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Volume 8, #3_______________________________________________________________
April-May, 1989
The
Changing
Role Of Customer Support by Joe Orlando, CSSE Systems
& Clusters Marketing Manager
All
Hands
On DEC by Dave Grainger, vice president, U.S. Sales and
Services
Telecom
Efforts
Save Digital More Than $3 Million A Year
Digital
Establishes
Subsidiary In Turkey
Smithsonian
And
Digital Work Together
Leroy
Saylor
To
Head Urban Development Group
New
Corporate
Consulting Engineers
New
Senior
Consulting Engineers
Martin
Hoffmann
Named Vice President And General Counsel
The Executive Committee is the senior
management committee for Digital. Within the company, it is
responsible for setting overall corporate direction and strategy.
The Committee reviews and approves the highest level plans for
products and solutions, technologies and markets. It monitors and
guides issues of overall importance to Digital’s customers,
employees and stockholders. The members are: Ken Olsen, President;
Win Hindle, Senior Vice President; Jack Smith, Senior Vice
President; Jack Shields, Senior Vice President; Jim Osterhoff,
Vice President, Finance; and John Sims, Vice President, Strategic
Resources. It normally meets four days a month.
The people who bring proposals to the Committee
"own" those proposals. They propose what they want to do, describe
the issues, how to deal with them, and the likely outcomes. If the
proposal is approved, it’s their responsibility to succeed with
it.
The Committee invites participation by
additional people on specific topics, particularly matters of
strategic direction. So when scheduling items for the agenda, we
try to identify interested parties to ensure that we have the
various points of view represented. For instance, when dealing
with issues having international importance, Pier-Carlo Falot- ti,
President, Digital Europe, or Dick Poulsen, Vice President, GIA,
often participates.
Typically, the people who bring proposals to
the Executive Committee are direct reports of Executive Committee
members, or their direct reports. But, in theory, anyone, at any
level in the organization, can go to the Executive Committee with
a proposal.
Most of the important work of the company
happens without day-to-day ratification from the Executive
Committee. It’s just people doing their jobs. There are a great
many things that people can do within their responsibilities,
without having to go to committees. The Executive Committee wants
employees to feel empowered to do what they need to do to succeed
in the responsibilities they have. The more empowered and
effective they are at doing their jobs, the better the company
will be.
Many people who are new to Digital ask, "How do
I get a decision made?" And they look up.
Most of the time, the people who are asking
already have the decision-making responsibility, but not the
authority. Authority means you can make whatever decisions you
want without having to talk to anybody. Responsibility means you
have to worry about it, think it through, and talk to people. You
have to make sure that those who are impacted by your decision are
aware of it. In the end, you own responsibility for success or
failure of that project, even though you may not have full
authority to make it happen. You succeed by feeling responsible
and carrying it through in a way that will get results.
In a company as broad and interdependent as
Digital, to be successful, you need to gather the support,
understanding, help and insight of a lot of different functions,
So as you go forward with your decision, you need to contact many
people to have them do what they need to do to complement your
work. Committees, like the Executive Committee, can help you to
get the support of other groups, but you have to make your own
decisions about your own project.
We try to encourage those who have
responsibility, at any level, to execute that responsibility to
the fullest. That means airing the issues well, arguing the
various sides of a question, advocating what you believe is right,
and listening to other people’s points of view. It means debate
and discussion among your peers to hone those plans so the final
decisions are in the best interests of the company.
Periodically, employees need to have their
plans and strategies verified. But it is management’s job to
foster ways to help people cut through the roadblocks and execute
their responsibilities. There may be no need to go to the
Executive Committee.
There are three main reasons for having
proposals come before the Committee. First* this process
encourages people to do their homework, to make sure they have
thought out their plans. Second, getting ready to come to the
committee, people tend to seek inputs from related functions and
programs. Third, those preliminary discussions, if done well,
encourage debate on all sides of the issue, so the various
perspectives are brought to bear. The thinking of any one
individual is broadened as a result, and the company tends to get
better decisions.
The Committee strives for consensus, not
unanimity. Consensus doesn’t mean that everybody has to be happy
all of the time. But if there is strong disagreement on the part
of any Executive Committee member on an issue, that generally
means the problems haven’t been worked out, and we’re not ready to
move. Such disagreement triggers more discussion and work.
Sometimes, issues will be delegated to one or more members to
resolve off-line. On any given point, what counts is what is best
for Digital, not who is in power or who makes what decisions.
Often, if the Committee does not accept a
proposal, it says, "You’re not quite there yet." That is not a
rejection, but rather a request to do some more work and come
back.
In addition to the Executive Committee, Digital
has two other major committees: the Product Marketing Strategy
Committee (PMSC), chaired by Jack Smith; and the Marketing and
Sales Strategy Committee (MSSC), chaired by Jack Shields.
The PMSC deals primarily with engineering
issues, determining how our product strategy fits together and
what the marketing messages are. The MSSC deals with the
introduction strategy for new products; sales and distribution
plans; prices; and competitive marketing strategy.
These committees provide a forum where
proposals are discussed and ideas are garnered. Only some of their
decisions need to be ratified by the Executive Committee or the
Board of Directors.
There is no formal set of layered committees in
Digital. Proposals go to the appropriate committee where the
knowledge and commitment exist to enhance the decision. Corporate
guidelines are written in the Policy and Financial manuals
stipulating which investments require Executive Committee or Board
of Directors approval.
Since we operate on a budget, we try not to
have individual proposals coming up for funding all through the
year. But the process of hammering out the budgets involves a
great deal of discussion of various business proposals on many
dimensions in the company.
Once a plan is in place, we review it on a
regular cycle, typically quarterly. "Did you do what you said you
were going to do?" By looking at how the responsible individuals
are performing, the Executive Committee hopes to stimulate
responsiveness to changing conditions so the overall objectives
are met. Products, Areas and Services are reviewed quarterly in
terms of business performance.
The Executive Committee spends a lot of time
discussing the long-term strategic questions of where we are going
as a company, and how we should we get there. Organizational
questions come up frequently, such as "how can we segment the
business in some meaningful way without losing the benefit of
integration?"
We're concerned that as the company gets
larger, there may be too many committees and too many interactions
to get anything done. We need to be able to respond quickly to
changes, opportunities and challenges in the market and in
technology. But we also need to appear as a single company to our
customers and provide a full range of products and services.
As we adapt to changing market conditions, we
strive to maintain the right balance between initiative and
teamwork. That means we often need to fine tune our organizational
structure and the roles of our committees, to make sure that
people feel empowered to do what they need to do to succeed in the
responsibilities that they have. Through all these changes, we are
guided by Digital’s core values and philosophy.
(This article is based on a speech given as the
keynote to the DEXPO Conference in New York on Feb. 9, 1989.)
We believe that the true power of information
technology does not lie in the power of hardware, but in the
empowerment of the individual. The real issue is not how much raw
power the industry will supply for the desktop, but what customers
are going to do with it.
Those of us who create and produce technology
all too easily forget why it is that the users of technology need
it in the first place, and what the challenges are for
individuals and organizations that have to absorb new technology.
The challenge that we face is to avoid the trap of technological
futurism, of creating beautiful, sophisticated, technologically
astute hardware, which no one has any use for.
Knowledge drives progress. Today, this is
coming to mean a network of shared knowledge, not just information
— across and within enterprises.
You turn information into knowledge when you
add to it your own unique interpretation, either as an
organization within a network or as an individual within an
organization, and send it out enhanced by your own personal
contribution. Creating knowledge is an act of power.
Computers have come to play a key supporting
role. They can empower the individual to create knowledge. Having
lots of computing power by itself is no guarantee of that
capability.
When we get caught up in a hardware speed or
"MIPS" mentality and lose the forest for the trees, we are guilty
of myopia — technology for technology’s sake. We must adapt our
technology to meet the organizational, economic, and cultural
challenges that shape the way individuals will adapt to new
technology and eventually use information to create knowledge.
This means creating far-sighted technology that empowers people be
more effective in what they do.
This far-sighted technology must address how
people actually work - what their jobs are, how they’re
structured, what their tasks are and the interrelationships of
jobs. It must also address how work is organized across an
enterprise, and the cultural milieu in which people work.
IBM's hierarchical computing was perfectly
adapted to the hierarchical structure that dominated American
organizations of the 1950s and 1960s. Today’s more decentralized
organizations require computing that is peer-to-peer. And the
industry is rushing to fill this need.
This technology must be economically feasible
for the individual or the enterprise. This means more than having
reasonable price-performance. It also means being able to balance
the need to preserve your customer’s investment with the
customer’s need to stay competitive and abreast of technology. It
means genuinely understanding your customer’s business.
Understanding our customers — how they organize
work to create knowledge, the cultures they operate in, and the
business they do — and building technology based on that
understanding, is moving us onto unfamiliar turf where we may
feel uncomfortable. Creating 100 MIPS on the desktop is purely a
technical challenge. Creating a system designed to empower a
banker, for example, can, for the producer of technology, also be
a psychological challenge.
Digital has chosen to focus its future in
creating systems that empower individuals where they work. We’re
committed to putting the most MIPS on the desktop - that’s not a
problem. But, we’re betting our company that the future is not
just in powering the hardware, but in empowering the individual.
For example, let’s consider a project that we
are working on — the corporate banker’s workbench. Banking is
undergoing a major shift these days. Bankers who used to be
account managers or loan officers are being called upon to become
credit analysts, account planners, and sales people responsible
for new business development. For bankers, this is a fundamental
shift, and information technology is the key to making it work.
A banker’s workbench combines office automation
with service delivery — providing tools for account planning,
credit analysis, relationship management, and customer service,
unified by a visually sophisticated user interface, like our
DECwindows environment. It empowers the banker to structure
credits, package products, create and submit proposals, and
identify and evaluate opportunities — in other words, to win
business.
To offer a successful banker’s workbench,
Digital must develop products based on what is best in our
technology in a manner that addresses the needs of bankers in
their own particular organization, culture, and economy. That is
why each banker’s workbench is geared to the unique focus of
different banks, and different departments within the same bank.
The key to the corporate banker’s workbench is
that it is not a packaged solution system, complete with part
numbers. Instead it is an architecture or platform, a set of tools
and technologies integrated by Digital, then networked to various
third party applications, information sources or production
systems.
These systems will require lots of distributed
computing power, file servers, desktop devices, and very smart
software. It might mean 100 or more MIPS right on the banker’s
desk. Or it might be 100 MIPS distributed on the network, 20 here,
2 there, 10 there...
Digital is concentrating its investments on
building better components, more intelligent data routing and
better storage within the network. We will do the systems
integration and provide the platform so that smaller companies
with intelligent solutions to specific banking problems can
concentrate on what they do best and not have to invent the "hard"
stuff.
This type of work, to which Digital is
committed, has some important implications for us. The first
implication is that Digital can’t do it alone. Digital already has
very broad relationships with third parties, but if success in the
1990s means offering the banker’s workbench, or the chemist’s
workbench, or the executive decision support workbench, then the
level of cooperation, integration, and business partnership with
third parties will require an unprecedented level of intensity. It
looks like the future of our industry is less dependent on who
builds the first 100 MIPS for the desk, than on who can best
integrate effective platforms with job-specific applications.
Digital is known for this.
As Digital turns its focus to creating and
integrating effective customers solutions, standards and
architecture become vitally important. Digital’s success has been
built on its single system architecture — VAX hardware running VMS
software. This is the result of a vision of computing that not
only included a compatible product range, but pervasive,
consistent networking and distributed computing — all oriented
toward empowering the individual in an enterprise.
When we talk about a unified system
architecture today, we are talking about substantially more than
just VAX and VMS products. Our system architecture now addresses
the customer’s overall enterprise. It includes hardware and the
operating system, as well as networking, data management,
application integration, and core applications.
By concentrating on a layered architecture, we
can change or evolve a single component independently of the
others. For instance, we can replace DECnet with DECnet/OSI
networking software. We also can introduce new, parallel
components to address the need for open systems standards and new
technology, while still providing continuity with other components
where customers may have made major investments.
Focusing on the system as a whole, we see
another important benefit of a unified systems architecture. If
central processors reach 100 MIPS, but networks, data management
level, application interface, and core applications can’t take
advantage of all that power, that is the equivalent of cars with
1000 horsepower engines in a society where the speed limit is 55.
It is not going to get you from one city to another any faster.
Intellectually, we all know this, but, practically, it is
difficult to absorb.
If together we are going to supply far-sighted
technology that is delivered in balanced systems for multicultural
customers, we must have standards. When technology makes it
possible, standards are good for the industry. Standards allow
Digital to work on things that are truly unique. Without
standards, we would all have to invest in everything, and that
would inhibit the progress and development of technology.
Many people believe that standards level the
playing field, and will open the door to Japanese competitors. We
believe standards simplify the playing field, and provide a
springboard to innovation. There are hundreds of ways to add
innovation to standards: you can implement the standard better,
deliver it better, deliver more standards, or improve upon the
standard.
For example, Digital has created a Digital
Compound Architecture that is a significant improvement on the
international standard. Creating a Compound Document Architecture
is harder to do than building a 100 MIPS processor. It means
bringing together image, type, voice, data, graphs and tables in a
single document. With the Digital Compound Architecture, each of
the data elements in specialized formats can reside in different
places on the system or network, and don’t come together as an
informational entity — a document — until they are printed or you
need them on the screen. So, if the data changes for my spread
sheet, I see the updated data on my screen. When I send it to a
printer tomorrow, it will include tomorrow’s newest data. In other
words, it’s a "live" document. That is hard to do.
That is the future for Digital — doing the
"hard stuff" — building platforms for third parties based on the
effective use of standards. This is the road that Digital has
chosen to take.
The old adage that service revenues follow
system sales is becoming less true, as greater system reliability
leads to reduced emphasis on traditional "break/fix" services. But
bolstered by the expected growth rate in software support,
professional services and international currency exchange gains,
overall industry-wide service revenue is expected to grow at an
average of 11% per year through 1992.
Customers now distribute their information
across an array of mixed vendor processors that range from
personal computers and workstations to large supercomputers. This
is the customer’s "system." Therefore, the conscientious vendor
plays an important role in managing the introduction and
extraction of units from this system. Even distributors are
gearing up service capabilities to prove they can provide ultimate
integration with no vendor bias.
As we respond to the marketplace, we must
become increasingly sensitive to the support needs of the
customer’s computing environment. This means we must demonstrate
an understanding of the environment being impacted by the sale.
Many of yesterday’s "luxury" value-added services are becoming
today’s customer support requirements.
Digital is now selling solutions to customers
who have been courted and supported for years by market leaders in
transaction processing (TP), RISC-based computing, high
performance workstations, fault tolerance, and high performance
compute and file servers. If the economy continues to slow, market
gains will have to come from displacement sales, with fewer "add
in" opportunities. More sales and new customers will be leveraged
by long-term differentiators, such as support solutions.
Positioned properly, service is not an
insurance policy or a promise of a rainy-day friend. Customer
support means fewer system surprises and failures, fewer reactive
calls. It is how Digital demonstrates our commitment to the
customer’s complex multi-vendor information processing networks.
Therefore, when a buying decision has to be
made and comparisons are being made box-to-box and
application-to-application, the principal differentiator is the
magnitude of support that the customer can count on from Digital.
Successful companies continue to grow, and
successful value-added service providers must match this growth
and expansion with a constantly evolving support strategy.
Value-added services are the tools that customers will rely on to
leverage their investments in technology. A sampling of
value-added services includes:
o systems integration,
o systems optimizing ,
o systems maintenance management,
o planning and design services,
o application design and implementation,
o disaster recovery/back-up,
o disaster recovery planning, o network
management, and o user and systems management education.
Software support is also a value-added service,
not just the "bug-fix" sort of support. It includes tailoring the
product to meet the customer’s needs and to perform the way the
customer wants, instead of making the customer conform to the
product. This activity should be a natural part of the vendor and
customer relationship.
With rapid introduction of technological
advancements blurring product differentiation, systems vendors are
rushing to the market with price-performance banners and
leading-edge claims. Customers are forced to look beyond the
technology to the system vendor’s reputation, track record,
support abilities and a basis for maintaining a long-term
relationship.
A long-term relationship with a single vendor
gives customers confidence that they can avoid an information
network that is comprised of an "alphabet soup" — technological
wizardry that is difficult to manage and, over time, delivers
diminishing returns. With so many choices and the growing need for
technology, customers prefer to build a relationship with a vendor
that can satisfy all of their needs.
Competition to become the "vendor of choice" is
greater today, and systems vendors must rely more on selling into
their installed bases while defending them. Influence on future
purchases is gained through building an ongoing relationship
between the systems vendor and the customer’s entire computing
environment. Relationships are not based on a single product sale
but on how this product and others build the customer’s
information processing system environment. No single
technological marvel is showcased above another in a customer’s
environment.
Customer expectations have risen with their
level of sophistication. They now define good service as how often
remedial maintenance and system failures can be avoided. Customers
buy remedial service to make up for any shortcomings in system
availability. The challenge to systems vendors, who provide
services, is in leveraging technology to provide greater
availability at lower costs, and to offset the lessening account
presence that negatively impacts account control.
In other words, a lessening account presence
and the more service opportunity the system vendor leaves to
another service provider, the less influence the system vendor can
expect to have on the customer’s future purchase decisions.
The focus on value-added services among systems
vendors has intensified with IBM’s and TRW’s latest entries into
managing multi-vendor contracts for customers and working toward
simplifying the relationship between vendor and customer. Other
systems vendors have recently introduced products or programs to
produce the impression that customers can rely on the vendor as a
single source service provider. Digital’s Enterprise Services
initiative demonstrates our readiness and commitment to support
the customer’s most complex information processing requirements.
Services effectively hedge a customer’s
investment in technology. A service provider has to be dedicated
to managing more out of the information systems customers already
have and the technologies they will buy tomorrow. Digital services
are delivering technology, like VAXsim Plus software, that will
continue to reduce the effort and impact for needed remedial
services. This provides Digital with a competitive edge by
enabling us to concentrate more on adding value to the technology
customers rely on in their businesses. Digital is ready to provide
this level of support, we owe it to our customers to let them
know.
Digital’s U.S. organization faces one of the
most challenging periods in its history. One of the steps we are
taking to meet the challenge is an organization-wide drive to
close incremental business. The "All Hands on DEC," a program has
been designed to focus maximum energy and resources on our Sales
and Services performance.
All U.S. organizations, including
Manufacturing, will participate in the All Hands on DEC program.
In addition, Digital’s Engineering organization has established a
special link into the All Hands on DEC program so that they can
provide a quick response to requests for information or temporary
help in the Field.
All Hands on DEC involves the temporary full-
or part-time assignment of Headquarters and Field employees to
Districts that have asked for help. Districts will identify
required skills, locations and timeframes to a Headquarters
"Resource Command Center" that will match the requests with
Headquarters and Field talent. U.S. employees with needed skills
are already volunteering to participate in the All Hands on DEC
program.
Employees will return to their original
organization upon completing temporary assignments in the Field.
In addition to temporary assignments, a priority will be placed on
filling permanent openings in the Field with skilled Headquarters
employees. Expense targets for next year suggest that some
resulting Headquarters vacancies may not be replaced. All U.S.
organizations will be refocusing their near-term priorities on
driving and closing business and helping the Field.
Bill McHale, area sales manager, Northeast Area
(NEA), says All Hands on DEC has already benefitted NEA. As a
result of the Program, NEA received eight acting district sales
managers (DSMs) from Headquarters and Area staff. Bill says the
regular DSMs were able to off-load a lot of administrative work
and concentrate on closing business. The acting DSMs also made
valuable contributions to the night brainstorming meetings called
"barrier busting sessions." NEA exceeded their Week 13 forecast by
more than 40 percent, and Bill believes that All Hands on DEC made
a difference.
The Northeast Area Team hosted a special
evening meeting in April to explain the program, and nearly 300
employees from greater Maynard and New England got an opportunity
to meet and talk with representative from eight sales districts
and nearly a dozen functional units.
It is clear that expense management will be
increasingly important to the ongoing success of Digital. Yet, we
cannot sacrifice or compromise Digital’s longstanding commitment
to Customer Satisfaction and Quality. That means we have to
maximize everyone’s contribution and make sure that it has value
to the Company and to our customers. All Hands on DEC is one step
in that direction.
Therefore, I would encourage all managers and
employees in the U.S. to view All Hands on DEC program as a unique
and valuable opportunity to acquire new skills and experience,
thereby enhancing their ability to contribute to Digital’s future
needs.
By taking advantage of five recent volume
discount programs offered by telecommunications providers, Digital
is saving over $3 million per year in costs. This success
illustrates the value of consolidated purchasing power and team
effort.
"The long-distance telephone business in the
U.S. is now very competitive," explains Arthur Molineaux, manager,
Bandwidth Administration. "AT&T and its competitors are
striving to keep and attract large customers with a variety of
bulk discount programs. We’re keeping close watch on industry
developments and taking immediate advantage of programs that can
save us money today, without sacrificing the flexibility to
respond to anticipated technology changes.
"Digital spends more than $40 million per year
with telecommunication service providers, such as AT&T. By
handling our purchasing of such services through a central
organization, rather than site by site, we’re able to take full
advantage of the discounts that are offered."
The Bandwidth organization was created in April
1987, under George Pendleton, as part of the Telecommunications
Group in Digital Information Systems (DIS). Previously, the
Digital Telephone Network (DTN), and the internal computer
network (Easynet) were administered separately, and numerous sites
purchased their own telephone and other telecommunications
services separately.
Bandwidth now acts as the focal point for
ordering telecommunication services and allocating the charges.
That enables them to consolidate charges for the best volume
discount, to choose the carrier, and to choose the best pricing
programs.
"You want to get in on these things at the
early stages, when the provider first files with the government
for permission to offer a new tariff," notes Arthur. "That way we
can take advantage of the new program as soon as it goes into
effect."
To penetrate the UNIX* workstation market
quickly, the Engineering Systems Group (ESG) has launched a
"Call-to-Arms" program to help software firms modify ("port")
their applications to Digital’s RISC-based DECstation 3100
system. Introduction of this workstation in January established
Digital as the price performance leader in this market. For
example, it’s priced similar to the Sun 3, but provides the
minimum of two times the performance of the Sun 4.
But capturing significant market share depends
on the availability of application solutions for the system. The
transfer of UNIX applications from one platform to another is
sometimes time-consuming and difficult. ESG’s effort will ease and
speed the process.
Thirty-four software development firms were
selected, based on their potential, commitment, and timing. ESG
managers-from functions across the board-have been assigned to
each of these companies to program-manage the porting process.
This effort includes gathering information, providing hardware,
monitoring delivery, and maintaining close liaison with accounts
to ensure Digital is responsive and supportive. Technical staff
has also been assigned to provide technical guidance and support.
Mike Wells, manager of the Call-to-Arms
Program, serves as the focal point for daily interaction and
weekly meetings with the account program managers and technical
support team. Issues concerning technical support, "bugs," and
other related issues are discussed in an open forum, with
individuals assigned responsibilities accordingly.
DECstation 3100 workstations are on site in
each of the targeted accounts. Current projections indicate that
about half of the ports will be completed and available for
revenue shipment by the end of June. An additional 20 accounts are
being brought into the program. This brings the total targeted
ports to over 50 - many of which include multiple applications.
*UNIX is a registered trademark of American
Telephone & Telegraph Company.
As the company focuses on improving individual
productivity, information systems become increasingly important.
We must focus on making it easy to transfer information well, and
on standardizing processes.
Our work consists of integrating the extended
enterprise, which includes the corporation, its suppliers,
customers, trading partners, and research consortiums. Our vision
is to use information technology for our own competitive
advantage.
Enterprise-wide computing provides an
environment in which all of the computing resources and
information of an organization can be easily used by anyone to
achieve the goals of the enterprise. We intend to ensure that
Digital’s employees, suppliers and customers have secure, global
access across time zones, to people, information, and resources so
they can make the best decisions and best business transactions.
We emphasize revenue enhancements as well as
cost-controlling efforts, because investment in technology can be
an investment in market share. For instance, our strategy to
support Digital’s business includes:
o connectivity and interoperability,
o business transaction-processing systems,
o information access,
o office automation,
o desktop products and strategies, and
o computer-automated support (such as
CAD/CAM/CASE).
In today’s highly competitive environment, we
must link IS goals to business goals. We must make certain we
understand the business issues and also keep current with, or
ahead of, the technology. We are moving in the following
directions:
o multiple but integrated architectures to help
separate the problem statement from the solution;
o separation of transaction processing from
management information; and o centralized, decentralized, and
distributed systems to run our business.
DIS now has three strategic groups to determine
what has to be done (Business Systems Analysis Group), how it will
be done (Strategic Technologies Group), and who will do it within
the enterprise (Information Management and Technology Management
Committee). These newly formed groups are in the process of
defining their roles and direction.
The Business Systems Analysis group is aligned
with Digital’s major business processes and incorporates the
business architectures, coming from the Systems Steering
Committee, into its strategic direction. Once the direction is
set, the Strategic Technologies Group (STG) provides worldwide
leadership in developing, integrating, and applying information
technologies to leverage and enable enterprise-wide solutions.
STG recognizes and reinforces the close working relationship
between computing and telecommunications technologies.
In the current business environment, we are
dealing with increasing complexity and rapid change. We must
influence how we build our applications and how the business
builds the specifications, and we must raise the user
knowledge-level to effectively use our technology. Ultimately,
our challenge is to influence and positively impact the way
Digital does business.
Digital has announced the establishment of its
Turkish subsidiary, Digital Equipment Computer A.S., in Istanbul,
Turkey. Digital has had a strong presence in the Turkish market
for the past several years through a distributorship. The
subsidiary initially will provide comprehensive support to the
existing base of Digital customers as well as the infrastructure
necessary to support short-term high growth sales projections.
Pier Carlo Falotti, president of Digital
Europe, says, "The establishment of a Turkish subsidiary
represents a major commitment on the part of Digital to the
private and public sectors of the Turkish market. Digital’s strong
relationships with its various customers will continue to enhance
their ability to successfully compete in their own local and
worldwide markets."
To date, Digital has installed hundreds of
systems throughout the the Turkish marketplace. Over the coming
year, the company will continue to target a wide range of markets:
the various service industries, manufacturing applications, all
aspects of the many technical and commercial markets, as well as
educational and government sectors. Digital will continue to focus
major efforts on improving the networking capabilities of its
customer base.
Digital is also planning to enter into
cooperative research projects with the Middle East Technical
University in Ankara, and the Bosphorus University in Istanbul, to
develop local language software packages that will run on
Digital’s systems. Digital’s engineering groups also will
customize and localize hardware and software products, and develop
market-suitable software applications and Turkish character sets.
The Smithsonian’s National Museum of American
History (NMAH) and Digital are working together on a major
exhibition which will open to the public in May, 1990. Called "The
Information Age: People and Technology," the permanent exhibition
will explore the history of information technology, beginning in
1835 from a social and cultural perspective, focusing on how
technology has changed the world.
Digital’s relationship with the NMAH began last
July, when the Corporate Contributions Committee awarded a grant
of close to $600,000 in cash and equipment to assist the
Smithsonian with the planning, administration, and fabrication of
this exhibition. As a result of the grant, Digital joined other
corporate sponsors of "The Information Age."
In addition to the grant, the Museum is working
with Digital on two additional projects: the acquisition of
several classic Digital computers for the Smithsonian exhibit and
collection, and an oral history interview with Kenneth H. Olsen
for the national archives.
Through the Digital Historical Collection
Program, the National Museum will acquire three of Digital’s early
computers for its permanent collection. The three systems are a
PDP-1, introduced in 1960 and popular in interactive computing
environments; a PDP-8, the first true minicomputer; and a
PDP-11/70, introduced in 1975. Some or all of the Digital
acquisitions will be on display as part of The Information Age
exhibit. The equipment also will be preserved and used for study
purposes.
Leroy Saylor has been named group manager of
Urban Development, reporting to Jack Smith, senior vice president,
Manufacturing/Engineering/Marketing, and John Sims, vice
president, Strategic Resources. He will work with communities and
other companies to develop educational and job opportunities
within urban communities. This is seen as an investment in the
future for Digital as well as industry in general.
"Over the years Digital has made investments in
communities throughout the world with excellent results," explain
Jack and John. "Two of the most significant achievements have been
the manufacturing plants in the Springfield and Boston areas.
These projects were proposed and managed by Leroy, for which he
and Digital have received high acclaim from business and civic
leaders. We believe that we should build on this type of
experience not only to continue the quality organizations we now
have, but also to work with other companies and communities to
develop the workforce of the future."
Leroy joined Digital in 1970 as a new products
engineer, and later served as plant manager in Springfield and
Boston, Mass. He was most recently manager of the Corporate
Manufacturing Customer Integration Programs in the Southern Area.
Richie Lary and John Shebell have been named
Corporate Consulting Engineers. Richie has been part of Grant
Saviers’ Storage and Information Management Group for several
years. Currently he reports to Bob Rennick, Senior Engineering
manager for Subsystems in Colorado Springs, and to Mike Riggle,
Senior Corporate Consultant. He is a member of the Storage Systems
Strategy Task Force, and has made many innovative contributions to
the design and improvement of storage subsystems and database
systems.
He has authored or co-authored 11 patents, the
most for one person in Digital. Four of them are on the VAX system
architecture alone. Richie has been architect and designer for key
portions of many important Digital products, including operating
systems for the PDP-8 and PDP-11 minicomputers; storage interface
protocols and standards such as SDI, DSDF and UQSSP; the Digital
Storage Architecture (DSA); and UDA, KDA, and KDB controllers; the
HSC cluster storage controller; and the VAXcluster Computer
Interconnect. Richie joined Digital in 1969.
John has been associated with Field Service for
all of his 17 years with Digital, the last nine years as manager
of the RAMP Group. In this capacity, he reports to Don Herbener,
CSSE manager, and Don Zereski, vice president, Field Service, and
is a member of the Field Service Management Committee.
During this period, John was responsible for a
significant number of technology-intensive initiatives within the
Corporate Field Service organization, including symptom-directed
diagnosis, Al applications in service delivery and system level
reliability assessment and design strategies. He also provides the
technology liaison on behalf of Field Service to Digital’s
Advanced Development and Research community and to established
groups such as RAC and RAD. He has been a frequent contributor to
both engineering and Field Service seminars.
Mark Kempf and Jim Gregorich
have been named Senior Consulting Engineers. Mark, who reports to
Alan Kirby, manager, Communications and Distributed Systems
Advanced Development group, will continue as the technical leader
of the FDDI development program. He joined Digital in 1979 and
participated in the design of an Ethernet adapter that offloaded
a significant amount of protocol processing from the host CPU.
Mark also was responsible for the design of a low-cost,
high-performance A/D prototype terminal server. He personally
performed the hardware design, which was incorporated virtually
intact into the DECserver 100 product. He performed in a similar
capacity on the LANbridge 100 project. He also designed most of
the hardware and supervised the design of the memory system and
software. The hardware design was incorporated into the LANbridge
100 product, still the highest performance bridge in the industry.
Jim, who reports to Don Staffiere, manager,
Power and Packaging Group, Mid-Range Systems, is the first power
engineer in Digital to be named a Senior Consulting Engineer. He
joined Digital in 1974 and is credited with bringing
high-frequency off-line switcher tehcnology into the company. He
developed a proportional base drive circuit that appears in all of
Digital’s current designs. His other major technical contributions
include power factor correciton topology to eliminate harmonic
distortions on AC power lines to improve effective use of power;
proportional current sharing for power systems operating in
parallel; and ultra-high-frequency power topology.
Martin Hoffmann has been appointed vice
president and general counsel. He will report to President Ken
Olsen, and will assume responsibility for the legal functions of
the corporation.
Marty has been managing partner of the
Washington, D.C., office of Gardner, Carton & Douglas, a
Chicago law firm, for the past 12 years. Prior to this experience,
he held a variety of senior positions in the U.S. government.
Marty was Secretary of the Army from 1975 to 1977, during the Ford
administration; general counsel for the Department of Defense
from 1974 to 1975; and general counsel for the Atomic Energy
Commission from 1971 to 1973. From 1969 to 1971, he was assistant
general counsel at University Computing Company in Dallas.
Commenting on the appointment, Ken said, "We
feel fortunate to welcome a person of Marty Hoffmann’s stature and
breadth of experience to Digital’s senior management team. He has
served both his clients and the government with distinction during
his career, and we welcome the leadership he will bring to the
task of helping to position Digital to meet our goals for the
future."
Max Dobres has been named Travel
Services Industry manager, reporting to Peter Robohm, director,
General Services Industry Marketing. A British citizen by birth,
Max began his career with Digital in 1983 as manager, External
Relations, in the U.K. Office Systems Marketing group. In 1985, he
became responsible for the startup of the U.K. Retail and
Distribution Industry marketing effort. In 1987, he joined the
U.S. Wholesale, Retail and Distribution Industry Group as Retail
Segment manager.
Bill Lynch has been named director of
Corporate Partner Management, reporting to Jack MacKeen, vice
president, Corporate Channels Marketing and Telecommunications
Industry Marketing, and to Eli Lipcon, vice president, Direct
Channels Marketing. In this newly created position, he will
directly manage the negotiation of third party agreements that
involve significant worldwide Field investments. Bill will ensure
that these joint sales and marketing agreements and related
investments make good business sense for both Digital and our
marketing partners. Before accepting this position, Bill was
Corporate Accounts Program vice president.
Bruce MacFadden has joined the Corporate
Organization Consulting Group, which he will now manage jointly
with Ben Fordham who has managed the group since 1983. In this new
role Bruce will help extend the ability of management to
participate directly in consulting assignments while giving
strategic and operational direction. Both Ben and Bruce will be
able to represent the organization and commit its resources to
Digital change concerns. Ben will continue to be accountable for
the group’s work to senior management. Bruce joined Digital in
1969. His experience includes assignments in GIA, U.S. Field, and
Product Groups.
The Job Evaluation and Classification (JEC)
project that started three years ago is now nearing completion.
Its purpose is to ensure that Digital has a consistent methodology
to evaluate U.S. exempt work and accurately classify exempt
employees based upon the actual work they perform.
To date, the project has: o evaluated and
described over 500 jobs;
o developed and implemented the Job Information
System (JIS) as a source for on-line job descriptions;
o developed a new job structure;
o classified over 43,000 employees (based on
information they provided on Job Overview Questionnaires); and,
o reviewed classification results.
The final step will be communicating
classification results to employees. A short document, entitled
"Communicating Classification Decisions to Employees," has been
prepared for distribution to all managers. This document is
intended to be used as a supplement to the JEC Binder and
"Employee Classification Guidelines for Managers," which were
distributed previously. It will be given to managers by Personnel
during salary planning training, along with new salary ranges and
salary planning guidelines.
All job codes, both exempt and non-exempt, will
change to four characters effective July 1. Non-exempt codes will
be changed solely to accommodate systems requirements in order to
fit on the new Job Table. No changes to non-exempt job content,
descriptions or salary ranges have been made.
All new job codes (both exempt and non-exempt)
will be available on the Salary Management System (SMS) for salary
planning in May. Since these new job codes will appear on
employee paycheck stubs in the second week in July, it is
essential that managers communicate changes in job codes to
employees before July 1.
While the project phase of job evaluation and
employee classification is coming to an end, the systems and tools
which have been developed should help Digital to effectively
manage these activities in the future.