Impressions - May/June 2023 - 32

Feel like your company has hit
a productivity barrier?
Art by hasan
Today's digital management
tech might be the answer
BY DEBORAH SEXTON,
CONTRIBUTING WRITER
A
P.32
re you interested in working smarter, not harder? Would
you like to spend less time and energy on mundane business
functions and more time on important things like
researching new markets and strategizing how to make
more money?
If so, there is no faster, easier way to become more effi cient and productive
than to incorporate an industry-specifi c management software
system into your business.
While the price tag may have been a barrier for smaller shops in
the past, competition and new players have dramatically lowered the
cost, to the point there's really no excuse for even a prosumer homebased
business to not take advantage of the automation available. Entry
level programs these days can be had for as little as $69 a month-less
than some people will spend at Starbucks over that same time period!
" If you're using Excel and a pen and paper, it works well in the
beginning when you're small, " says Anbin Muniandy, CEO of YoPrint,
a software company providing what it describes as all-in-one print shop
management software. " But as you add employees, the paper system
falls apart, because when you update something on paper, the other
employees don't know. "
Per Muniandy: " With software, I update something on my screen,
then production can pull up the order, and the customer can see it in
the portal. It saves time spent on communication. "
Similarly, on the sales side " you need to make it easy for your customers
to buy from you, " says Craig Mertens, director of education at Inktavo,
ImpressionsMagazine.com May/June 2023
which includes the InkSoft, Printavo and GraphicsFlow brands and
specializes in creating " software for the branded merchandise industry, "
with products designed to do everything from organize your print shop
to modernize your graphics department and sell more merch online.
" Prior to the pandemic, you could get away with not off ering e-commerce
or being overstaff ed. But in the current business climate, companies have
had to staff down and lean into technology to make up for that, " he says.
In addition, Mertens says, " As consumer habits have shifted, more
people are making decisions based on online research, choosing graphics
online and using e-commerce to make purchases. If you are not evolving
with this new business climate, I believe it's not only going to be diffi cult
to grow, you are going to struggle to maintain. "
Along these same lines, Erich Campbell, program manager with
embroidery specialist Briton Leap, says, " In any size business, there is
information that is needed on a repeat basis from customers to employees.
Software's superpower is the ability to immediately access this data...One
thing I see people struggle with continually is information workfl ow. A
customer calls and wants to reorder the same thing as a year ago. You
need to know not only what it was, but exactly how you executed it. "
HOW BIG DO YOU NEED TO BE?
For the newcomer, adding on the cost of software to their already
long list of capital expenditures may seem extravagant. But in reality,
it's an investment that allows for faster growth and, by extension, will
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