Conference 7.286::digital

2935.0. "Who are Company A and Company B?" by OOTOOL::HIGGS (SQL is a camel in disguise) Fri Mar 11 1994 12:17

I came across this interesting article in the latest Greater Boston Chapter of
the ACM newsletter.  I couldn't help wondering who company A and company B 
might be...

Any ideas?


                           A Tale of Two Companies

                              by Steve Johnston

One of the pleasures of consulting comes from interacting with many
different companies.  It continually amazes me how different these
companies actually are;  some managers' jobs seem to involve mostly asking
other people for permission, while others seem to have a completely free
rein.  Some companies make it easy to hire consultants, others hard.  Some
very rich companies make their highly-paid staff get by with outdated and
unsupported equipment, while other companies overcapitalize everything.

I saw a very sharp contrast this past year, as I had occasion to work with
a couple of the larger players in the computer business.  These two
companies, call them company A and company B, are not direct competitors
in most markets, but both produce a wide range of equipment, have annual
sales in the multi-billions, and can point to some impressive successes in
their history.

My experience with these two companies could not have been more different.
I got a call from company A on a Monday, visited them on a Wednesday, and
found all the paperwork waiting for me to sign -- I actually worked several
hours that day.  My invoices, in spite of being sent to an out-of-state
office, are paid promptly, typically within ten days.

I visited company B about a half-dozen times, each time talking to various
different managers.  I prepared several different proposals, and finally
got a very short-term proposal accepted "in principle".  The contract
negotiations went on for almost two months, where all the managers agreed
to the contract but the corporate lawyers kept finding reasons to send it
back.  By the time I had signed the contract, I had completed the work, and
submitted my invoice.  I then started negotiating for the follow-up
contract.

Meanwhile, the invoice, also bouncing around out of state, gave rise to
some of the strangest paperwork I have ever seen.  I had to send back a
form agreeing that I would not emit CFC's or other gases harmful to the
ozone layer while doing the work.  I had to resubmit the invoice with the
account number on it, even though I couldn't get an account number without
submitting an invoice.  I told at least three different people my social
security number.  Finally, I got paid.

By this time, several months had past (sic) and I had negotiated another
contract for another small piece of work, preparing several presentations
on my first project and my plans for the follow-up.  Then the company had a
reorganization!  My contact spent several months trying to figure out who
was responsible for what -- when the shoes stopped falling, it was clear
that he had lost most of the responsibility for the area in which we had
been working.  He introduced me to the person now in charge of the area,
who was overworked, didn't understand the issues, and clearly didn't want
anything to do with me.  Meanwhile, the second invoice had gotten lost,
sidetracked, the purchase order had been closed by mistake and had to be
reopened, and at the time of writing I still haven't been paid for the work
I did in September.

As I think back on these experiences, I think there are two major
differences between these companies:  empowerment and information
processing.  In many different ways, company A makes their employees feel
that the company wants them to get things done and the support staff is
there to make things happen.  Company B puts an emphasis on going through
channels.  In company A, problems are identified, brought into focus,
attacked, and solved.  In company B, problems are passed from person to
person, given to task forces, lost in paperwork.  Discussion of problems
makes people uncomfortable.  Company A is in touch with its customers;
company B thinks its customers are just like they are (a possibly fatal
mistake for the project I was involved in).

In company A, I am working on a project that will probably span five or
more years from its conception until the products are fully deployed.  I
think this is exactly the kind of thing a large, successful company should
be doing -- good work too large for startups.  Company B had at least three
significant changes of direction in calendar year 1993 in the project I
worked on.

Is it any surprise that company A saw the recession coming, cut way back on
hiring, and had very few layoffs in the last several years, while company B
has laid off thousands?

The most successful computer companies have all screwed up, and in some
cases screwed up very badly, but the ones that survived and grew were the
companies that recognized that there were problems, faced them, and fixed
them.  The ones that died or are on the ropes developed cultures where
problems were ignored, minimized, or "overshadowed by our strengths".  One
employee in company B, attempting to focus on a product problem, was asked
"aren't you a team player?".

Do you work for company A or company B?

=============================================================================
From: "The Real Times", The Official Newsletter of the Greater Boston
Chapter of the Association for Computing Machinery, Vol. 32, Number 7,
March 1994, who added the following:

�1994 USENIX Association.  This article is abridged from the "President's
Letter", which appeared in the January/February 1994 issue of ;login:, and
is reprinted with permission.  ;login: is the official newsletter of the
USENIX Association.

    Ah...  duh... (scratch...scratch...)
    
    I just want to know who Company A is!

    A's success is a result of intelligent hiring over the years...
    
    B's lack of success is a result of "getting more bodies" to throw
    at the problems...
    
    A hires people who "understand the business their in"
    
    B hires "anyone who fits the job req." no requirements to understand
    the business....
    
    A's employees feel part of the company
    
    B's employees feel it's another stop on their way to success, just
    don't take responsibility for anything that may cause them to not
    "appear successful"
    
    IMHO

    
    	Perhaps part of the problem for one company B is that it seems to
    be hiring a complete replacement set of senior managers from the other
    company B.
    
    				Malcolm - NO 8^)!