Introduction
I have been fixing computers since the eighth grade, and continued building my technical knowledge from then on. I have also devoted myself to the development of professional communication skills. Until recently, I didn’t realize the importance of combining technical skills with the art of communication. Leadership, competitive intelligence, and strategic uses of information are the key to success for any upcoming entrepreneur. By using these three important facets, I was able to develop a successful business model. Through personal experience, and acquired knowledge, I will explain how each of these concepts proved to be useful when taking a risky plunge into the technical consulting industry.
Leadership Starts the Business Building Process: Tech Time
Leadership is essential to starting any business idea or model. This is the foundation of all businesses, because it is method of taking a vision, and capitalizing on it. In order to be a leader, others (those who wish to follow) must share a common goal or idea.
I have enjoyed simply helping family and friends, and I have developed a passion for learning everything there is to know about computers. I was intrigued by how they not only aide everyone who comes into contact with them, but how they network information. Unfortunately, they do not provide aide for everyone at all time due to occasional malfunctions. This is true for any electronic device, and if all computers worked the way they were supposed to, then there would be no basis for a business to cater to the problems created by computers themselves.
I truly started gaining knowledge in information technology when I had to take a business class in high school. We were required to participate in a mentorship of any field of our choosing. I chose computers since it was a hobby of mine. I studied under a man by the name of Jim Swift, who was the network administrator for Yorktown High School. He taught me how to talk to people on a technical level, but still speak the same “language.” This is critical to any computer repair or technical consulting company. It doesn’t matter how much you know if you cannot relay that knowledge to anyone else because you constantly talk “over their head.” A client or customer will believe you are very knowledgeable if they can understand what you actually did in order to fix their problem. Otherwise, once their computer is repaired, they won’t have any idea what you did to fix it. They also won’t know if you actually did anything that was remotely difficult or required research. The more a technician discusses, explains, or even teaches a client while at the same providing a solution to their problem, only then can a professional, yet still somewhat personal, relationship can be built. If client feels as if the technician actually cares about their issues, the client will be more inclined to recommend that technician to someone else, and become a returning customer.
These characteristics hold true for a successful businessman, but they also pertain to a good leader. A leader needs to be understanding, respectful, and at the same time devoted to better standards for followers as well as customer satisfaction. A leader needs to be influential, yet not overly demanding so that the follower has a choice in following, and the leader is still in charge, but not a tyrant. There needs to be a happy medium in every aspect of leadership. Everything needs to be within moderation, which will not only yield a successful leadership style, but a booming business plan as well.
When it came to computers, I had a simple vision of helping people who needed it. When I took my existing knowledge to Ball State, and continued in a major which would further my technical expertise. I then started working at a computer consulting service for students titled Tech Time. It started out with just two technicians, and I was one of them. We worked out of a student lab in the Robert Bell building, and had to provide our own tools, and we were very limited on what we could and couldn’t do for the very few students that knew about the service. I quickly moved up the ranks, while pushing for better advertising, a budget in order to purchase tools and hire/train technicians, strategic use of the Microsoft agreement Ball State had for the students, and Tech Time over time became incredibly popular. I became supervisor, and because of the work I had done for University of Computing Services (UCS), a graduate assistantship position was created in order to keep me working there (Tech Time could be thought of as a subsidiary of UCS).
I brought on technicians who were not originally technicians. The art of leadership in Tech Time involved recruiting individuals who had personality and excellent communication skills, and then teaching them the technical aspect. Personality can’t be taught, but technical skills can. In short, Tech Time became a hotbed for upcoming computer solutions for end-users (a.k.a. students). This service was also free, which made the work very gratifying for both the technicians and the students that were receiving the help.
I met with important UCS officials and pushed for further hardware and software support that wasn’t originally available for Tech Time clients. This not only made Tech Time prosper as a business, but also gave Tech Time recognition by the UCS executive professionals in terms of great professional service that could be provided by Ball State.
Tech Time has now grown over 700% in clients, technicians, budgets, and a service within a couple of years. The important aspect of this is that if I could use my leadership and business building skills for Ball State, I could more than likely put together my own business using the same techniques that made Tech Time so popular.
Because of the leadership I displayed, my professionally trained senior technicians wanted to do more outside of Tech Time. They wanted to continue learning, and this made it possible to create what is now known as Computer Dox.
These technicians saw my personal vision, and quickly jumped on the band wagon. I had been doing computer repair work for years, but one man cannot serve the increasing clientele that I had acquired through years of the same type of technical/customer service style that was exemplified through Tech Time. I now could use the same technicians that I had trained, and have them help me outside of a student-only service.
Competitive Intelligence Became Present After The Initial Leadership: Computer Dox
I have now briefly described how Tech Time grew into a booming business, even though it was free for students. Now I will concentrate how this technology driven service turned into a prospering business outside of the college atmosphere.
B.J. Deering, author of KM (Knowledge Management) for competitive advantage: mining diverse source for marketing intelligence, believed that data gathering from competitors could be used in strategic decision making and that any type of data gathered could be used to better understand the customer and competitive activities used in making a business prosper (Bellaver & Lusa, 2001).
While working in Tech Time, my trained technicians and I were able to hear horror stories where competitors such as Best Buy, Circuit City, and Computer Renaissance were over charging for the same service, and not actually fixing the problems in a satisfactory manner for the students. Not only did they not resolve the issue, but they did not seem to care about the client. If a customer feels as if they are actually cared for, they are more inclined to believe in the service itself as a whole. Tech Time fixed the computer directly in front of the client so that they could see exactly what we did. We were in constant communication with the client so if they wanted something done, it could be done immediately. This is quite different than when a client leaves their computer with Best Buy, because once the computer goes to the back room, there is no telling what the technicians are doing with the computer or the sensitive data that is contained the customer’s computer. Tech Time worked with the client first hand, and explained what they were doing to the client’s machine while they were doing it. This teaches the client about their problem, and at the same time that particular problem is getting fixed. The client can also ask questions at any point in time which builds a personal, yet still professional relationship which is essential to the business.
This is a great example of identifying competitor’s mistakes within their service, and what we, as a similar business could improve upon those errors in the system. From that we could yield a richer service. This is part of the competitive intelligence process. We were already improving the service, but now we can go farther than before using competitive strategizing.
With all of this acquired knowledge, I took the technicians that were now already trained, and made them a part of my personal business outside of Tech Time, utilizing the business and leadership styles that made Tech Time so successful. Since I was the one who essentially developed Tech, it was easy for me to continue the process strategically for my own use. This business has become known as Computer Dox (compdox@gmail.com).
Strategically Using Information For Beneficial Growth: Computer Dox
Now that I have enough technicians to serve to my established clientele/client base, Computer Dox can bloom much like Tech Time did over the past few years. This experiential process uses the knowledge I gained through my college studies. UCS had already implemented an organized way of keeping up with professors and staff through the use of service tickets. Tech Time concentrated on students, but Compdox needed a way to organize and delegate consulting service requests.
I took UCS’s ticket system, and incorporated it into the Compdox business model. We created a Gmail account (A email account provided by Google that contained a large amount of space, 6 Gigabytes). Ball State’s email accounts at most for staff maxes out at 100 megabytes, and gmail was providing 6000 megabytes. This was perfect for not only acting as a service contact via email, but also big enough to contain client status documentation and act as a collaborative community or knowledge base.
Gmail has a label system so that emails can be tagged and separated based on categorical labels. We created different labels such as “New Jobs,” “Forums,” “Pending Jobs,” “Completed Jobs,” and “Knowledge Base.”
UCS’s ticket system worked differently than an email system. For example, a professor would call the Help Desk, another part of UCS, and complain about their computer not working. A ticket would be generated with the professor’s name, contact information, problem, and comment section. This ticket could then be viewed by any UCS employee, and when updated, the original ticket information stayed, and with the updated status added. This process continued until the ticket would be closed or completed.
I discovered that this wasn’t any different than emailing your own email account and replying to your sent-to-yourself email. This may sound confusing, but allow me to break it down. A client sends a service request to compdox@gmail.com. We first tag this email under the categorical label “Original Service Requests.” They, by using the ‘compose’ feature on gmail (compose a new email) we create a profile email with a brief description of the problem and what the client wants to have done. This email includes, in a organizational format, the client’s name, contact information, the problem, a possible proposed solution, status, and the name of the technician working on it. This composed email has the original email copied and pasted into it, but this is not necessary in the beginning. The email is then sent to compdox@gmail.com. We sent an email to ourselves! If multiple technicians have access to the account, then every technician can see the job request in a neatly put together format. The email is then tagged under the label “New Jobs.” We are essentially using the ticket system.
Once one of my technicians/consultants go out to the job site, and perform repairs, scans, or diagnostics, afterwards, the email created under the categorical label “New Jobs” is updated. The update process is rather simple, and yet ingenious. The technician replies to the email which immediately creates a copy of the original email, and provides a space to add a update. It is a simple reply. The only difference is that instead of replying to someone else, we are replying to ourselves, and the email is sent to use with the updated information. We then delete the original “New Job” email, and tag the replied email under the catergorical label “Pending Job.”
Once this process is continued, we have timestamped status updates that are accessable by all the technicians. If a client calls, and as an inquiry on their status, we actually can look up their status, see what was done to it over time because of the replies, and tell them when the email was updated, and what is going to be done next. This is the ticket system that UCS uses, only it is jerry rigged, and free. No crazy programming is involved to create this system. Instead by strategically using the information in front of us, Compdox can do the same thing at a cheaper cost and still maintain the same functionality that made UCS’s ticket system so great. I would say this is Strategic Competitive Intelligence which is a combination of the last two concepts (Leadership, Competitive Intelligence, Strategic Uses of Information).
Conclusion
This is a simplified business model, but more can be added obviously. If Computer Dox, the birth child of Tech Time, continues to use effective leadership styles, competitive knowledge to gain advantage in a common market, and tactfully utilize information provided by a multitude of sources, then there is no telling where Computer Dox will be in ten years. Since I am founder and Senior Technical Consultant, I hope it will be the next Dell, or even better. One example where these concepts were used in this essay would be the process of taking a simple email account, and using a reply function to create a fully functional collaborative community that has secure access which restricts the community to Comp Dox technicians only. This is just one small part where these three concepts have been used in real life to create a already growing business. I took from what I learned in my advanced graduate studies, and applied it to my own endeavors. I can honestly say that I am taking the graduate mentality, and approaching my obstacles and goals with a professional outlook, and it has proven to be not only successful, but rewarding at a personal level as well.
References:
Bellaver, R. F., Lusa, J. M. (2001). KM For Competitive Advantage: Mining Diverse Sources
for Marketing Intelligence. In Knowledge Management Strategy and Technology. (181 –
199). Norwood, MA: Artech House.
