Using the latest software technology improves profit

"IJse the latest technology" is often the answer given to the question, "How do you run a business more profitably?"

But with fast tJack technology constantly and rapidly changing, how does a retail store owner or manager keep up? "Find a technology business parmer who can s€lect and implement the best of the latest technologies for your particular business," advises Dataline Corporation's Les Goldman.

Drawing on his experience with a company that has successfully provided business computer solutions to lumber and building material retailers and wholesalers since 1971, he recommends finding product offerings that ar€ both on the leading technology edge and simple to master. This is the kind of software tools a business needs to profitably compete through the'90s, he adds.

Choosing wisely from software available, a retailer can increase mar- gins for each sale, reduce shrinkage and materials handling for each reorn-of-goods transaction, speed up customer handling and data entry and accurately track special orders and delivery ofgoods.

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Care should be taken to select software Oat integrates with other technology components of your business, Goldman cautions. This will ensure you can perform take-offs, $eate deck designs and more on your favorite trC progran, then electronically forward the information for reprice, recost and quoting. A systerr database that permis you to tie into off-the-shelf desktop packages like Microsoft Excel will allow you to report business informatim gr4hically or in custom desigred reports.

Most importanL Goldman points out, an open system design also allows you to choose how others can a@ess your system. A contractr cm be granted aooess to look up an item's price and availability at any tine of day or nigbt using a FC at his hmq office or on the job site. With this kind of access, he can post an order for scheduled delivery or exemine accounts receivable information for his account. When the store opens in the morning, the order or price request can be waiting for review md processing. The same system will allow the stor€ to reorn onfirmation to the contractor via his FC.

Technology has brought many competitive advantages to business and will continue 30 cbange the way we do business in the future, Goldman reiterarcs. A retailer must continue o sbop for tecbnology that will help him rcalize improved customer service, maximum profiability and more efficient management of business.

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'95 Housing Stans To Slow

Housing activity slowdown due to increased mortgage rates should continue during the first half of 1995 as mortgage rates move above9%o.

McGraw-Hill, Inc. expects the restrained economic climate of 1995 to have none of the pent-up demand from the early 1990s recession that helped propel single family housing over the 1 million unit mark in 199394. Althougb the principal homebuying age group, 35 to 54, expanded by 10 million persons during the first half of the '90s, implying continued demographic support for the housing market" they forecast aZVo de*hnein 1995 to 980.m0 units from l.M5 mil- lion single family units.

Construction contracts will advance 37o in 1995 ta $294 billion. "The current pattern of recovery, a surge of housing followed by a handoff to nonresidential building and public works, is certainly consistent with the traditional construction cycle," McGraw-Hill said.

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Obituaries

Alva Edison Tate, Jr., former chainnan of A. E. Tate Lumber Co., Inc., Richmonnd, Va., died Sept. 10, 1994, after a heart attack during a family vacation in Nags Head, N.C. He was 66.

Born in Richmond, Va, he joined his father's firm in 1949, retiring in 1992.

Thurman John Underwood, 60, yard foreman at The Lumber Shed, Oklahoma Ciry, Ok., died Sept. 21, 1994, after aheart attack.

A native of Shawnee, Ok, he had worked at Barney Stewart Lumber.

Homeownership To Boom

With lower housing costs and renewed income growth, American households are once again moving up the housing ladder !o homeownership, according to the Joint Center for Housing Studies.

Homeownership rates are aheady on the rise for most age groups, halting the downward spinl of the 1980s.

Demographic trends - including the aging of the baby boom generation and the movement of immigrant households into tle economic mainstream - should supptrt strong homebuying potential through the 190s.

"Not since the 1950s has singlefamily demand so dominated the housing market," said center director H. James Brown. '"The ingrediens are in place to lift the national homeownership rate to an all-time high by the year 2000."

Despite the recent rise in interest rates, the sudy forecasts rising income could offset higher mutgage costs.