Should You Start Your Own Shop?
Corrections or additions?
This article by Bart Jackson was prepared for the January 8, 2003 edition of U.S. 1 Newspaper. All rights reserved.
Tech: What’s Hot and What’s Not
And what miracles shall come to pass this year? Will
offices truly go paperless? Computer screens grow readable? Or are
we just due for another year of updated software labels and empty
promises? And even if technology does deliver unto us these long awaited
business tools, what sort of disaster protections will support us
as we climb ever more precariously into the electronic stratosphere?
The newest and best tools available are discussed at “Technology
Trends, Development and Issues” on Tuesday, January 14, at 8 a.m.
at the Merrill Lynch Conference Center on Scudders Mill Road. Cost:
$40. Register online at www.NJSCPA.org.
This breakfast meeting, sponsored by the New Jersey Society of Certified
Public Accountants, features Rosemarie Fisher, founder of Real
Possibilities, a Hamilton-based management and technology consulting
company. Fisher’s two-pronged talk disaster recovery and the latest
technological aids for the small and mid-size firm. While this seminar
speaks primarily to those in the accounting field, it is broadly designed
to benefit sales people, technical executives, and business owners.
“I love bringing new technology to CPAs and hardheaded business
people,” says Fisher. “They have this `show me the dollars
and show me the payback’ attitude. They’re the hardest in the world
to convince.” Yet if any Prometheus can bring the light of technology
to this grudging group, it is CPA and CFO Fisher — one of their
own. She grew up in Hamilton Township, and credits her common sense
approach to her immigrant Yugoslav mother. She attended Rider University,
where she obtained her accounting degree. Through the years she has
undertaken the CFO challenge for such firms as Think Centric and Pyramid
Consultants, yet has always kept her teaching ties with Rider’s Continuing
Education Program.
There will be some substantial innovations in 2003, Fisher predicts.
If some are not truly revolutionary, all should make much of daily
business infinitely more convenient:
Going paperless. Back in l981, East Windsor Township builta new town hall with a startling number of innovations. Not the leastof these was vastly diminished storage space, despite a greatly expandingtown government. The building’s designers looked to the computer withthe same hope — and the same ignorance — that 1849 gold seekerslooked for in California. With the introduction of electronic storagethey thought file rooms were passe. Scarcely alone in this mistakenvision, East Windsor administrators soon faced computers generatingmore paper than ever, and no place to cram it all.But now after 22 years, Fisher feels we have a much better shot atsaving our trees from the axe and our offices from clutter. Increasingly,knowledge workers are burning permanent records onto CDs for the sakeof convenience and of durability. CDs have proven themselves dependabledespite both time and abuse. Further, as laptops become ever moreportable and indexing more complex, the CDs’ browsability vastly exceedsthat of a briefcase full of paper.In addition, business and government are rapidly shifting formatsonline. “Previously,” notes Fisher, “an employer wouldbring in all his W-2 forms, his 1099s etc. with backup copies to befiled in the accountant’s office. Now, the forms are scanned in, burnedto CD, and the entire tax form is filed online.”The workable E-book. Several stabs have been made at portablescreens that can tuck under your arm and offer up the wealth of awhole library. Trouble is, that while you can summon the entire compendiumof Elizabethan literature, you will be blind before you squint throughShakespeare’s first sonnet. But on November 7, 2002, Microsoft unveiledTablet PC. This portfolio-size, amazingly clear, unflickering screen,says Fisher, “just seems to do better — even for those inthe bifocal stage.” It is easy to hold, easy to look at, and quicklyindexes vast amounts of data and swiftly indexes. So does this meanwe can look forward to doing business by the swimming pool? “Heck,”says Fisher, “that’s what I do.”The ultimate gizmo. Road warriors now need a pocket PCto direct E-mail, set schedules, and provide Internet connections,a smart phone for calling in to the office, a pager for urgent messages,and a laptop loaded with Excel spreadsheets. When are they finallygoing to get around to putting all this into one single gizmo? Accordingto Fisher, soon. Within two years, a mass-market, de-bugged versionof an all-in-one-tech-dream-machine will be for sale. It will allowthe salesperson or accountant to enter a client’s office with thatfirm’s data, and also with research links to competitors’ data, homeoffice resources, and data update capabilities — all on a singletool.Of course, none of this marvelous electronic esoterica means muchwhen you are staring tearfully into a black, crashed screen. For thisreason, Fisher grounds all her talk of future technological hope inthe reality of disaster recovery. Interestingly, her disaster counselingprovides more procedural than technical solutions.Define disaster. Before you can set up any reaction plan,you must first decide exactly what losses would cause a business-haltingdisaster. Past sales data, for example is helpful, but not vital.Current bank transactions are vital. Tax information can be refiguredlater.Set up firewalls. While most businesses install a thoroughsystem of computer firewalls, surprisingly few look at the buildingthat houses them. While you cannot predict earthquakes, electronicoverloads and fires can often be prevented with an expert inspectionand a few precautions.Create a disaster box. After determining the absoluteessentials for continuing your business, make up a redundant backupof those files and place them in one or more portable fireproof boxes.Such boxes allow you to transfer your entire operation to a new, temporaryquarters, and still keep soldiering on instead of waiting two daysor a week to sift through the rubble for necessities.Develop cost/risk analysis. If you are a bank with scoresof individual transactions going on continuously around the state,the cost of a full backup generator and computer system may not seemtoo high in the face of three hours downtime. If you are library,training your staff members to substitute hand recording may provea cheaper, more cost-efficient fallback method. Whatever it is, balanceyour backup insurances against not only the probability of disaster,but the havoc it would wreak.With every new business tool comes more complexity, more efficiency,and most likely, new problems. Yet the world of business has neverbeen for sissies. The quill-pen era was not free of problems either.Prizes will go to the folks with the best information and the gumptionto act on it using the best tools available.— Bart JacksonTop Of PageSave Money On Office MailingsBefore an as-yet-unidentified terrorist used a centralNew Jersey post office to send anthrax-laced messages to media outletsand politicians, most of us took the mail pretty much for granted.Toss a letter in the office mailbox and it would go out.In the ensuing months, as we looked at the route the contaminatedmail might have taken, we learned of the incredible complexity involvedin sorting and routing mail. How letters, mass mailings, and packagesare prepared in the office can make a difference to a company’sbottom line because the post office has an enormous range of ratesbased on dozens of factors.Barton and Cooney, a company with headquarters on Lower Ferry Roadin Trenton, handles mailing chores for corporations. In a recent newsletter,it offers tips on keeping mailing costs down.Appoint a USPS expert. Have someone on staff or have readyaccess to a consultant who is thoroughly familiar with the latestUSPS regulations and the changes taking place this year.Review the physical characteristics of each mailing piece.Make sure it falls within the USPS dimensions, aspect ratio, and weightlimits. Unusual pieces with non-standard dimensions may be disqualifiedfrom earning USPS incentive discounts.Think small. Consider reducing paper stock weight or mailingpiece dimensions to bring the mailing into a lower postal bracket.Check permits. Examine the indicia and artwork for FIM(facing identification mark) for proper wording and permit data. Ifthe USPS detects an expired or wrong permit number, this may be groundfor exacting considerable extra fees by the post office.Use technology. Have your address list checked and standardizedusing CASS-certified software. This will verify ZIP information andinsert ZIP + codes so that Delivery Point Barcodes can automaticallybe printed on the outgoing mailer during the address imaging process.Check addresses. Run your list against the NCOA (NationalChange of Address) file on a regular basis, and monitor it for thepercentage of moves and non-matches.Look at your options. Study the various mail sorting options.By using a postal sortation program, you can choose the sortationlevel that will qualify your mark for optimum discount — whetherto sort to the Bulk Mail Center or Sectional Center Facility level,for instance. This software can also produce the necessary financialinformation for USPS reporting and auditing requirements.Get a good return. Make sure your return envelope is properlyprinted with Zip + 4, delivery point barcode, and the FIM next tothe stamp area.Save on Business Reply Mail. If you use Business ReplyMail, consider participating in the Postal Services’ Business ReplyMail Accounting System, which requires an annual accounting fee of$185 and testing of mail piece samples in order to reduce the handlingfee by two cents per piece. The break-even for the system is about600 pieces a year.Keep current. Monitor proposals for other USPS regulationchanges. For instance, changes to palletization regulations wouldincrease the cost of production, and routing changes to BMC and SCFsfor destination drop shipments would affect the cost of freight.Top Of PageBig Screen BusinessThe Trenton Public Library is set to screen a seriesof movies about the business world. Part of its Winter 2003 Film Series,”Movies About the Business World” begins on Thursday, January9, at 6:30 p.m. with a screening of the “Hudsucker Proxy,”a 1994 movie set in 1958, which tells the story of a gullible countryboy who becomes president of a vast corporation. Tim Robbins, PaulNewman, and Jennifer Jason Leigh star in this Coen Brothers creationof big business gone berserk.The second film in the series, being screened on Thursday, January23, at 6:30 p.m., is “Other People’s Money,” in which DannyDeVito plays a ruthless Wall Street corporate raider who sets hissights on acquiring and destroying a longtime family wire and cablebusiness in New England. In the process, he falls in love with thepresident’s daughter, who is also the company’s legal adviser.Moving from rusty, industrial New England to the just-vanished hipnessof the New Economy, the library rounds out its business film serieswith the “Startup.com,” which it is showing on Thursday, January30, at 6:30 p.m. This documentary follows two boyhood friends whostart an online service, combining their strengths in computer andbusiness know-how. The film makers followed the young dot-com entrepreneursfor more than a year, depicting the ups and downs of their businessventure.All films screen at the Trenton Public Library’s main location at120 Academy Street. Call 609-392-7188.Top Of PageShould You Start Your Own Shop?The woman sitting next to me at a holiday party answeredthe “So where do you work?” question by saying she had justbeen sent packing by the New York City financial services companyfor which she had been laboring for the past two and a half decades.Well before I could summon an appropriately sympathetic comment, thebeaming ex-exec declared herself to be thrilled by this turn of events.She probably wouldn’t have given up the paycheck had she not beenshed in a downsizing, she said, but she sure was glad to be cut freefrom a job and a commute she had grown to dislike — a lot.The next move for my new acquaintance may be self-employment, a routemany newly-downsized executives consider. The life of an entrepreneur,however, is quite different from that of a corporate employee. NorthwesternMutual, a financial services company, has come up with an online evaluationto help those considering an entrepreneurial enterprise determinewhether flying solo is for them.Find the four-page self-assessment at www.nmfn.com/savinofinancial,where a click on “Take Self-Employment Screen Now” bringsup the worksheet. The self-assessment analzyes and describes somekey inherent characteristics and attitudes that influence entrepreneurialsuccess. It takes 20 to 30 minutes to complete, and indicates notonly whether one is suited for life as a business owner, but alsowhat type of venture might be the best fit. Self employment businessenvironments are broken into four areas — agent/representative,consulting/contract, franchises, and small business.Previous StoryCorrections or additions?This page is published by PrincetonInfo.com— the web site for U.S. 1 Newspaper in Princeton, New Jersey.
