system takes the headaches and stress out of inventory management. Our free software solution allows you to access critical inventory data anytime from anywhere. Try Stockpile today!
