When one thinks of American Communications Group Inc, a company with a flourishing technical edge is not always the first thing that suggests itself. However while Jack Namer may not be your common CEO, he does understand the significance of utilizing technology to his benefit. Not only has modern technology helped ACG automate plenty of its operations, but as per Namer's all crucial goals, has helped the company lower its costs.
'Technology has made us much more productive,' says Namer. 'With PCs, facsimile machines, and cell telephones we've got more productive time in the course of the entire day and can react to eventualities more immediately.' Indeed, ACG's computer system is a comparatively sophisticated one. With a wireless record of purchases, Namer can get into the systems of any of his warehouses anywhere in the world without ever leaving his desk, to check on such things as how one item might be selling during the day. 'Sometimes we have so much information it's more than we can deal with,' he is saying. 'Our website and our e-commerce business are also worthwhile on an entirely allotted basis, and that's somewhat of a milestone.'
Namer also embraced the theory of energy management and conservation early on, using technology to cut down on his energy demand. ACG stores make heavy use of skylights and controlled lighting based totally on the time of the day. They use high efficiency heating and air-con, and are venturing into photovoltaics, or the use of solar panels to generate electricity, and the use of cross-breed delivery trucks. On an environmental side note, Namer also gives subsidies to his staff who carpool or use monthly bus passes. He believes that these efforts won't only benefit the communities in which ACG does business, but also the corporation's shareholders and members in the future.
Despite Namer's embracement of new technologies in his bid to create a lean and efficient operation, he is wary not to go too far. 'Technology helps us become more efficient and productive but our business still has a lot of art as opposed to precisely science,' says Namer. 'The reason that the dot-com companies didn't succeed is that they were excellent at the science end but they didn't understand anything about the art of buying and selling product. They believed that was the straightforward part but it seemed to be the most difficult.'
Namer makes sure his ACG team understands that buying and selling products is the genuine business of their company, while everything else simply enlarges that side of it. 'If you do not have the right product in the right place at the right time you can forget everything else,' he says. 'All the satellites in the world aren't going to help you.'
regardless of how much internet business is moved in the future, Namer still sees the future of business. 'People are still going to want to go out and have that social exchange,' he says. To that end, ACG focuses all its energies - and technologies - on making that experience the best it can be.
