Last year when we were dealing with my father’s illness and death I let my business get away from me. The effects were not immediate. It took time for the damage to show and I am still uncertain if it was damage I did or damage from a more international stage. Our big downturn in business happened to coincide with the announcement of tariffs and the immediate reaction to them.
You can imagine the impact on small local businesses when suddenly the news media is telling everyone everything is about to get way more expensive. Then there is also the factor of my not being fully involved in my business for a couple months. Times were hard more than they were easy in those months.
That is one of the challenges we face this year. I am working to take on more responsibilities and fill my day with more work. A lot of that work is trying to integrate new technologies into the business. While we are a relationship company that technology can be used behind the scenes to make actions like bookkeeping, marketing, and scheduling easier. The big question is how and where and how much of it do we use so that we can increase our productivity, create an easier workflow, and not lose the human touch.
These are all big questions and a lot of larger companies have already lost the human touch. Customer service isn’t just outsourced. It is eliminated. Right now I am having a major issue with Google. One that wouldn’t be so major if there were a customer support number to call. The issue would be resolved in minutes, if not seconds. It is that simple. Yet automation and the loss of the human touch has taken a minor nuisance and turned it into a major problem.
That is the issue we all face when implementing new technology. Where will it be most effective and how much is enough? And those are questions that can only be answered through experimentation. In other words the implementation of any new technology needs to be slow and deliberate or we risk the loss of identity.
As a business owner it is important to me to be loyal to my core values. We exist as a business to ease the burden of pet ownership. The question then becomes how can new and emerging technologies help us to achieve this goal.
David Huzzard Writes 