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BookshelfWinter 2000, Vol. 41, No. 2
Into the Networked Age: How IBM and Other Firms
Are Getting There Now, The Technology Machine: How Manufacturing Will
Work in the Year 2020
General Listings The Thinking Managerís Toolbox:
Effective Processes for Problem Solving and Decision Making, Generations at Work: Managing
the Clash of Veterans, Boomers, Xers, and Nexters in Your Workplace, Total Exposure: Controlling Your
Companyís Image in the Glare of the Business Media Explosion Rembrandts in the Attic: Unlocking
the Hidden Value of Patents, The One to One Manager: Real-World
Lessons in Customer Relationship Management, Quick Response: Managing the Supply
Chain to Meet Consumer Demand, 21st Century Logistics: Making
Supply Chain Integration a Reality, The Search for Meaning in Organizations:
Seven Practical Questions for Ethical Managers, The Age of Modularity: Using
the New World of Modular Products to Revolutionize Your Corporation Business Futures Into the Networked Age: How IBM and Other Firms Are Getting There Now, James W. Cortada and Thomas S. Hargraves with Edward Wakin and the IBM Team of Consultants, New York: Oxford University Press, 1999, 233 pages, $27.50 The Technology Machine: How Manufacturing Will Work in the Year 2020, Patricia E. Moody and Richard E. Morley, New York: The Free Press, 1999, 320 pages, $28.00 What do companies need to do today to ensure that they will be around to thrive tomorrow? How can executives be anything but bewildered about where to start when change is so vast and rapid? How is it possible to plan for the unknown? These authors argue that companies can turn even momentous changes to their advantage. Like Marco Polo, Columbus, and Lewis and Clark, today’s executives are venturing into unfamiliar lands. But unlike explorers in the past, state the authors of Into the Networked Age, executives cannot choose whether to face the unknown. Change, driven by technological innovation, is inescapable. For the sake of company survival, executives in all industries must understand it and learn how to work with, not against, it. The authors provide a blueprint for confronting change, based on the experience of IBM in transforming itself and IBM Global Services in advising clients seeking to transform themselves in a postindustrial, global economy. Change itself is changing. As the authors point out, change efforts in the early 1990s focused on downsizing and cost containment. By the mid-1990s, according to an Economist survey, more than 70 percent of global companies had launched change initiatives, but had run into difficulties. Now companies are concentrating on processes and growth. From the experience of the past decade, "rules of the road" and "best practices" have emerged that transcend industry boundaries. The most important element of a successful transformation effort, argue the authors, is a holistic perspective: transformation "works best when it involves all parts and major activities of an organization and is implemented in a comprehensive and coordinated manner." Their blueprint embraces knowledge, process, and technology management — all carried out in the context of an understanding of business conditions and customer wants and needs. The authors discuss each of the components of the blueprint in detail in individual chapters. The lessons that emerge from the authors’ experience have little to do with the so-called hard side of business: financial incentives and performance plans. Instead, they stress the need to involve employees and gain their support, to combine short- and long-term approaches, and to understand corporate culture. More than ever, leadership must distinguish itself from management, which has traditionally protected the status quo. Leaders in transforming companies must be innovative, personally involved, know where change is needed, be able to cope with ambiguity, and have a realistic understanding of the extent and pace of change possible. While transformation carries risks and dangers, this study suggests, the accrued experiences of many companies offer perspectives that increase the chances for success. Cortada is an executive consultant with IBM Global Services. Hargraves is a principal with IBM’s Consulting Group in IBM Global Services. Wakin is professor of communications at Fordham University. The ‘90s, say the authors of The Technology Machine, have been marked by turmoil, as schools, families, businesses, and government seem to be unraveling all around us. By the year 2020, these troubles will be a distant memory, as technology will have transformed the way we live, learn, and work. Under the reign of technology, predict the authors, computers will control traffic flows, homes and offices will be modular, cars will be driverless, and intelligent systems will run railroads and airports. People will live and work in close proximity. In business, the losers will be large, rigid, centralized companies. The winners will be small unknowns, quick, flexible, and responsive to local situations. Moody, a manufacturing management consultant, and Morley, CEO of Flavors Technology, Inc., argue that technology provides "the source of creative power that will renew depleted industries and organizations." In the successful companies that they envision, manufacturing excellence will be necessary but not sufficient. They foresee two kinds of enterprises: the Island of Excellence, which is technology-based and -driven and the stodgy others. On the Island, once disparate functions, such as design, supply management, production, and engineering, will be seamlessly integrated to fulfill changing customer needs and expectations. Workers will have multiple skills and will be comfortable serving in many different capacities. The scientist or technologist, not the MBA or the union leader, will be king. Just so that it all doesn’t begin to sound like science fiction, the authors remind us of all the familiar goods and services we didn’t have 60, 10, and 5 years ago. After setting forth their vision, they detail the technologies, processes, and outlooks that will bring it to life. In a chapter on intelligent systems, for example, the authors describe how complexity theory applies to factory operations: at General Motors’ Paint Shop in Fort Wayne, Indiana, truck painting entailed seemingly insurmountable scheduling hurdles and unpredictable outcomes; we learn step by step how localized intelligence systems effectively supplanted inflexible remote controls. What is the role of the manager in this new environment? The authors offer guidance on running a "technology-smart organization," evaluating technology proposals, and selecting projects and investments. In concluding, they provide still more predictions, from manufacturing at the point of consumption to 5,000 TV access channels.
General Listings The Thinking Manager’s Toolbox: Effective Processes for Problem Solving and Decision Making, William J. Altier, New York: Oxford University Press, 1999, 219 pages, $25.00 A group of experienced managers meets to solve a problem and winds up with a solution that makes the situation worse. Why is that scenario so depressingly familiar, and how can it be prevented? According to Altier, founder of Princeton Associates, the managers’ very closeness to the problem handicaps good decision making. Their minds are already made up; they care more about how the outcome affects them than the good of the organization. The better approach, Altier argues, is systematic, objective thinking, and he proceeds to characterize the excellent thinker, lay out the different types of thinking, and enumerate the steps involved in each type. Altier defines an excellent thinker as "a person who can approach an analysis with an open mind; one who can digest the information presented, separate the relevant from the irrelevant, and come to logical conclusions regardless of any prior knowledge about a situation or any perceptions, pet ideas, or biases." Prejudices are inevitable, Altier acknowledges, but they are no excuse for making bad decisions; the skilled thinker learns how to control them. At the heart of the book is a basic toolbox of thinking skills: situation assessment, decision analysis, implementation planning, potential problem/opportunity analysis, and problem analysis. Altier explains the contexts in which each tool is appropriate and emphasizes the need for a careful thought process, in which each step builds logically upon preceding steps. An example of team members meeting to decide where to locate a new regional headquarters demonstrates how the tools can be put to work. The final section of the book offers more advanced thinking tools — for example, priority setting and anticipating change. In addition, Altier provides guidelines for running productive meetings, focusing on the leader’s skills and the criteria for choosing participants; a closing chapter explores the value of creativity in business and considers how particular patterns of thinking can either trigger or thwart creativity.
Generations at Work: Managing the Clash of Veterans, Boomers, Xers, and Nexters in Your Workplace, Ron Zemke, Claire Raines, and Bob Filipczak, New York: American Management Association, 2000, 280 pages, $25.00 With four generations, each different in its experiences and attitudes, converging on the workplace, the possibilities are ripe for misunderstanding, say these authors. Among the factors that intensify generational conflict today, they explain, are the breakdown of hierarchies and the increased volatility of the workplace. An "us" versus "them" mentality has set in: "they" are lazy or rigid or self-absorbed or workaholic; "we" know better than "they" do. To help managers reduce the discord and reap the benefits of generational diversity, the authors profile each of the four generations and provide guidelines for motivating and rallying their members. The workplace, they assert, "can be a positive, productive, and compatible home for old, not so old, and young workers alike." The authors admit the dangers of generalizing about groups of people. Still, they contend, members of a generation are united by everything from historical events to popular music; even if they distance themselves from generational norms, they still have a relationship to them. Especially influential in shaping worldviews are the experiences of entering the work force. Note the authors, "The effort needed to bring in that first job leaves a lasting mark." The lively profiles describe and compare the histories, values, strengths, and liabilities of the four groups: the World War II generation, or Veterans; the Baby Boomers; the Gen Xers; and the Nexters. Each group has different views about the work ethic, the balance between work and home life, leadership, and technology. For each group, the authors provide key management principles. For example, Veterans like structure and want their experience respected; Boomers are likely to value perks and status and want to be involved in decision making. Additional guidance comes in the form of case studies of companies where the generations work well together and a practice exercise describing the plight of a manager whose work teams are in varying states of disarray, with "technogeeks" battling "dinosaurs." The final section of the book offers a series of questions and answers on problems of motivating, team building, recruiting, training, and job enrichment. Zemke is senior editor of Training magazine, Raines is an organizational consultant, and Filipczak works at U.S. Bancorp Piper Jaffray.
Total Exposure: Controlling Your Company’s Image in the Glare of the Business Media Explosion, Gustav Carlson, New York: American Management Association, 1999, 240 pages, $27.95 A company ignores today’s business media at its peril. At stake are its reputation, sales, and stock price. Calling his book as a "wake-up call," Carlson, a former journalist and now a media relations executive, looks at how the business media have been transformed in the last few years and tells executives what they can do to take charge of their company’s image in the new environment. Even ten years ago, says Carlson, business journalism was a sedate affair. A few players dominated the field — the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, Forbes, Fortune, Business Week, and Barron’s. With the rise of the individual investor and the proliferation of new technologies in the 1990s, the demand for and supply of business news have skyrocketed; innumerable media outlets — television programs, specialty magazines, newsletters, and on-line services — have arisen to meet the needs of investors hungry for information. While the new media provide abundant opportunities for companies to get their message out, many dangers await the unwary. CEOs may assume, as did Andrew Grove of Intel or Jeff Bezos of Amazon.com, that they need not respond to unfavorable stories circulating in the press or over the Internet. The inexperience of many reporters and the pressures on the media to provide round-the-clock news that both informs and entertains can lead to carelessness and error, jeopardizing a company’s reputation among investors, customers, and employees. Carlson urges companies to make communications a key part of their growth strategy. Since they will receive attention, with or without a communications plan, businesses of all sizes should do everything in their power to make that attention work on their behalf. To help companies in that effort, Carlson offers lessons on a range of topics: managing a company’s on-line image, responding to rumor and speculation, avoiding overexposure, understanding business audiences, choosing appropriate spokespersons, understanding the motives of reporters, and handling crises.
Rembrandts in the Attic: Unlocking the Hidden Value of Patents, Kevin G. Rivette and David Kline, Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 2000, 240 pages, $27.50 Intellectual property, according to the authors, once held the distinction of being considered the most boring subject in the world; today, they say, it has become a vital source of competitive advantage and a hot subject of debate. In a knowledge-based economy, value derives from ideas and innovations, and success depends on how these are deployed. In the past, as far as executives were concerned, patents were something for the lawyers to worry about while they plotted corporate strategy. Now, the management of intellectual property must itself be a key element of that strategy, a core competency of the firm. Rivette, a patent attorney and CEO of Aurigin Systems, and Kline, a journalist and business strategy consultant, describe their book as a "primer on the next great corporate challenge: developing new tactics, new strategies, for the new competitive battlefields of the knowledge economy." Using many company examples, they examine how an effective patent strategy enables businesses to "capture and defend markets, outflank and rivals, and increase revenue." The authors contest the view that patent rights stifle innovation and lead to monopolies. Instead, they argue, the required disclosure of patents promotes innovation by giving competitors the opportunity to learn about and improve upon a patented invention. After surveying the history of corporate practice regarding intellectual property, they present a process, called the "Grow-Fix-Sell Triage," for capitalizing on the strength and value of a company’s patents. This process becomes the basis for ensuing discussions of R&D effectiveness, finance strategies, the role of mergers and acquisitions, and the challenges of the e-commerce economy. Throughout, the authors argue that companies cannot afford to take the old-fashioned view of intellectual property as a peripheral concern. Companies must take full advantage of what is uniquely their own, their distinctive knowledge, skills, and methods.
The One to One Manager: Real-World Lessons in Customer Relationship Management, Don Peppers and Martha Rogers, New York: Doubleday, 1999, 268 pages, $21.95 Hundreds of years ago, say the authors, bankers knew their customers as individuals having differing financial needs. Then came the age of mass marketing. Today, thanks to technological innovations, close, personalized relationships are returning, shaking up organizations that have relied on a strategy of marketing standardized products to as many customers as possible. In one to one marketing, companies manage "individual relationships with individual customers," supported by database, interactive, and mass customization technologies. With each interaction, the company learns more about the customer’s needs and interests; over time it tailors a fit between its product or service and that particular customer. Treating each customer as an individual, point out the authors, requires integration "across every function, department and division at the enterprise." Describing their subjects as "scouts, pathfinders and navigators," they provide case studies that explore the management issues involved in implementing relationship marketing initiatives. Among the best known of their pioneers is General Robert McDermott, former CEO of USAA, who transformed a sluggish and sloppy bureaucracy into an efficient, customer-focused financial service. McDermott advises companies carrying out these transitions to "make sure the people who are going to implement the plan are involved in the planning process. Let them discuss all the possible glitches, agree on a course of action and run a test." In another case, Paul Otte, president of Franklin University, in Columbus, Ohio, makes the startling argument that students should not be subjected to long registration lines, bureaucratic indifference, and absentee advisers. Instead, it is the job of the college administration to minimize hassles and support students in achieving their educational goals. The school’s Student Services Associate program matches each student with an adviser who helps him or her clarify goals, plan a program of study, and review progress. Organizations of many kinds are profiled, ranging from General Electric to Dick’s Supermarkets in Platteville, Wisconsin. The common link is the breaking of convention to serve the individual customer. The authors, partners at the Peppers and Rogers Group consulting firm, stress the difficulties and the benefits of changing a long-established business model. The conclude with guidelines for managers to build the case for change at their own organizations.
Quick Response: Managing the Supply Chain to Meet Consumer Demand, Bob Lowson, Russell King, and Alan Hunter, Chichester, John Wiley & Sons, 1999, 281 pages, $60.00 Nearing the millennium, observe the authors, we are undergoing a transition from a modernist to a postmodernist society. The new environment is characterized by the "pursuit of individualism" and by the "acceptance of ephemerality, fragmentation, discontinuity, chaos, and pluralism" — all of which affects the relationship among producers, retailers, and consumers. Rather than simply meeting basic needs, consumer products, from clothing to food to appliances, increasingly carry a "symbolic meaning" for buyers; they make a statement about a person’s identity and status. More and more, tastes and preferences are idiosyncratic, varied, and ever changing. To meet consumer demands, argue the authors, producers and retailers must adopt new approaches to their organizations and operations. They present Quick Response (QR) as a practical means for companies along the supply chain to satisfy customers and improve performance. The authors define QR as a "state of responsiveness and flexibility in which an organization seeks to provide a highly diverse range of products and services to a customer/consumer in the exact quantity, variety and quality, and at the right time, place and price as dictated by real-time customer/consumer demand." The following points underlie the authors’ discussion of QR: that conventional forecasting of consumer demand is futile in today’s chaotic environment; that all businesses within the supply system must properly analyze and act upon point-of-sale information to meet consumer demand; and that a responsive supply chain provides an alternative to costly sales promotions and discounts. Individual chapters look at management thinking in response to the changing consumer environment; the origins and development of QR; its application in variety of industries, including furniture, food, clothing, and the military; and implementation, the heart of the book. In addition, the authors discuss simulation studies that examine the impact of QR methodologies. Making clear that much learning is still needed, they conclude their discussion with suggestions for future research directions and implementation paths. Lowson is research director of the Quick Response Research Programme at Cardiff Business School. King is professor of industrial engineering at North Carolina State University. Hunter is visiting professor at North Carolina State University.
21st Century Logistics: Making Supply Chain Integration a Reality, Donald J. Bowersox, David J. Closs, and Theodore P. Stank, Michigan State University, Council of Logistics Management, 1999, 264 pages, $35.00 (members), $70.00 (nonmembers) By describing the travails of a fictional manager, Charlie Change, and his firm, Spartan Enterprises, the authors, professors at Michigan State University, demonstrate the challenges of supply chain integration, a key contributor to firm success. Their book aims to provide a "blueprint of operational and managerial behavior to achieve competitively superior logistics performance." Logistics, say the authors, is "the process of moving and positioning inventory to meet customer requirements at the lowest possible total landed cost." It includes the tasks of forecasting, customer service, transportation, warehousing, and inventory management. It is critical to an effective supply chain strategy. A research-based framework, called Supply Chain 2000, captures the elements of the logistics challenge. It consists of four flows: the product-service flow, from raw material provider to end customer; the market accommodation flow, which involves post sales-service administration; information flow, or the exchange of transaction and inventory data among supply chain partners; and cash flow, which can move from customer to firm or from firm to customer when rebates and promotions are involved. The effectiveness of these flows depends on six competencies, each having underlying capabilities. A chapter is devoted to each. For example, the customer integration competency entails building lasting relationships with customers of choice. Its drivers include a segmental focus, the ability to develop customer-specific programs; relevancy, the ability to meet existing needs and anticipate future needs; responsiveness, or accommodation to unique customer requests; and flexibility, being able to adapt to changing circumstances. Other competencies are in the areas as internal operations, coordination with material and service suppliers, technology, measurement, and human relationships. The latter part of the book examines change management, the key to making the transition from adequate to superior performance. The authors include a change process model to illustrate the magnitude of task facing the logistics change manager.
The Search for Meaning in Organizations: Seven Practical Questions for Ethical Managers, Moses L. Pava, Westport, Connecticut: Quorum Books, 1999, 162 pages, $55.00 Business ethics have long been misunderstood, argues Pava, professor at the Syms School of Business, Yeshiva University. Rather than catalog what actions a firm should or should not take, he maintains that business ethics and beliefs about life’s meaning are intertwined. With the goal of encouraging conversation, Pava explores issues of ethical decision making, fairness, the place of religion in business, and the measurement of business ethics, granting that the questions he raises have no simple, obvious answers. Defining business ethics is itself problematic, Pava explains, since a definition is linked to the way we look at business. Two views of the corporation guide the book’s discussion. The commodity-based view is readily familiar: businesses are tools to produce goods and services and to serve the interests of stakeholders. From an ethical perspective, businesses seek to exercise power within the constraints imposed by their obligations to stakeholders. "Business is business," this view suggests, cordoned off from the rest of life. The meaning-based view holds that, in addition to producing goods and services, a business "serves as a location where human beings interpret life’s meanings." People create businesses and are created by them. Our experiences in business influence "who we are and who we are becoming," thus raising the stakes of business decision making. Pava applies the two views widely, examining in one chapter, for example, the differences between decision making based on self-interest and decision making based on ethical appropriateness; another chapter explores the debate on whether human needs, particularly higher-level needs for self-actualization, really exist and what the different positions imply for business practice. In the end, Pava warns about the dangers of discounting either of the two views, criticizing economists who deny the quest for meaning and humanists who scorn the contributions of business. He believes that the meaning-based view must be strengthened and that the two perspectives are interdependent: "For many companies, higher levels of social responsibility lead to more profits. Consumer products can be designed not just to sell but to make consumers’ lives better. For many employees, work is already a kind of play."
The Age of Modularity: Using the New World of Modular Products to Revolutionize Your Corporation, Peter O’Grady, Iowa City: Adams and Steele Publishers, 1999, 247 pages, $49.75 Under the pressure of three powerful forces — the accelerating rate of technological change, the empowerment of customers, and increasing product complexity — companies are moving away from traditional mass production and are assembling their products from modules. Through this approach, they are reaping many benefits: greater product variety, shorter lead times, reduced capital requirements, and lower costs. According to O’Grady, so far most of these efforts have been ad hoc. He argues that modularity has underlying principles that can be applied across many industries. His purpose is to provide companies with a practical framework for modular products of all kinds. O’Grady does not minimize the effort involved in making the transition to modularity: "Organizations that are mired in the immobile world of mass production will need to transform completely the way in which they manage their organization, since a fluid and responsive management structure is needed." After providing an overview of the subject in Part I, he introduces and explores key elements and concepts in Part II — for example, defining architecture and interfaces, tracing the journey from early industrialization to modularity, explaining how modularity differs from conventional product development, and describing strategies for module integrators and module providers. In addition, he walks managers through a process for creating an appropriate management structure for modularity and for resolving supply chain problems. The final section of the book looks at products of the future and the modularity issues surrounding them, focusing on three types. Hard products have a physical presence — an automobile or an article of furniture. Soft products have a limited physical presence; examples include software, financial products, and customer service. Mixed products combine elements of the two; everyday appliances such as telephones, cameras, and radios will increasingly incorporate computing power. O’Grady supports each phase of the discussion with a variety of company and product examples.
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