EDITORIAL

Tom Swltt's electronlc whatslt

Now tbat vlrtually all rctallers ud wholesalers have comput€ru tber€ soems to be a tcndency o considcr tbe conversion to high tcch complete. Forget tbat- tle fun hasJustbegun.

As tbe tecbnology cornucopia spills out new products faster than your comput€r can develop glitches, it becomes hrder o keep up and fully utilize these new marvels. Scanners, bar codes, satellitp networks, integratcd systems with networked PCs, ln-car faxes, lmpoved calculato'rs, laptop computers and cellular phones are just some of the devices producing efficiencies undreamed of until rcently.

While it's impo,rtant for management to commit to purchase and fully exploit technological advan@s, this is easier said tban done. In rcal life, the actual perforrunce of high toch can fall woefully shat of the extavagant pronises made for it. Result number orr: costly failures. Result number two: management hesitancy to be twice burned.

Sellers of the.se electnmic miracles contend that buyers don't fully utilize dl the capacities and abilities of tbeir devices. They lament that often employees operate tbem at less than 50% of their

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design capability. Unless management provides propef training and insists tbat employees make the marvels run to full capacity, the return on investment in dollars and efficiency will be far short ofideal.

Yet instruction manuals tend to be murky at best and go down hil ftorn there. Too often tectrnobabble substitutes for ptain English. Manuals often are writt€n, it se€ms, by computer programmers morc interested in impresstng otberprogrmmers than telling tbe baffled user how the thing works. And when all this is translated ftom the original Japanese, well...

Despite the cost, confusion and exasperation, these new results of the high technology tpvolution are essenrial for oe profitability and long term survival of any company. Whether we like it tr not, they're here and we bad best learn to live with them. Not at minhal fimction, but as close tol00,% as poosible.

You can be sure that your cmpetition is making full use of every new device o be more effective. If you don't continue to e,urbrace and utilize bigb tech, what do you think is going to happen?