High Tech – Low Stress

By David Boos

In today’s challenging business environment, we as business owners and executives face stress at higher levels then ever experienced before.  In the last few years, our “life in the fast lane” approach has hit a brick wall, resulting in business causalities and creating a pile-up reaction along the business freeway.  With the downturn of banking institutions and large corporations, comes the ripple-effect felt through their supply chains that we as consumers then experience at the gas pump and supermarket.  This stress that we endure on a daily basis, both inside and out of the office, affects our personal health, our families’ well being and the performance of our businesses.

“Many companies don't appear to appreciate how stress is affecting their business,” said Shelly Wolff, National Practice Director of Health and Productivity at Watson Wyatt. “Too much stress from heavy demands, poorly defined priorities and little on-the-job flexibility can add to health issues. By leaving stress unaddressed, employers invite an increase in unscheduled time off, absence rates and health care costs — all of which hurt a company’s bottom line.”

However, it doesn’t have to be this way.  The Ultimate Business Coach and Great Physician Himself said “don’t worry about anything” (Philippians 4:6a, New Living Translation).  In order to achieve this worry-free approach to the conduct of our business, we must examine one of the factors that can be responsible for our stress, namely, our business technology.

Today our computer systems and software programs are more powerful than IBM or Bill Gates could have ever imagined back in the 1970s.  The power contained in the PDA’s we have in our pockets is enough to run a small country.  We are incredibly advanced in our technology, having computers at every desktop and inside every briefcase, yet we still have not learned how to efficiently harness the horsepower we have to make our lives simpler and less stressful.  Most small to midsize companies depend on spreadsheets, like Microsoft Excel, to manually process planning, budgeting and forecasting.  By using multiple programs and spreadsheets to record data, track sales, keep lists of things we’re afraid of forgetting and even email ourselves reminders about upcoming appointments, we are increasing our stress and inaccuracy levels exponentially.

In order to stay competitive in this global marketplace, company leaders must focus on maintaining business clarity.  “Clear enterprises have the ability to overcome complexity by understanding what’s going on in every aspect of their business and their business networks.  They operate with increased speed, relevance and accuracy.  They are prepared for risk and uncertainty and they adjust their operations as market conditions change to remain accountable to all stakeholders involved” (SAP Business One, 2009).  So how can we achieve this and excel in our present economy?  The solution lies in software integration.

Our software systems today can and should “talk” to each other to provide a simple, streamlined, integrated solution for our business processes.  Many business owners have been sold a “bill of goods” by respectable companies scrambling for our business and urging us to run their systems or software.  There are some great products on the market, but many have not been “introduced” to each other.  In the absence of integrated systems, we continue to be burdened by entering data multiple times into multiple systems; running the risk of data not being up-to-date or consistent; and, ultimately, stressing over whether orders were completed, product was shipped, payments were received, inventory was updated, etc.

"The business environment is changing," said CEO Henning Kagermann of SAP Business One in an article from InformationWeek, noting that the evolution is toward adaptive business networks. "Growth in uncertain times means that we can't rely on the same hard-wired business processes," he said. "We need flexibility. We need soft-wired processes."

So, it is clear that one of the ways we can reduce our stress is to employ the technology most suitable to our needs and integrate it so as to improve the health of our businesses and ourselves. No matter what its size, an enterprise that adopts software integration, can (a) reduce costs; (b) gain the insight and flexibility needed to quickly close the gap between strategy and execution; and, (c) improve upon business performance and personal productivity.  When our computer systems perform as they were designed to, it can reduce stress and distraction dramatically.  Once the business workflow is running smoothly, we are free to focus our attention on what we really enjoy doing, such as improving our companies by developing new products, new clients and new opportunities. Or, possibly, taking a Saturday off for a change and playing golf, going fishing or just enjoying some time with the family.

This can and should be our reality.  Yes, it is possible to have technology that will reduce our stress and help us to “Simplify our Lives, Sell More Product and Have More Fun!”

About the Author
David M. Boos, CEO of Cornerstone Consulting has almost 40 years of experience in the computer industry. Dave began in 1983 servicing the PC based accounting software market. Cornerstone has since grown from a one-man operation to current operations in Tampa, Florida, Atlanta, Georgia and Los Angeles, California. With added divisions of accounting and E-commerce software sales, custom programming, website design and Internet hosting. Dave is Novell and Microsoft Certified and is an Authorized Dealer for a wide variety of products including Microsoft, Sage and SAP Software. You can reach Dave at www.cornerstone1.com.