VITAL STATISTICS

Let technology serve customers

SV: What is attracting technology companies to this area and do you think this trend will continue?

Francese: It's comparatively inexpensive to get office space at Pease; there is a favorable tax structure in our state and, until recently, a readily available workforce. This is also a great place to live in terms of outdoor recreation and other quality of life factors.

Another advantage is our proximity to transportation. We have three airports within an hour's drive, Amtrak train service and we're within commuting distance to the Boston area. These are all key elements.

The workforce issues, however, are becoming a tougher and tougher thing to overcome. Some employers at Pease are finding it difficult to get high-tech workers to move here from other parts of country because of the cost of housing.

High-tech companies will only continue to expand and locate here if they can find the workers they need, and that's a serious weakness in our competitiveness.

SV: Are companies finding it tough to recruit qualified workers?

Francese: One firm in Exeter has more than 100 unfilled positions because it can't find workers to move here. This is a problem the state economic development folks are very much aware of.

The recent Lindt chocolate company expansion, for example, means that they need to fill 800 new positions. It's fabulous that they want to bring so many jobs to the Seacoast region but what is their attitude going to be about this area if they want to hire 800 people and can only find 300 or 400?

SV: What does the rapidly changing technology mean for business owners?

Francese: Generally speaking, the effect has been very positive. But in certain circumstances what it has done is put business owners under a great deal of pressure to buy the latest technology. What I've observed, and unfortunately experienced, is that sometimes one is convinced to buy a piece of technology to make things more efficient and solve a business problem. But it doesn't work.

My experience on at least one occasion was purchasing a system my firm was really not able to use and it actually created more problems than it solved. The incident that was most painful to me was the time we spent more than $100,000 on software for customer interactions only to discover that it was not the way customers wanted to interact with us. We should have first looked at how the customers wanted to do business with us and not assumed anything.

I think technology purchases require a high degree of examination on the part of small business owners. It is critical, for example, to ask what problems will this new technology actually solve and what questions will it answer? And are they the right questions?

Automated telephone systems are a great example of this. It's staggering to think of how much revenue companies are losing when customers can't get a human on the phone and they hang up. That telephone system may be efficient but it is too often not the best for customers.

On the other hand, all we need to do is look just north of us, to L.L. Bean. You call L.L. Bean anytime 24/7 and they usually answer before phone rings even once and a human being with barely a trace of a Maine accent asks nicely how they can help you. But they undoubtedly have very sophisticated systems in the background. Before you've even said hello they probably know who you are, where you are and whether you've done business with them before.

SV: How important is technology to growing your business?

Francese: Technology is critical to the growth of your business when it does the following things: enhances the customer's experience with you, gives you more information on a real-time basis on who your customers are and what they're buying and third, it saves you money and time so that you can spend more time with the customers and offer them products and services at a lower cost.

It's all about enhancing the customer's experience, learning more about customers and save money and/or time. That is what technology can do and those three are listed in order of importance.

The fundamentals of running a business are always the same. You start with a laser-like focus on why your business is there and then identify and fill the wants and needs of your customers. Technology is a servant of that, not a reason for being in business.