Office management software.

The all-in-one electronic desktop puts your entire office at your fingertips.

Key to staff productivity is bringing a great deal of software productivity to the desktop. This can be done with an office management software package. The idea behind this software is to keep a number of highly functional, easy-to-use, integrated applications at your fingertips. For example, graphs can be moved from the graphics package to the word processing system. Words can be moved from word processing to graphics. Graphs can be created and appended to spreadsheets. Extend those capabilities throughout an entire association office by adding an interoffice electronic mail system, a network fax system with external faxing capabilities, and a data base of members and other contacts, and you truly can communicate with style and efficiency. With four primary applications--word processing, spreadsheet, graphics, and electronic mail--you can save time on all kinds of tasks.

In-house production. Let's say you want to spice up the annual report. In the past you had to employ a graphic designer to create the graphs, a typesetter to spec and lay type, and a printer to digitize photographs. Now you can accomplish all of the above with a desktop publishing package, a scanner, and a high-quality laser printer.

The Envelope Manufacturers Association of America (EMAA), Alexandria, Virginia, used to produce an annual report that was a real sleeper. About the only exciting part of it was the graphics, but our office management software changed all that. Outlook for Envelopes is now written by several staff members and assembled on one computer. Copy is sent through interoffice electronic mail to the staff member in charge of assembly. There is no need to walk down the hall for graphics or to use a spreadsheet; everything is at your service on your own desktop computer. As a result, we have reduced the production time of the report from weeks to days.

Communication with members. Every two weeks I fax an industry news summary to EMAA chief executive officers. The summary is produced and sent from my desk, with no assistance from other staff.

Brainstorming and problem solving. Thanks to our software system, our meeting staging guide and scripts are now on-line. We use integrated spreadsheets to calculate the "what ifs" that help you intelligently plan meetings ("what if" attendance is 250?, "what if" it's 200?, etc.). We also have a convention registration pricing algorithm on spreadsheet that enables us to calculate a fee that will cover costs and provide a reasonable margin.

Maintaining data. We use our spreadsheet application to keep our capital equipment depreciation schedule updated for auditors and to maintain leave balances and calculate payroll costs and benefits for budgeting purposes.

Compiling reports. EMAA has a variety of proprietary software that is used to produce a number of industry reports. We have started integrating the data in its various formats with our spreadsheet application to produce reports with data, text, and graphics. The reports have been designed so that a busy chief executive officer can examine the graphs and read summary points without sifting through a mass of details.

Home, but not alone

Want to take your office on the road? Many at EMAA now do. By loading our office applications onto notebook computers, we can communicate with the real office computer system and exchange files, read electronic mail, and send or receive faxes. EMAA has also put a computer in the home of each staff member.

Sounds great. How much?

Office management software is surprisingly inexpensive when you consider the increased productivity. A good package costs about $600 or less per user. Two big sellers are Microsoft Office and WordPerfect Office, although many other fine packages are on the market.

If you are thinking about networking your office computers, I strongly encourage you to also consider adding an office management software package to enhance that network. We all need to consider every tool available to improve our productivity if we are to survive the challenges posed by the next century.

Maynard H. Benjamin, CAE, is executive vice president of the Envelope Manufacturers Association of America, Alexandria, Virginia.