Final answer:
Running a business in the 1980s without a website meant relying on traditional advertising, local clientele, and manual record-keeping. Operations were slower with less immediate communication and transaction capabilities. The digital revolution significantly transformed business efficiency, reach, and operations.
Step-by-step explanation:
Running a small business in the 1980s would have been remarkably different without a website. For instance, marketing efforts would have relied heavily on traditional methods such as print advertising, direct mail, and word-of-mouth. Without the advantage of a website, businesses could not reach a global audience instantly, meaning that most clientele would be local or found via time-consuming physical networking.
Customer relations would be more personal, often handled face-to-face or via phone calls. Keeping records would also have been a manual process or managed through more primitive digital means like simple databases or spreadsheet programs, leading to slower information retrieval compared to today's customer relationship management (CRM) tools.
Inventory management and order processing would generally be less streamlined and automated, relying more on manual systems. The pace of business operations would be slower due to the absence of the instantaneous communication and transaction capabilities provided by e-commerce platforms and email.
Moreover, research and development would have been constrained by the less immediate access to information, taking longer to perform market research and track industry trends without the vast resources available online. The digital revolution of the 1990s and onwards, with the creation of numerous websites and advancements in online tools and services, allowed businesses to operate with greater efficiency, reach, and scalability.