Survey finds many dealers ready to buy computers.

THE BIGGER YOU are, the harder you fall for computers.

That's one message that comes out of a survey conducted last fall among tractor and implement dealers in Texas, Oklahoma and New Mexico.

Our report last month noted that in-house computers were already owned by 30 per cent of the 252 dalers who responded to the survey.

a closer look at those ownership figures showed that 100 per cent of dealers with annual sales over $5 million were using computer services, and 73 per cent of those big dealers had in-house computers.

As the accompanying chart shows, computer use and ownership both decline as sales volume gets smaller, to the point where only 5 per cent of small dealers, under $500,000 annuals sales, owned an inhouse computer.

This does not imply that big dealers got that way because they have a computer.

Rather, analysis of several survey questions supports the notion that most dealers can see the benefits of using electronic data processing, but are holding off because of financial considerations.

About 40 per cent of the responding dealers said they did not currently have a computer, but 80 per cent of these non-users feel they would benefit from having an in-house system.

Asked to rank their priorities for computerizing various departments in their businesses, these non-users selected the same applications as those dealers who already have computers. In order, these priorities are:

Parts Inventory

Accounting

Accounts Receivable

Accounts Payable

Whole Goods Inventory

General Office

Service shop

The survey found that 69 per cent of non-computerized dealers feel they will have an in-house computer within two years. This, taken with other survey findings, indicates that dealers generally have positive feelings about the benefits of computers as a management tool.

Then why aren't 100 per cent of dealers currently tied into computers, using either an outside computer service or operating their own in-house system?

As noted last month, only 5 per cent of non-computerized dealers listed "present economic situation" as their reason, while 54 per cent said in-house computers were "too costly." These results indicate that dealers, like many other potential computer users, are waiting for prices to come down. lack of communication?