Business Technology of the 20^th Century

The morning of a sunny day, my grandfather, Alexander Artounians and I sat in his living room discussing the 20th century Business technology.  My grandfather was sitting on the couch and telling me fascinating stories how he went from working in an alcohol factory to becoming one of the biggest businessmen in Tehran.  Born in 1934 in Moscow Russia, young Alex moved with his father and mother to Iran.  After his father passed away, my grandfather had to work from a very young age to support his family.  Now after all the events he experienced like moving place to place and becoming one of the most successful men in his country, he has retired and moved to Glendale, California where he can spend most of his day watching television, going shopping for my grandmother who prepares the food, or watching over his grandchildren.  He enjoys spending his time with us and telling us stories about what he had done in his life, and I found this very fascinating.  In starting his new business in 1956, my grandfather started growing with technology and experienced first hand the successes of it.  He used an abacus, a wooden frame with beads on parallel wires and a crossbar perpendicular to the wires that divides the beads into two groups.  Each column (each wire) represents one place in the decimal system.  After the abacus, Texas Instruments invented the calculator in 1965, which sped up my grandfather’s working process and led him to a very successful life.

After my dad died, I worked in an alcohol warehouse that he partly owned.  At age 12 I worked at day, and then I went to school at night. In the warehouse I had worked there for 9 years and was an accountant the last four years.  I had to work.  My father died and I had to support my mother and 2 sisters.

I bought a store in Azamarzar, Ormi.  I wanted my store to become the first store in Tehran and it did.  I was 22 years old, and I had a liquor and restaurant and all my alcohol and things were imported from different countries to have the best of the best.  I also owned a supermarket, which sold a lot of food type things.  Since we got our things imported, everyone would love to buy these things.

When technology first started, I put an oven and the fire place.  I got the roasting to put the chickens and sausages and other sorts of meats to cook them better.  I used to use manually calculations made out of wood until IBM came out.  I went and I bought cash register so it can help.  First, we would cut the meats with hand.  Then we got special things to cut it.  Everything got better for me, and I started hiring accountants and had people do my taxes.  Things were becoming better so I bought the place next to me and I expanded my store.  I added security systems so it can show peoples faces and control it, so they won’t take things because the supermarket was different then how it is here.  I also bought big fridges that we put inside to keep the things fresh and satisfying.

Business technology did help me. I was about 30 years old, and I was the most successful business man in Tehran with the most successful stores.  I was much respected, and everyone knew me for what I had and how great I had accomplished my goals.  Life was really good.  A lot of my customers were big from the embassy and the government would come and shop from me. This guy named Gorgen brought a lot of people from the embassy, and the Americans loved it here.  When I started getting the things from Europe, we wanted to expand our business to make more money, so I went to England, France, Italy, and Germany and talked to the people in the warehouse into signing that they will send me the goods directly. Then we would sell it to the other stores and other places and I would make money both ways.  It was getting so well that the king and the general’s would come to our store and would take food and other things from us.  They all had certain things they liked.

After my daughter finished her high school in 1974, I sent her here for college in Minnesota to become an accountant, and she was very bright and full of spirit. I came here for 3 months, and I met with the companies here, and I signed papers saying that they will send me things from here directly to me. I signed with Nescafe and Kraft and other places.  This way I made a lot of money and being able to do this was amazing.

Technology came out and everything got expensive. All the money we made we would spend on the business, on the workers, kept all of them clean and dressed nice, and that is how I had the best of everything.  I wanted to have the newest of everything, the best of everything and that is how I was always on top.

I improved technology in my restaurant one at a time.  I didn’t really have to do a lot of things myself because with the new technology coming in, it would make it really easy on me.  We were looking forward to learn about new equipment so we can run business easier, more economically.

It was more time consuming to run a business than here.  For most of merchandise you had to go and pick it up, but here they deliver it to you.  Over here you have a lot of choices to produce from different distributors, but in Iran, a few distributors would give out produce and could charge you anything they wanted because of the limitation.

It was harder over there because technology always was behind in Iran and it was much more expensive to buy electronic goods because it was imported from different countries.  For example it would come down from places like China, Hong Kong etc. Over here you have training classes to teach you how to use some things and way better manuals, but over there after you purchase something you need to hire your own specialist so he can teach you how to use your new machine and how it functions.

The newest technology would have to be the cash registers, security cameras, and security for the business. Since people started using new things it also became more competitive in the restaurant business, but I was lucky to always be on top. The smallest things that we take for granted were the biggest and newest thing when I worked.  We didn’t have computer café’s or all these Electronic stores. Everything was different.  Electronic goods are cheaper, more selections, better training, more distributors, more dreads for the customers for better selection, better combaters selection of menus etc.  It is getting better and better each day.

Interviewed by Shaunt Zakarian