The State of Technology
• Fifty-eight (58) percent of small-business owners think that they are technologically abreast of their primary competitor(s) while 36 percent think that they are technologically more advanced. Just 2 percent think that they lag. However, only 62 percent employ high-speed Internet and 39 percent have interactive Web sites, suggesting that self-evaluations of their favorable technological positions are exaggerated.
• Small employer views of technology and its introduction appear much more closely tied to industry than to employee-size of business.
• Few small-business owners attempt to be among the first to work with new technologies. Most take a reserved approach to investing in them.
• The most sophisticated type of technology employed in a small business is usually a computer(s) or computer software. Other technologies listed as the most sophisticated are often computer-driven or computers are otherwise intimately involved in their functioning. The enormous range of the named most sophisticated type of technology runs from nuclear cameras on one end to TurboTax software on the other.
• The generic of the most sophisticated type of technology used is typically not new to the market. However, 72 percent claim to use the latest model, version, edition, etc. Still, small-business owners use their most sophisticated technology for reasonably long periods of time before upgrading. Just 18 percent need to upgrade within the year. Another 48 percent need to do so in more than one, but less than five years. Since owners may have already operated the piece of technology for several years, replacement occurs less frequently than cited above.
• The most common reason to replace a technology is the desire to upgrade it.
• Ninety-two (92) percent obtained their most sophisticated technology from outside the firm, most likely off-the-shelf. Six percent developed it in-house. Once obtained, however, 26 percent modified it; one in five of those altering the technology modified it substantially.
• If small employers were to replace the most sophisticated technology they now employ, per unit costs for 26 percent would be less than $1,000. The cost per unit for another 48 percent would be between $1,000 and $5,000. Fifteen (15) percent estimate the cost would be $25,000 or more.
• Forty-one (41) percent have a single copy of their most sophisticated technology and another 15 percent have two. Still, a substantial share of the workforce uses it (them). Over 60 percent report that it takes their most skilled employee less than one month to become proficient using the technology.
• In the last year, 45 percent obtained new or significantly improved processes, equipment or software to produce or distribute its products or services. The most frequent of these was one or more pieces of software.
