The new competitiveness of "Luyoushen"

It's an ordinary weekday afternoon in the function room of a popular hotel in Hong Kong, the rooms are crowded and busy, amid the murmur of chatter and the clinking of dishes and cups. , mingled with the slight whirring of the portable printer. A sales manager for an insurance company is printing a contract that can be done within minutes of his presentation. To close the sale, the manager has given a brief presentation on a laptop to a promising client. He can access the office's database to verify the offer, but he finds it easier to pull out his phone and make a call.

Creating Advantages

There are many such scenarios in today's world that are repeated countless times by these "Roaders". Given that technology tools can make businessmen more productive outside the office, the smartest "luyoushen" are using technology to create a competitive advantage for their companies, as the sales managers above did. One of the biggest advantages is the location of the action - it can be done in front of the customer.

Face-to-face communication isn't the only reason CEOs become "Roaders". According to one management author, "The CEO must be able to sense the market and have confidence that the company is moving in the right direction." Jim McCann, founder of 1-800-Flowers, exemplifies this practice. He thinks it's even better to say he's in the flower business than in the relationship business. "Nurturing these relationships, including with suppliers, manufacturers, retailers, and customers," McCann said in an article for Inc. magazine "often requires a true self, resorting only to phone calls or Email is not enough.”

Technology-based CEO personal practices can translate into cultural change across the company. Verifone's founder, Hatim Tyabji, travels 400,000 miles a year and personally visits up to 200 customers. Throughout the voyage, he used his laptop to read and respond to countless memos and emails. What's more, the constant travel helped him and his regular colleagues on the road tap the potential of the time zone, extending the company's working hours to 24 hours a day, creating a so-called "culture of urgency" in which Everyone in the culture requires access to the web to make technology a way of life.

Technology will play an even more critical role for small and mid-sized companies. Because these companies rely on fewer people for heavier work, they need to work harder to survive rather than compete. In these companies, the wisest CEOs are constantly looking for new technologies to give themselves an edge.

Leveraging Technology

Among senior executives, especially CEOs, there is always a lot of time that has to be spent on the road, running between suppliers and customers, constantly giving presentations, meetings, etc. Wait. Today's technology is changing the way they manage their time, bringing more advantages to their companies. McCann, for example, has a high-tech office to support him during his work trips. "We stay connected by plugging into systems called 'digital nerves', one of which is an electronic system, backed by real people, that allows us to communicate 24 hours a day, seven days a week."

In In the ocean off India's southern coast, merchants on board are keeping in touch with more than a dozen seafood markets in the area, watching prices at different ports. According to the New York Times, one such businessman can double his profits by comparing prices at ports 85 miles away using a fleet of mobile phones.

Cito Lorenzo, chairman of Lamoiyan Corp., an international conglomerate engaged in fruit trading in Singapore, shared a similar experience at a meeting of the Asian Institute of Management. Lorenzo said the use of mobile technology by managers on board to communicate with customers in port can shorten lead times, which is critical for his fresh produce business.

Even old and fixed land transport technology is being updated with the addition of new cordless phones, such as Samsung's digitally enhanced cordless phones, which can be used hundreds of kilometers away from home, providing these "Luyoushen" brings more freedom and flexibility, and is also potentially less expensive than a regular mobile phone.

Senior executives also need to roam around their offices. Their managers and employees need the same high-quality face-to-face time as outside shareholders. For this purpose, technical tools likewise offer new assistants. Some businesses allow the company's telephone switch to route calls to wireless LAN equipment. The concept is that those so-called "corridor cruisers" can roam around their offices and have phone service as well.

Cut the shackles

One of the hottest technology trends driving mobile productivity is wireless broadband, or Wi-Fi. The technology enables workers to use laptops to connect wirelessly at broadband speeds wherever there is a Wi-Fi hub. By the end of the year, more than 2,000 Starbucks stores in the U.S. will have Wi-Fi hubs.

Sales of Wi-Fi chips soared from 7.9 million units in 2000 to between 23 and 25 million units in 2002, an increase of about 300 percent, said Molly Tuttle, commuter director of the Semiconductor Industry Association.

While the Bluetooth standard is only capable of short-range wireless connections between small personal devices, such as handheld computers and cell phones, it is still another technology advancing mobile output. A manager shows CEConline magazine how he uses a Sony Ericsson P800 phone for data access in a meeting. The phone has a web browser and connects via Bluetooth to a nearby computer, so the manager can get real-time information from the company's online database.

The P800 is one of the latest models to be called "Smartphones". Almost every businessman in Finland carries a "smartphone" or Communicator, both mobile devices that allow you to browse the web and send and receive e-mails and faxes. Smartphones have a standard phone keypad, while the Communicator has a flip typewriter keypad.

At a company called Digia, a wireless network updates his diary and address book every time a supervisor walks through the aisles. The company's CEO uses the Nokia 9110 Communicator to signal his car to adjust the temperature inside the car to 75 degrees Fahrenheit. Meanwhile, several executives can use Microsoft Schedule Plus to schedule a time to play golf together.

Striking the Balance

While technology can save time, some executives are concerned that technology will take away their time. Their concern is that staying connected all the time means it will be hard to find time to achieve a healthy work-life balance. After all, technology keeps you "online," so how can you escape the stress of work in this situation?

Other executives, however, say the technology's ability to keep connections actually gives them more free time. Mobile phones, laptops, and PDAs allow them to keep in touch with offices and clients while they are busy with personal and family matters. “During my last summer vacation, I was fishing for salmon and closing a sale on a boat,” entrepreneur Russ Abney said in an interview with Inc. Magazine. "It's really hard to do what you're doing without the help of new technology," he concluded.

The downside of this connection is that it does not encourage employee independence. Some employees fail to develop their decision-making skills if their bosses are always connected online, or conversely, supervisors fail to develop their empowerment skills. Some managers complain that employees are calling them too much, while employees complain that they are constantly being driven by their boss's cell phone or email.

Technology does not change some of the fundamental principles of management. Executives still need to set goals for the company, organize the actions, decisions, and relationships needed to achieve them, as well as recruit, motivate, and develop them. In addition to these functions, he needs to plan a course of action for the company. Technology should only allow him to complete a part of the above functions in the country or anywhere in the world, as long as these technologies are not preventing him from realizing these functions.

The author, Jet Magsaysay, is a consultant for the journal, translated by Zhai Shu.