Guelph Technology & Greenway Home Products

Posted by kboon on January 25, 2010 under Stories | Comments are off for this article

Last week I had the opportunity to attend the first Guelph Technology event hosted by Linamar.  There were a few hundred participants representing various industries from manufacturing, government, entrepreneurs and a growing number of technology companies.  Jim Estill, the founder of EMJ & Synnex was the keynote speaker and there were several breakout sessions throughout the day.

There were two speakers with insights that I thought could benefit every business owner or entrepreneur.  One with traditional business background, and the other on the leading edge of newer technologies.  Both demonstrated (in different ways) how they have used technology to increase productivity, communicate more effectively and increase revenues.

Phil Greenway from Greenway Home Products (GHP) described some of the changes within the past 50 years of his career.  GHP develops, manufactures and distributes a broad line of water, heat and home products.  They have a dealer base across North America and manufacturing locations around the world.

Phil spoke about business in 60’s and 70’s, before computers and fax machines.  He described his early experiences of setting up a global business, describing his travels to Western and Eastern Europe (before the fall of the Berlin wall).  With no computers or cell phones, contact with home office was often scattered, and it could take days or weeks at a time before he could connect.

In the 80’s computers were introduced and by the 90’s bar-codes, EDP technology and supply change management streamlined the whole inventory and manufacturing process.  Communication became instantaneous and global markets opened around the world.

Productivity has been one of the main benefits of technology for Greenway, where at one time it required 4 employees to generate $1 million in revenue.  Today it takes 1 employee to create that same $1 million.

Phil finished his talk by describing how Communication, through video conferencing, with tools like Skype have saved tens of thousands of dollars in travel & phone costs.  Being able to track inventories online has changed how Greenway distributes and manufactures product.

Although privately owned Greenway and its various companies are worth millions.  Their success has been due to their ability to change with the times and adapt technology to their business model.

In part 2, I will talk about Ali Asoria and the success of Well.ca.

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