Conference 7.286::digital

    
    Here's my opinion, sent in a memo to IDEAS CENTRAL @OGO and copied to a
    select few others.  LONG-MEMO ALERT!  Danger, Will Robinson, danger!
    
    Subject: Idea Sug: Survey employees' understanding of fundamental bus

    I would like to submit the employee idea suggestion of 
    surveying all employees to determine their understanding of 
    the core "fundamental" business that Digital executive 
    management has explicited stated that we are in.

    It is my opinion that 125,000 employees cannot work in 
    cooperation and harmony to build a more successful Digital, 
    greater than what is, if each employee has a different idea 
    of what the fundamental business is that Digital is pursuing.  
    A survey would determine just how diverse the perception is 
    of this topic among employees.

    In addition, in order to ensure greater cooperation and 
    harmony with active employee empowerment to create and drive 
    change to attain prosperity, now and into the future, I would 
    like to further suggest re-examining the precise definition 
    of the fundamental business Digital is in.  The reason is 
    this.

    Many companies go bankrupt because of incorrectly defining 
    their fundamental business, and consequently as market wants 
    changed, with companies refusing to truly listen to customers 
    and act proactively on market intelligence linked to 
    engineering and product development, failed to affect 
    continuous change, and ultimately failed.

    The classic business textbook example was the entire railroad 
    industry in their "fat cat" days which failed to understand 
    that they were NOT in the "railroad business" but rather in 
    actuality were in the TRANSPORTATION business.  In other 
    words, customers cared first and foremost about fulfilling 
    wants related to transporting something.

    Similarly, the makers of buggy whips failed to realize they 
    were in the transportation acceleration business, not buggy 
    whips.  When buggys became obsolete, and quickly disappeared 
    with the emerging auto industry, so did companies disappear 
    that still made only buggy whips.

    The examples are endless.

    Thus, it is important to know that all 125,000 Digital 
    employees have the same understanding of the fundamental 
    business that we are in, its precise definition, and the 
    implications as it affects all actions of all employees in 
    creating and driving change and building a more successful 
    Digital.

    And it is important to know the correct fundamental business 
    Digital "should" be in.

    Many would simply say our fundamental business is computers.  
    Others, platform business.  Or computer systems.  Or 
    integrated solutions.  Or computer services.  Or information 
    technology.  Or enterprise computing.  Or systems 
    integration.  Or distributed transaction processing.  Or 
    changing organizations.  Or empowering organizations where 
    everyone works together as a single team.  Or increasing 
    productivity.

    We do all these things.  Yet, if employees just think we do 
    ONE of these things, disharmony results since the cohesive 
    understanding of ALL the pieces fitting together is missing.

    Are "we" in the railroad business or the transportation 
    business?

    Thinking just railroads caused the employees of railroad 
    companies to think only of railroads, and ultimately 
    adversely affected all railroad companies.

    Is Digital in the computer business 
    or the _____________ business?
    is my question, with the survey determining first where 
    all employees think we are now.

    Perhaps another question on the survey for an empowered 
    workforce being asked to contribute creative thinking might 
    be what business SHOULD we be pursuing as a single entity in 
    order to ensure our prosperity, now and far into the future.

    What "fundamental" business.

    As my initial input to such a survey, I believe the survey 
    would show a wide variety of responses.  I believe the most 
    common would be, "We are in the computer (read hardware 
    primarily) business."

    In response to the second possible question on such a survey, 
    I would say we might better define our "fundamental" business 
    as being in the INFORMATION FULFILLMENT business.

    All the things earlier listed provide value-added 
    information.  In other words, fulfilling wants regarding 
    information.

    If this were the best definition, then obviously our efforts 
    would revolve around information technology, which is indeed 
    the case.

    And subsequently, our marketing would revolve around 
    utilizing said information technology to satisfy market and 
    customer wants for information, with internal leadership 
    drawing all employees into developing customers and business 
    with this "specific" focus.

    One derivative of this then must be the satisfying of "user" 
    wants for information.  In business, the user at the desk 
    wants information and does not want to be "held up" either by 
    the glass house computer center IBM mainframe controlled by 
    an MIS manager or even in fact by a department mini-computer 
    controlled by a department system manager. The future, 
    especially considering dropping chip prices, might then 
    suggest ultimately large capacity mainframe capability 
    sitting in a small box on the desk that can be, as desired, 
    able to communicate with all other desktop mainframes, 
    sharing and accessing information, either internal to the 
    organization, or external to anywhere in the world, yet, able 
    to function independently with ALL applications loaded 
    (easily done because of astronomical massive amounts of CPU 
    memory/disk space available because of advancing chip 
    technology), should the network connection be disrupted for 
    any reason.

    Additionally, the technology would also seem to revolve 
    around chip technology, then a operating system that meets 
    international open standards, then supported by integrated 
    software and networking capability.

    Lastly, fulfilling information wants of users would seem to 
    extend beyond just the use where a certain number of workers 
    would have capability on their desks for use in fulfilling 
    business information applications.  In other words, 
    information could be fulfilled in other ways other than 
    running a traditional business application on a traditional 
    computer with keyboard.

    If my suggested definition were perceived to be correct, the 
    question would then have to be asked, "Are the actions and 
    investments of Digital focused on meeting the markets of 
    users' wants for information fulfillment, protecting our 
    position via effective marketing, engineering and product 
    development, now and 20 years into the future?"

    As both a computer terminal user at the desk satisfying 
    information wants, and observing many other employees in 
    similar positions here in Digital, I would observe over the 
    years several recurring problems: inability to find 
    applications that will generate desired information to meet 
    specific information fulfillment wants, or the inability for 
    available applications to work on the existing operating 
    system, or the inabililty to load compatible applications 
    because of CPU disk space problems, or the inability to 
    maximize usage of applications because of disk space 
    limitations, or the inability to do any work if the node or 
    the network connection goes down, leaving many unable to do 
    the work since all the applications resided on the node and 
    not at the desk.

    Digital is indeed into many products and services, all 
    enabling Digital to be one of the leading suppliers of 
    networked computer systems, software, services and systems 
    integration, as stated in the first paragraph of the Digital 
    1989 Annual Report.

    However, is calling our fundamental business networked 
    computer systems, software, services and systems integration 
    sufficient to ensure optimum effective focus on the core 
    actions necessary to ensure prosperity.  Or is this the 
    equivalent of saying we are in the railroad business.

    In any event, I write this employee involvement memo with two 
    concerns in mind: 1. To suggest that it would be of benefit 
    to ensure all employees understand the same definitiion of 
    our fundamental business for this is important in getting 
    everyone to work in harmony to build something greater than 
    what is, and 2. To suggest exploring alternative definitions 
    that perhaps may be more accurate thereby better ensuring our 
    prosperity; and if none turn out to be better, this exercise 
    will then re-affirm that the present one indeed is the best 
    one.

    Regards,
    David
    

    re .1
    
    Focusing on information fulfillment may skew our focus off track.
    
    Most businesses have three main types of activities:
    
    			 "systems"
    		       /	   \
    		      /		    \
    		     /		     \
    		    /		      \
    		   /		       \
    		   ---------------------
    	control				processes
    
    Note that I am not necessarily using the word "systems" in a
    computerese way.
    
    Control tends to be a stabilizing/directing force and its main "food" 
    is information.  Process tends to be the action force and its main
    "food" is knowhow and skills.  Typically the departments of Finance,
    Marketing and Human Resources are more interested in data and
    information.  Engineering, Manufacturing and Sales are more
    action-oriented and therefore more interested in applications.
    
    The role of "systems" is to integrate the activities:
    
    		       communication
    		       /	   \
    		      /		    \
    		     /	?KNOWLEDGE?  \
    		    /		      \
    		   /		       \
    		   ---------------------
    	information			applications
    
    Digital's traditional market was in technical computing, with a heavy
    emphasis on applications.  We now purport to be the networking company. 
    To now place the emphasis on information/database would be off balance.
    
    Many management pundits claim that we are exiting the industrial age
    and entering a post- or trans-industrial era ... the knowledge age.  
    If we're going to be in some kind of fulfillment business, maybe it
    should be the KNOWLEDGE FULFILLMENT business.
    
    -dinesh.

    
    Interesting topic(as usual) David. 
    
    Reminds me of a similiar question/topic: who is the competition? I used
    to think it was IBM etal. Then I heard the CEO of IDS (an AMEX
    division - an investment firm) answer that - he didn't think it was the
    stock market or insurance annuities - he felt is was Disneyland, new
    cars etc. Basicly, he puts more corporate effort in to getting people
    to invest in their future (as opposed to in gratificatin today) then in
    getting them to buy from IDS versus NYL - he feels that once they
    decide that they want to invest, IDS will get it's share because their
    ad might have gotten the consumer in the investment mood anyway. 
    
    So who is the competition for us? I think it is continuing to do things
    in the traditional way. IBM, team Xerox, HP etc all seem to understand
    that as they advertise about how their products solve day to day
    business needs - in prime time no less. How often do you see us try to
    intice someone to try a new way to do an old task and oh by the way we
    can do that as well as anyone!
    
    

    Perhaps we should change our Corporate objectives to something along 
    the following lines:
    
    	To be the best global provider of integrated services and products
    	enabling customers to implement integrative/networking organisations.
    
    This would be an explicit commitment to helping organisations restructure 
    themselves (around empowered task-focusing teams?), a statement about
    how we feel technology should be implemented, a shift away from the
    continued automation of today's steep hierarchical structures.
    
    Of course, if we're going to sell it we need to do it, too.
    
    Some advantages of changing our objectives:
    
    o it addresses our own current organisational crisis while providing 
      a much needed business focus
    
    o as we change our own organisation, we gain experience and expertise
      which directly helps us achieve our business goals, e.g., engineers
      who work in an organisation structured like the customer will better
      understand the customers' needs, consultants who experience the
      organisational transition will be better able to help customers go
      through a similar transition than competitors who are still working
      in a steep hierarchy.
    
    o the business focus leverages off our traditional strengths in
      technology (e.g., networks) as well as our informal culture (e.g.,
      personal networking, valuing knowledge over authority).
    
    o the integrative/networking type of organisation aligns Digital's
      business objectives with the personal beliefs/philosophy of many of
      its individual contributors (alignment of personal and professional 
      objectives and beliefs is an important individual success factor).
    
    o this proposal changes perceived organisational problems into 
      perceived opportunities: for increased personal and organisational 
      growth as well as for business success.
    
    -dinesh.

    >	To be the best global provider of integrated services and products
    >	enabling customers to implement integrative/networking organisations.
    
    	That's so vague as to be meaningless.  It says we're going to
    	sell "services" and "products".  Great, that eliminates
    	all those things that aren't services or products that
    	I was worrying about trying to sell.  
    
    	The base note claims that overly restrictive ideas about
    	a corporation's objectives are fatal.  I contend that
    	excessively vague objectives are equally fatal, since
    	quite obviously no-one then knows what they're supposed
    	to be doing.
    
    	
    

    re -.1
    
    Uh, sorry.  I didn't intend to be vague.  Perhaps a translation would
    help.  How about if me say that we're going to provide the services and
    products that support very flat organisations...peer-to-peer human
    networking and lots of multi-functional teams as an organisational
    style (organisational and business consulting services) AND we back this 
    up with the technical products and services needed to implement it.
    
    Another way of saying it is that we want to bash down the stovepipes
    and baffles in today's steep beurocracies and replace them with
    something more human-oriented and more productive.
    
    And we could start with Digital first, as in RIGHT NOW...before they
    lay off the rest of us.
    
    Is it clear now?
    
    -dinesh.

    Second thoughts.

    I was one of the chorus during the early 80's that said it was time we
    got into applications software, since it was obviously going to drive
    hardware sales.  Service was soon added to the agenda of different
    businesses we could/should be in.  It seems we either we echoing what
    top management was thinking or we convinced them.  Fine, here we are.

    Today's perspectives include:

    	1) Let's do what we know how to do well.  

    		o  design, make and sell iron?

    		o  design, program, and sell systems software? (including
    		   DECwindows and CASE products)

    		o  woo and win CMP's with attractive applications?

    	2) Let's learn what it takes to be successful in tomorrow's
    	   marketplace.

    		o  provide consulting services?

    		o  design, program, and make standards-adherant
    		   applications?

    	3) "Process" or "Management" is the problem.  Too much bureaucracy
           - let's go back to the old "dynamic", "rough-edged", "informal"	  
           style we knew in old DEC.  (This approach is irrelevant to
    	   defining the business we should be in.  But it does suggest that
           our reach has exceeded our grasp.)



    I think that we embarked on software and service businesses just like
    we start any new product.  We make no plans to stop supporting old
    products or to support them by selling them off to spin-off companies.

    We are still making replacement parts for products that are no longer
    in the price book.  All of that supports the customer, but confuses our
    employees.

    Instead of trying to do everything, let us focus on a few high
    potential areas and 

    	STOP doing the traditional business!
        ---- ------------------------------

    Let us seek to spin off businesses to provide support to our older
    products in their own manufacturing facilities, provide them with
    suitable staff with the experience of people who know the products 
    (instead of early retirement or buyouts).

    Let us seek to spin off businesses to design follow-ons to PDP-11's,
    PDP-8's, PDP-10's, and other low activity businesses.  

    Let us prepare to spin off businesses which do the maintenance of low
    volume, but valuable software.  Let us staff these businesses with
    today's maintenance software engineers and let them have a chance at
    making these products even more competitive.


    All in all, I believe we need a simpler, more concrete vision, one
    which emphasizes high investment technology we can support and
    believe our customers need as well as ongoing support through spin-offs
    for those customers who are not interested in changing technology so 
    quickly as we are doing.

    Regards,

    Dick

    Remember DECtap.  Please.
    
    karl

	re .7:

	Dick, I agree with most of what you're saying. But there's a
	fly in the ointment:

>>>    	STOP doing the traditional business!
>>>     ---- ------------------------------

	...in that the "traditional business" is what pays you and me
	and the other 120-odd thousand. If we are looking at cutting
	several thousand staff today, it would be a lot worse if we
	"stop doing the traditional business". In fact, with the current
	financial climate, hiring freeze, equipment freeze, and heavy
	emphasis on getting in revenue this week, we are headed right
	back down the path to heavy hardware sales. That's the only way
	it can be done.

	It's a familiar situation in business. To become healthy and
	establish a successful future, we need to invest the time and
	money to build up new lines of business. But the moment we lift
	our noses from the grindstone - WHAM! the results dip, the stock
	market goes sour on us, and we react by taking the measures
	we are all seeing today.

	CASE is to do with selling expertise. Digital is uniquely
	well positioned to sell CASE, including software products,
	third party products, services, support, consultancy, training,
	you name it. But we're crippled for lack of the expert field
	people to carry all this to the customer. It takes up to 2-3
	years work in an account before a steady stream of CASE revenue
	can be counted on, and at any time during those 2-3 years a change
	of account team, a cut-back in funding, the loss of the CASE experts
	who have previously been available, any of these can blight what's
	been done. It's rather like building a house of cards - credibility
	is slowly built up, lost in a moment.

	I just spent two years building up a CASE program in what was
	until recently Digital's largest European customer. Since July 1st,
	the account team has been turned upside down - the account manager
	has been replaced and most of the people who set up and drove the
	CASE program have been moved on. In particular, the consultants
	who were responsible for technical expertise in AI and CASE have
	been reorganized and are no longer available. There is serious
	danger that the whole effort will just wither on the vine, while
	IBM, HP and Sun walk in and reap the fruits of our labour.

	The reason this sort of thing happens all the time is undoubtedly
	that senior management doesn't have any focus on this sort of
	activity - they're sublimely unaware of it, and therefore don't
	realize when, by rearranging the furniture as they do periodically,
	they are actually rupturing the gas main with dire effects on their
	long-term health.

	Which brings me back to where I came in: to adopt new lines of
	business, whether it be Systems Integration, CASE, or Network
	Management, any company needs to identify its goals, establish
	a plan, and provide extra funding to "prime the pump" and get
	the new business up to speed. Digital doesn't do that. It just
	states some desirable directions, and hopes that they will
	magically come to happen.

	They won't.

	/Tom

    Tom, I doubt we have any serious disagreement.  
    
    Obviously, we aren't going to spin off the bread-and-butter, but we
    have never handled "traditional" (read low-demand, service-parts, etc)
    in a cost effective manner.  There is all kinds of overhead driven by
    ECO's in the hardware environment and Revisions in the software realm
    that are not necessary with a stable, well defined product.  
    
    Our margins on sales of low-demand and service-parts could be much
    higher without allocations for unnecessary functions and services.  Its
    just the old 80-20 rule again.
    
    Your "case" (excuse the pun) history illustrates exactly my biggest
    concern.  We are in so many businesses that senior management, when it
    tinkers (as it always will), is likely to make disastrous mistakes. 
    The only protection we have from that is strong middle management that
    pushes back all the way to KO's office, if that's what it takes.  Even
    when that is successful, such incidents slow down the development (of a
    hard or soft product or an account) just due to the confusion factor.
    
    We can get business focus only by clearing away the brush.  
    
    There are people who will never be happy outside of some particular
    kind of business, be it manufacturing, engineering, software,
    consulting, or sales.  Let us give them a chance to focus on what they
    really enjoy. 
    
    This area, to be clearer than in my previous memo, includes any
    products which we have made/sold and in which we DO NOT wish to invest
    further.  These products, the patent, development, and licensing rights
    for them, and the opportunity to continue to work in an INDEPENDENT
    supplier to Digital, would be an appreciated opportunity, better than
    "a package", for many.  These businesses can and should be spun off,
    together with the workers, managers, and individual contributors who
    know them best.
    
    There are also people who are able to generate great ideas for new
    business and inspire others to implement them.  Let us give them a
    chance also.  Digital's financial resources are essential for this
    latter category (which, in my mind, includes CASE tool sales,
    enterprise integration, high technology software and hardware
    development).  We don't dare fail to provide all the resources needed
    for success in these areas.  By definition, this is high risk, and
    therefore must be high margin business.  I believe this is where the
    "old DEC".
    
    Does that help?
    
    Dick

    re: .10
    
    What you are proposing seems to make business sense, but I find it
    troubling.  First there is the problem of ensuring quality.  A "lean
    and mean" shop that acquired responsibility for one of our older
    products might not be as careful as we have been to make sure that
    only high-quality product was shipped to customers.  That will make
    our customers unhappy, not only with this product but with others
    that may go this way in the future.  Similarly, there may be less
    responsiveness to customer calls, and less frequent maintenance
    releases.
    
    A different troubling aspect is more personal.  I keep track of all of
    the products I have made significant contribution to in my time at DEC
    because I like to see them continue to succeed.  That's partly ego, but
    partly a wish to maintain my reputation.  If the responsibllity for a
    product is given to an outside organization I must decide whether to go
    with it or to stay.  If I stay I lose contact with it, but if I go
    I lose the opportunity to work on new things.
    
    In software, at least, there aren't any real "maintenance programmers",
    or at least they're rare.  In my experience, you join a project if you
    think it's interesting, and stick with it until you get a better offer.
    A project in its early stages has a lot of design and a lot of risk
    of cancellation.  Later the design effort decreases in favor of writing
    and debugging code, but design never completely stops, and once the first 
    line of code is written maintenance is an on-going activity.
        John Sauter

    Re .11
    
    You're right, John.  It wouldn't be easy for any of us to make the
    decision to either follow the product we put a lot of our soul into or
    to stay behind and let others assume the responsibility.  
    
    It also isn't easy to offer a blanket "package" which ultimately
    disolves what may have been a very good team just because some
    individuals make their personal decision to go and others to stay.
    
    I submit that DEC can build some of the strengths of our Japanese
    competitors by spinning off supplier organizations, run by people we
    know and who know us, and with whom we can expect good business
    relations in the future.
    
    I believe we are better off with low overhead, lean and mean suppliers
    than to just plain pay people off to leave, with no synergy in view.
    
    By the way, many of our internal service organizations could/should go
    the same route, not just product oriented activities.  The printing
    operation we closed down could have been the base for a spin-off, free
    to take on additional business, but also having people for whom Digital
    does not mean a watch.  
    
    Here in Puerto Rico, Baxter-Travenol recently dissolved its EDP/MIS
    operation and contracted all that kind of work with a commercial
    datacenter.  I interviewed for the job of the MIS manager six months
    before the action was taken.  I hope I would have had the guts to make
    the same recommendation that the man who took the job did.
    
    I think that "privatising" works not only for bloated governments, but
    for bloated corporations as well.
    
    But, in the end, I think I understand how you feel, and I respect that
    level of committment to one's professional work.
    
    
    Regards,
    
    Dick

    What's the difference between "spinning off" some segment or product to
    a separate corporate entity, and spinning the same thing off to a
    separate P&L within Digital?  Is that where the new ROI emphasis fits in?

    For instance, suppose we have a team that works well together and creates
    a spiffy product which finally matures.  It would be great if they could
    remain in Digital, take ADVANTAGE of a decent ROI as they cut down support
    services, and use increasing spare time for "blue sky" work on new ideas.

    The new ideas could be unrelated to the existing project, or could be
    related if the group felt that their expertise was in that market segment.
    Since they are still getting a positive ROI, shouldn't they be entitled to
    the opportunity to try a new direction for the company?

    On the other hand, maybe this is what Jack Smith is referring to as a
    "porch."  Work which is unrelated to the immediate task at hand.  I don't
    know whether our current directions are heading toward promoting or
    destroying the midnight projects which used to lead to new and exciting
    products.

    I hope we don't end up with the worst of both worlds:  Bad ROI means can
    the project early in its life cycle, and good ROI and a stable product
    means split up the group or, worse, spin them off to compete with us.

    Anybody in the Silicon valley want to comment on the personal thinking
    that goes into leaving for another new startup when the current one has
    become "mature?"  Does it have anything to do with wanting to continue
    to be creative?  I really don't know, but I'm curious.

    We need some sort of structure which does not squash the entrepreneurial
    inclinations of our contributers, from senior management on down to the
    individual contributor who wants to tweak some process.  Why not "spin
    off" talent internally, rather than letting it loose?  Surely we've got
    the brains to figure out how to run both "lean and mean" and "fat"
    operations under a common umbrella.

    There are benefits for both sides of the equation.  The company benefits
    from new ideas and products, while the team members benefit from the vast
    resources within Digital (like notes files and experts to talk to).

    As an engineer, I can't think of anything less attractive than being told
    "you've done a wonderful job on this project, and it is now stable.  Now
    we're going to spin you off into a group which does nothing but work on
    tweaking your product.  You will no longer have access to the people within
    Digital, and you'll have to implement any new ideas using your own
    resources, with no means of bringing them to market.  See Ya..."

    Some people may see maintaining DECfoo as easy street, but I bet a majority
    would see it as hell if they were not given some opportunity to stretch in
    other directions ( here I mean if DECfoo is fully mature, so that there are
    no new things to add on ).

    Does this make any sense?