Are you a technology company?
We believe the answer is yes. Regardless of what industry you are in, leveraging technology can help you provide more value to your customers and help you increase your company’s value.
Adam Hartung, author of “Create Marketplace Disruption: How to Stay Ahead of the Competition,” advocated for technology in his April, 14 2012 article in Forbes. Hartung wrote, “To be successful you MUST become a tech company. You MUST be an expert in understanding the information needs of customers, and how to supply information solutions that have high value. And while this may not feel comfortable, it is reality.“
We are all in the information business. What varies is the size and scope of our information. How we manage and communicate the information we produce internally and externally can add more value for customers and increase the value of our businesses.
Our client, iTickets, produces and manages a variety of information in its work providing ticketing solutions to live events. An important step in processing tickets for live events is verification of the ticket for event entry.
iTickets was shipping traditional scanning equipment from event to event. The scanning equipment was getting damaged, expensive to ship, and cumbersome to use. iTickets wanted to provide its event producers with a simpler, easier to use, and less expensive way to process and verify tickets.
iTickets engaged with us to develop an iPhone app to achieve its objectives. The app allows anyone with an iPhone to process and verify tickets for entry to an event. As a result of the app, iTickets is providing more value to its customers and has increased its enterprise value by possessing proprietary technology.
Leveraging technology can benefit your company’s value. The typical technology company has a valuation of five to six times earnings. A non-technology company has a valuation of one to one-and-a-half times earnings. However, strategically applying technology can increase the valuation two to three times earnings.
How you utilize technology is ultimately driven by your information strategy and business objectives. You should consider technology a core discipline, just as you do accounting, legal, and human resources. With any core discipline, having a solid foundation enables you to adapt to industry changes and customer demands.
Unlike other core disciplines, technology is a moving target and ever evolving. Having a technology strategy and plan helps you stay on course.
In future columns, we will provide some specific examples of how technology can remove manual processes and provide client transparency.
