WINTER 2017

42 THE DISTRIBUTOR’S

42 THE DISTRIBUTOR’S LINK Dennis R. Cowhey Dennis, R. Cowhey, started Computer Insights, Inc. in 1981 and is currently COB. He served for many years on the Illinois CPA Society Computer Information Systems Committee. He is a frequent author of articles for Industry Trade Magazines. Before starting Computer Insights, he served as Central District Manager for a division of Litton Industries (now part of Northup Grumman). That company offered Inventory Control Systems to Retailers. Prior to that, he was a Credit and Financial Analyst for National Credit Office division of Dun & Bradstreet, Inc. He received his education at Chicago City College and DePaul University. THE FUTURE IS NOW Things Are Changing Fast Zoox Inc. is a Menlo Park-based startup that is planning to build an autonomous unmanned taxi service to compete with Uber Technologies Inc. They just raised million. The two-year-old company now has a valuation of .5 billion. The company has never brought a product to market yet. Their projections call for them to offer services in some areas next year. Not very long ago the company raised 0 million in a first round of financing. “Regardless of your business, whether it is cars or donuts or farming, you need to get to scale faster and fight like never before to stay there. IT is crucial to the success of that effort, given the ability to harness customer data in real-time and act upon it. No wonder technology and the CIO are a playing a bigger role in corporate leadership.” Not Just New Companies Change is happening at a rapid pace for existing companies as well. Of the companies that were Fortune 20 in 1964, only 2 were left by 2014. Deloitte said, “The average tenure of a Fortune 500 company has dropped from 61 years in 1958, to 25 years in 1980, to 18 years as in 2012, researcher Innosight reported.” Products Get To Scale Faster The telephone took 75 years to reach 50 million users, the radio took 38 years, television, 13 years, World Wide Web 4 years, the Angry Birds Space App took 35 DAYS to get to 50 million users. Different Futures We are all on different paths. One company’ present is another company’s future. We see this all the time in the use of ERP software. CONTRIBUTOR ARTICLE CONTINUED ON PAGE 110

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