Technology is probably my favorite topic in the news world, and innovation and growth in this area is a pretty valid indicator of prosperity and economic growth. Machining shops are starting to invest in new machinery and are spending a lot of money on rebuilding their current machinery. When the economy went into a recession it was neither a good time to buy or sell equipment, because let’s face it, there was a lot more than straight line depreciation running the value down on manufacturing machinery. Companies were filing for bankruptcy which exacerbated the saturated of ‘for sale’ machinery in the marketplace. This was a goldmine for those companies that were doing great because they could get equipment at liquidation cost, which is one of the first signs of heavy industry consolidation. Therefore, it is pretty obvious that investment in new equipment stopped. Fortunately, the Robotic Industries Association or RIA reported that orders of manufacturing robotics has increased by 41% which represents about $600 million in machinery investment for North American manufacturers.
This is up 50% from the same period 2010 and the second quarter of this year has seen even more growth. The orders come from companies like Ford and General Motors. General Motors reported some of their first strong profits this year since the sale of automobiles dropped off a cliff in late 2008. What we’re not seeing is a lot of spending on software or e-commerce, because computer technology takes a back seat to the shop floor. Of course, software goes obsolete quickly, sometimes overnight. But in both the professional world and the academic setting, e-commerce is going to be a key investment in the near feature for most firms. Firms are buying the machinery, exporting is up, and the technology to better handle international relationships and selling is mostly going to be on the Internet.
Some companies already understand the importance of e-commerce as the way to not only dominate sales leads from search engines, but to export their products and services to other countries without aligning strategic alliances or setting up regional sales offices which is extremely costly. It all really starts with a strategy. Managers need to ask what they need the website to do, what traffic they want, and where they want exposure. In the case of manufacturing, which is the industry that I’ve had the most exposure to, lead generation using an informative strategy is the best bet for most firms. This means educating the user about your products, services, or capabilities and then calling them to action. What do you want the user to do? Ask them to do something on every page of your site. For example, after providing information on CNC milling or turning, tell them to get a quote by filling out the contact form. Make sure to establish credibility through the use of body copy, rich media content such as images and videos, and then provide the necessary link to contact; whether it is a form for a quote request or a number to call or in some cases, even online chat using Skype or social media chat like Facebook.
In order to soften the burden of technology spending, have the site built in a manageable platform. Edits to the content I was talking about earlier is far easier when you use a content management system or CMS. These provide a backend interface to the website, which makes changes to text, images, and video easier. I suggest asking your web designer to use Joomla! or Word Press to build your company’s website. These have mostly the same functionality, but each of these CMS platforms has different plug-ins, extensions, and styles of templates. Template files can be modified so there is a lot of room for customization. You have to install these into C-panel in order to use them, but once they are installed then the CMS becomes your interface to website creation. This is something that your web designer would already be in tune with. It reduces the need to learn some HTML or CSS, but as I’ve quickly learned, you can only avoid it for so long. You’ll want to integrate your branding across every page, but your home page or index page needs to be the core focus of your site. Because exports are up and automation machinery is on the rise, why not give some focus to technology. Although costly up front, we’re in the information age and it will keep the cost of doing business down. It will also make it easier to make contact internationally.
