| Title: | The Digital way of working |
| Moderator: | QUARK::LIONEL ON |
| Created: | Fri Feb 14 1986 |
| Last Modified: | Fri Jun 06 1997 |
| Last Successful Update: | Fri Jun 06 1997 |
| Number of topics: | 5321 |
| Total number of notes: | 139771 |
Off on a tangent.
Should DEC be published in the Big Book?? ...brings to mind an article
written by the executive staff writters in Forbes magazine back in February
1991. It seems that every year Forbes business magazine does a survey
of CEO's, VP'S and analysts to determine which corporations are strong
business contenders based upon several factors, including profitabilty,
product lines, earnings, people/social conciousness and others which I
can't recall with complete accuracy. GUESS WHO WAS NUMBER ONE AT THE
TOP OF THE LIST. Sorry, it was MERCK CORPORATION a pharmacutical
manufacturer. DIGITAL WASN'T EVEN IN THE TOP 100 CORPORATIONS. Matter
of fact DIGITAL was number 185 or 186 out of the 306 corporations
listed. Somewhere in the lower 4x percent. I do recall that 5 years ago
Digital WAS close to or in the top ten and firmly believe that the top
management of Digital over the past 5 years should take their bows and
congratulate themselves for being successful in driving DIGITAL from the
top of the mountain heading for the bottom of the heap at somewhat breakneck
speed. We missed the curve on personal computers, our fearless leader
recently compared UNIX to roadkill and our management style has been
making the rounds of the Havard Business School in the bad example
category. (Seriously though, I do have the highest respect for Ken
Olson because of his track record in making DIGITAL a hell of a good
company to work for in the past.) Yes, it does seem easy to become
discouraged because we all want to be winners and work for a winning
corporation and right now DIGITAL is not winning. But one thing we
need to keep in mind is that WE ARE DIGITAL. You, me, every person
that works for Digital is DIGITAL and has a voice in the way that
DIGITAL performs as a corporation. If a manager (or committee of
managers) makes a decision that you feel is based upon ignorance or
stupidity, once you have finished complaining about the decision, make
it a point to bring to the managers attention the reasons why you feel
their decision is not sound and be prepared to offer a more effective
one. If this doesn't work use one of the avenues available to reach
further up the ladder, i.e. the open door policy, the delta program,
and maybe even a telephone call to Ken Olson. I have seen plenty of
policies put into effect that were not based on sound business
decisions but rather on an attempt to pass the buck or shirk their
share of the workload. In the past complaining was not effective but
now with our backs to the wall we can no longer afford to promote the
non-performers to higher positions but need to question whether
they should continue to contribute to Digital's decline and indeed
whether we can afford to let them. Remember that you are Digital, and
have the responsibility and power to help make DIGITAL a ONE
PERFORMER... whether it be in the Big Book or on the Forbes annual
survey.
| T.R | Title | User | Personal Name | Date | Lines |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1499.1 | Posted from a group account | COVERT::COVERT | John R. Covert | Mon Jun 17 1991 18:21 | 1 |
Didn't want to sign that note, eh? | |||||
| 1499.2 | just the facts | SICVAX::SWEENEY | Patrick Sweeney in New York | Mon Jun 17 1991 22:21 | 7 |
Yo, FS9W
I looked for this article in the only two issues of Forbes published in
February 1991: Feb. 4 and Feb. 18, and I couldn't find it. Do you make
them up as you go along?
What's the "Big Book" anyway?
| |||||
| 1499.3 | PSW::WINALSKI | Careful with that VAX, Eugene | Tue Jun 18 1991 19:07 | 6 | |
RE: .0 Harvard's MBA program thinks we're being managed improperly, eh? Good. There may be hope for us yet. --PSW | |||||
| 1499.4 | I stand in error here's the correction. | DCVAX::FS9WA | FS9WA Downtown D.C. FS | Thu Jun 20 1991 13:01 | 85 |
Thank you for the interest and also for catching a large mistake.
This memo was originally intended as part of the conference in note
1491 which queried whether or not Digital was to be listed in the
upcoming book 100 best companies. Being a very inexperienced notes
user I mistakenly opened a conference instead.
Patrick Sweeney mentioned that he had examined FORBES magazine for
February 1991 and was unable to locate the survey described. This was
my error in memory (so many magazines have passed since February 1991).
However I was able to locate the actual article. The following is
a brief synopsis of the article with several main points excerpted as
they appear. The entire text appears in FORTUNE MAGAZINE issue date
FEBRUARY 11, 1991 titled AMERICA'S MOST ADMIRED CORPORATIONS and
starts on page 52.
Excerpt
HOW IT WAS DONE (page 52)
The ninth annual Corporate Reputations Survey includes 306 companies in
32 industry groups that appeared in the 1990 FORTUNE 500 and FORTUNE
Service 500 directories. We polled more than 8,000 senior executives,
outside directors, and financial analysts. They were asked to rate the
largest companies-defined as those with sales of at least $500 million-
in their own industry on eight attributes of reputation, using a scale
of 0 (poor) to 10 (excellent). The attributes were
QUALITY OF MANAGEMENT
QUALITY OF PRODUCTS OR SERVICES
INNOVATIVENESS
LONG TERM INVESTMENT VALUE
FINANCIAL SOUNDNESS
ABILITY TO ATTRACT, DEVELOP AND KEEP TALENTED PEOPLE
COMMUNITY AND ENVIRONMENTAL RESPONSIBILITY
WISE USE OF CORPORATE ASSETS.
Before advancing to the chart, on the bottom paragraph in the last
column on page 52 as excerpted ---- The computer and pharmaceutical
industries shared the spotlight in the original 1982 poll, with three
companies apiece in the top ten including Digital Equipment, now a
dismal Number 185.----
The companies are then ranked from number 1 to number 306 with Digital
ranked number 185.
This survey also broke out the rankings in terms of the industry that
they represent. We are most interested in the Computers and Office
Equipment rankings which are posted as follows--(For ease of
understanding I have calculated the Column SURVEY RANKING to show how
they ranked within the 306 survey. The other rank categories are
specific to the industry group.
RANK LAST YEAR COMPANY SURVEY RANKING SCORE
1 2 IBM 32 7.34
2 1 HEWLETT PACKARD 36 7.28
3 N/A COMPAQ COMPUTER 45 7.13
4 3 APPLE COMPUTER 127 6.45
5 4 DIGITAL EQUIPMENT 185 6.13
6 5 NCR 206 5.92
7 6 PITNEY BOWES 253 5.32
8 9 CONTROL DATA 297 4.00
9 8 UNISYS 299 3.57
10 10 WANG LABORTORIES 303 3.10
FYI lowest possible score was 283 which belonged to GOLDOME.
Please understand that I am NOT bashing DEC, there are many others who
do most effectively. But when reputable business writers, CEO's and
analysts from different sources, start mentioning the same thing and
the market value of DEC stock has dropped by almost 75% of its value
since OCT 1987 the message is very very clear. Thanks again for the
responses.
| |||||
| 1499.5 | picky, picky.... | CANYON::LEEDS | Scuba dooba doo | Thu Jun 27 1991 20:52 | 7 |
Just a nit... > (Seriously though, I do have the highest respect for Ken > Olson because of his track record in making DIGITAL a hell of a good > company to work for in the past.) To help show your respect, spell his name properly... he prefers "Olsen". | |||||