Technology and Small Businesses

As you may know the new family business, Nankeen, is making huge strides as we get set to launch the new website and product line. I have been assisting in various capacities over the past year mostly on the business and technology side.

Currently, I am up in Rhode Island and have been spending my days at the new factory with our mascot (left). Mostly I have working to get the new business applications to work on the back end of the new site. Right now the trick is to get the shopping cart to talk with our order processing center in Rhode Island. In an ideal world, the order comes in, we process it through the web interface, print out the shipping label, invoices, and send it to the packaging group (right now my mother). These web application are both remarkedably smart but also very complex. You can do almost everything from the web control panel from changing product descriptions, to cross-selling, to tracking inventory. Now once this is all up and running it will be awesome and so efficient, getting there is another story.

I find this a lot when developing business processes and applications both at Booz Allen and in this environment. The "bells and whistles" solution is only as good as the ease of use, training, and user capability. The ultimate solution may appear to solve every problem but if your employees cannot even figure out half the functions it can be a waste. That is why smooth and simple user interfaces are so important. I believe this is why Google has been so successful. They make it simple but also include advanced features hidden in shortcuts to allow the more advanced user to really dig in.

As I continue down this journey, helping get the family business off the ground, will report back. The new site will soon be up at www.nankeenstyle.com so start spreading the word.