INTERVIEW WITH: HELEN OLSON
Rolco Inc. EMAIL: holson@rolcoinc.com
WEB: www.rolcoinc.com
Phone: (507) 931-4525
By: Remi Douah
Doua0003@umn.edu

Rolco Inc is “a custom injection molder specializing in precision, high quality conjection, multishot molding of thermoplastic and thermoplastic elastomer resins”. It is a Minnesota based company owned by Helen and Vern Olson. Although it has become cliche´ to say that, “serendipity is an entrepreneur’s best friend”, this proves to be the case for Helen and Vern Olson. They started their company initially in 1980 in the laundry room of their home. Helen reflects on those days in the following words:

“We got started because my husband was in the plastic packaging business. And he worked for a company that he would design the control packaging, and then he went on his own and became a sales rep, and continued to design packaging components and then he saw a plastic injection molding machine that was small and affordable and he said, let’s do this just for fun. So we bought this machine and we put it in the basement of our house and started playing around with it, and pretty soon we had four machines in our house and 13 part time employees, and we just, we never meant to start a company, it just happened”.

Helen sees their company as being very innovative in that she custom-manufactures products for her clients. Doing so requires a great deal of talent and resources. She explains what she does in those terms, “We manufacture small plastic parts and I say small, because the size of the parts that you can manufacture is a reflection of the size of your equipment. So if you need a plastic part you would come to Rolco, and you would pay us to design and produce a tool for your project and through that tool, we would produce the part for you and only you, and you own that tool and you own all the parts from that tool. But because of what our capabilities are we are registered to serve the game market, industrial OEMs, and the automotive industry. As long as they are small, we can run medical parts, technology parts and we can run very sophisticated parts with high quality tolerances”.

Although Helen and Vern Olson have been in business for 23 years, their recent involvement with technology, especially the Internet deserves some attention. Over the past five years Helen has seen some changes in the way she conducts her business. She finds herself on the Internet to communicate with her customers and potential ones. She remarks, “Well, actually I do not need to spend a lot of time on the Internet, but a lot of my time is used as a result of the Internet. Using the Internet takes up 5- 10% of my day, answering e-mails, phone calls and having conversations with people who found us on the Internet”.

Indeed, the use of the Internet has made a difference in how she conducts her business. She sees it as a business tool, more than anything. She says, “Yes it [Internet] certainly does make a difference, because about 20% of our business is with the game board industry, and these people are very good at finding our website and calling us with questions and asking for samples. It is a great sales tool for us especially with the game people”.

Establishing a strong interactive web presence

Over the years, customers have found Rolco Inc. through its website, www.Rolcoinc.com. The site was designed by Helen’s sales manager and web manager.

Rolco Inc. has established a web presence and introduced itself to the rest of the world in the following manner; “Rolco uses the same multishot molding technology to provide products for vibration and noise isolation applications. The marriage of an engineered thermoplastic with an elastomer in a single part provides cost savings and performance improvements that translate into a higher quality product for our customers. Our expertise in multishot molding can help translate your ideas into effective solutions for today's design problems. We use Pro Engineer for part design and have exceptional prototyping capabilities including the Rolco Rapid Base system which allows true multishot prototype development without the massive investment. It also provides production capable tooling for mid to low volume applications”.

What is unique about Rolco Inc’s website is its built-in camera capability technology. It allows Rolco Inc. to virtually invite its customers into its factory to interact with Rolco Inc.’s staff. Helen explains, “we have a camera on the manufacturing floor that can be hooked up to the internet so we can call a customer, or a prospective customer and instruct him how to get on the web and how to access this part of our website, we give them a password that can be typed in. He is then present on our floor, watching his parts run, or the possibilities of his project run”.

Using technology to its full potential has helped Helen enhance her business in many ways. First, she helps customers save a lot of money on business traveling activities, and cost to actually purchase her products. Secondly, she builds trust and a close rapport with her clients who are invited and welcomed into her factory to get involved in the development of their products. Helen expresses that thought when she says, “So many companies require that before they sign off and pay for the final invoice on a new tool that they have to go see it. So therefore we can save them time and travel expense, because we can have them virtually right in our plant watching their tool run parts and they never have to leave their desk”.

Helen is aware of the benefits of using technology in her business. And so are the customers who welcome innovative ways of doing business. Helen shares one of her interactions with some of her customers. She notes, “In the last years, it has been a great success and people just love the web camera. You can also do teleconferencing. One time my husband had a prospective customer on the line, in Tulsan, Arizona and on another line a potential customer in New York, at the same time the two are looking at a project running in a machine when the camera started to focus in on the machine and on some of the materials that were on the workstation. One of the customers asks who is moving the camera. And the other customer replies, I am, which he was, using his mouse. He was zooming in, to see the project closer and the other asked to take control, he wanted to look at the manufacturing orders that are printed on the workstation which he was able to then. It is incredible”.

Virtually entering one’s factory may raise some security issues. Helen is aware of that but does not worry too much about it. All customers and potential customers are invited and are given a user name and a password in order to enter her website and access the web camera. In other words, no one can get in until she gives him or her permission. She notes, “Security, no, because they have to have a password before they can get in, we invite them in”.

Competing with the big guys

Helen attributes the success of her business to her innovative way of using technology. It has allowed her to inform potential customers about her products expediently. Her use of a web camera helped her eliminate any distance between her and the rest of the world. But more importantly, it has taken away the notion of being “a small company”, simply because she can be as efficient as the big ones. She explains, “The web site furnishes prospective customers with a lot of information, they can go to the web site and then call us to get any question they may have answered or be ready to place an order. Also with the camera it answers a lot of the concerns customers have about dealing with a small company in Minnesota. Because it does not matter what our size is or where we are located we can go right into their office through the computer”.

Helen is fortunate and appreciative of her blessings because she is fully aware of the kind of treatment small companies get when they are not able to afford high technology. Those companies will most likely not be able to attract customers from around the world. Also, they could be questioned and embarrassed by big companies, which might want to conduct an audit of the small companies before doing business with them. Helen states, “The customer might say, ‘you are too far away’; distance is an issue, or they might say well we are not going to be able to work with you because we need to audit your company, and audit your tools, and everything before we can finalize the last payment on it. With these economic times, air travel has stopped, so we cannot work with your company. So, this [web camera and high technology] opens up a whole lot of opportunities for us”.

Sharing competent IT staff: Key to success

Finally, Helen shares some advice with future entrepreneurs. She advises them to carefully examine and understand the importance of information technology (IT) as an asset for small businesses. Helen believes that it plays a tremendous role in becoming successful in electronic commerce. Being aware of the high cost of IT, Helen suggests that entrepreneurs should think about partnering with other businesses to reduce that cost. On that point, Helen explains, “My guess is that for a small business owner, the IT support is going to be a luxury for them, it might be one of those things like training that you tend to cut if you do not have the financial backing for it. But maybe there is a situation where they could work cooperatively, with another company or maybe they could share a very capable IT person. I think the reason for why we have been as successful as we have with using the internet and the camera and so on, is that we were just blessed with ending up with an IT person who is extremely capable for what he charges. So we were able to make these kinds of pathways into the future. And I’m thinking if we were a start up company, we would be thinking of cutting costs in terms of IT, but maybe, what I’m thinking is a start up company could get a whole lot of benefits from a good IT person, even if they have to share one. If they could get a better quality, a more sophisticated IT person, despite sharing it with another company, maybe the benefits would be greater”.

Helen also strongly believes that just having a website does not give an entrepreneur a web presence. He or she must use the Internet to its full capacity and take advantage of its ability to create a sense of interactivity between clients and customers. She concludes, “It [website] seems to need to be an interactive process, you can’t just put a website up there and think that you’ve got presence. There are many times when I’m sitting in front of my computer and I’m looking at the local games website. Localgames.com and I am going through it pointing out features or looking at the price sheet along with a prospective customer. It is incredible”.

Rolcoinc.com is truly a success story. For the past 23 years, through the leadership of Helen and Vern Olson, the company has been able to adjust its strategy to new realities of doing business in order to be successful. The use of the Internet and an innovative way of using website technology has contributed to the reduction of any distance between their customers and themselves, as a business entity. This has also allowed Rolco Inc. to compete with big and small companies. Technology has immensely played a great role in their success, and as such, Rolco Inc.’s experience can serve as a model and an inspiration to other small businesses interested in electronic commerce.