Issue link: https://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/414972
N&V: What about some of the comments you've received from industry outsiders regarding our industry's level of tech- nological sophistication? Burkett: Newcomers in our industry often comment on the ERP systems available within our industry. They're used to technology that further integrates the communication between the manufacturers, the dealers and the customers and really improves the user experience. Ultimately, the role of technology is to improve the user experience and improve the bottom line. You can grow your business without technology, but can you improve that user experience based on today's consumer behavior and today's customer demands without technology? I don't think that you can. And can you become as profitable as you'd like with the way the margins are shrinking? Can you become as profitable as you want to be without using technology to streamline processes? It's impossible because the old way of doing things can't be done anymore. N&V: That's a perfect segue to the next question. How has Burkett used technology to improve operations? Burkett: Our company is migrating over to Office 365 as we speak. It's a traditional Microsoft Office product but it's bringing it into the Cloud so that people across the company (internal and external customers) can communicate with one another more seamlessly and in real time. This will allow us to better serve our customers on the fly. N&V: I know Kent Motes is a big proponent of the Cloud but I haven't heard a lot from the dealer community. What are you hearing in terms of its use among deal- ers? Burkett: More and more people that I talk to are using the Cloud—not to its fullest extent--but they're definitely using it for productivity tools like Microsoft Office, Google Drive, or Google apps. There's technology available to move your ERP to the Cloud, and your collaborative storage boxes in the Cloud. Although we haven't implemented it yet, there is a service you can use called Box.com. It's an online hard drive that allows you to invite your internal customer and your external customer to it. So if I'm working on Project A for a new hotel and I need to get prices to my suppliers, I can invite my suppliers into a folder that lets them see the specs and the drawings so they can provide us with information. I can also invite the contractor, as well as buyers, giving them access to purchase orders. N&V: As a staff, we began using a similar service, Dropbox, and it's made a tremendous difference in how we communi- cate with one another Burkett: Years ago, before a lot of technology, we used what we called a delivery manifest. Basically, it was an Excel docu- ment used to keep track of our customers' scheduled delivery dates. I would have to open it up and enter in my delivery, hit save and put it back on the master hard drive. The next person would open it up, put their data in and hit save. What happens when two people open it up and they save at the same time? It overrides one of the person's data. The Cloud allows mul- tiple people to be in a document and collaborate in real time. This minimizes the risk of data corruption or file corruption because of too many people in a file. It also improves produc- tivity because people aren't waiting to get into a file. N&V: Have these kinds of gains in productivity surfaced in your bottom line? Burkett: One of our core values is to do more with less. For example, when you compare labor costs to revenue ratio, does that start to shrink when you bring in technology? For our company in 2012, we had 65 employees doing $19 million. This year we will be at about $23 million with 55 people. Of course, a great deal of that has to do with standard operating procedures and better people training, but technology plays a big role. If you can automate manual processing, then people can focus more on doing the work that makes a difference to your bottom line versus trying to play catch-up doing admin- istrative tasks. N&V: It's common knowledge that our industry tends to drag its feet, compared to other industries, when it comes to embracing technology. Actually, you alluded to this earlier. Why do you believe this is the case? Is it a resistance to change or a reluctance to deal with everything that comes along with the implementation process? Burkett: From my perspective, I think there are a cou- Gustafson, Groff & Burkett continued to technology that further integrates the communication between the manufacturers, the dealers and the customers and really improves the user experience. Ultimately, the role of technology is to improve the user experience and improve the bottom line. You can grow your business without technology, but can you improve that user experience based on today's consumer behavior and today's customer demands without technology? I don't think that you can. And can you become as profitable as you'd like with the way the margins are shrinking? Can you become as profitable as you want to be without using technology to streamline processes? It's impossible because the old way of doing things can't be done anymore. N&V: That's a perfect segue to the next question. How has Burkett used technology to improve operations? Burkett: Our company is migrating over to Office 365 as we speak. It's a traditional Microsoft Office product but it's bringing it into the Cloud so that people across the company (internal and external customers) can communicate with one another more seamlessly and in real time. This will allow us to better serve our customers on the fly. N&V: I know Kent Motes is a big proponent of the Cloud but I haven't heard a lot from the dealer community. What are you hearing in terms of its use among deal- ers? service you can use called Box.com. It's an online hard drive that allows you to invite your internal customer and your external customer to it. So if I'm working on Project A for a new hotel and I need to get prices to my suppliers, I can invite my suppliers into a folder that lets them see the specs and the drawings so they can provide us with information. I can also invite the contractor, as well as buyers, giving them access to purchase orders. N&V: As a staff, we began using a similar service, Dropbox, and it's made a tremendous difference in how we communi- cate with one another Burkett: Years ago, before a lot of technology, we used what we called a delivery manifest. Basically, it was an Excel docu- ment used to keep track of our customers' scheduled delivery dates. I would have to open it up and enter in my delivery, hit save and put it back on the master hard drive. The next person would open it up, put their data in and hit save. What happens when two people open it up and they save at the same time? It overrides one of the person's data. The Cloud allows mul- tiple people to be in a document and collaborate in real time. This minimizes the risk of data corruption or file corruption because of too many people in a file. It also improves produc- tivity because people aren't waiting to get into a file. N&V: Have these kinds of gains in productivity surfaced in your bottom line? Burkett: One of our core values is to do more with less. For example, when you compare labor costs to revenue ratio, does that start to shrink when you bring in technology? For our company in 2012, we had 65 employees doing $19 million. This year we will be at about $23 million with 55 people. Of course, a great deal of that has to do with standard operating procedures and better people training, but technology plays a big role. If you can automate manual processing, then people can focus more on doing the work that makes a difference to your bottom line versus trying to play catch-up doing admin- istrative tasks. N&V: It's common knowledge that our industry tends to drag its feet, compared to other industries, when it comes to embracing technology. Actually, you alluded to this earlier. Why do you believe this is the case? Is it a resistance to change or a reluctance to deal with everything that comes along with the implementation process? Burkett: From my perspective, I think there are a cou- APPS: Flipboard, LinkedIn, Spotify and Analytics Pro, which is like a Google-type solution LATEST TECH OBSESSION: The MicroSoft Surface Pro3 Tablet BOOK: No Man's Land, by Doug Tatum TECHNOLOGY TOY: The iPhone. ORGANIZATIONAL MUST-HAVE: OneNote, a Microsoft office solution that definitely helps you organize your notes and schedule throughout the day 46 FEDA News & Views