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Conference 7.286::digital

Title:	The Digital way of working

Moderator:	QUARK::LIONELON

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

1981.0. "Why we succeeded" by GLDOA::KATZ (Follow your conscience) Mon Jul 13 1992 11:36

    
    This year our account group just had its most successful year ever. 
    We made more money this year with less people working in the group. 
    The reasons we were successful comes down to a few points.
    
    1. Our account manager is POSITIVE. He is always trying new
    ideas. He works hard and expects no less of us.
    
    2. We still have our DWT and DNT's. We also have a group devoted
    just to storage technology. Last year the groups took personnel
    hits but the groups were not destroyed. Since we still have all of
    these groups we can respond to customers immediately.
    
    3. We have created a NAS demonstration that wheels into a
    van. We take this van out to customer sites and wheel
    the demo directly into the customer's business. We demo pathworks
    for Ultrix, VMS, MAC and OS/2. We also demo lotus, WP, DECwrite
    windows and mail and network management. The interoperability demos 
    blow customers away. You should have seen us last year at the IBM 
    users group. ;)
     
    4. Equality is the norm. This year for example, Maritz points
    were handed out equally to all support personnel. No one got
    more or less then anyone else.
    
    5. We are an all for one and one for all group. Prima Donnas
    are not tolerated nor do they succeed in this environment.
    
    We have made our numbers for the last few years. This year is 
    the most satisfying because we are in the heart of the
    recession, Detroit, and succeeded in spite of the economy and
    our own internal woes.
    
    
    			-Jim-

T.R	Title	User	Personal Name	Date	Lines
1981.1	..the net is 0	SWAM1::MEUSE_DA		`Mon Jul 13 1992 12:09`	7
	Good news:Thanks for the great performance, much like our's out west. Bad news: All those dollars will be eaten up by our expense/cost monster overall as a whole.
1981.2	Sounds like good management to me	NEWVAX::PAVLICEK	Zot, the Ethical Hacker	`Mon Jul 13 1992 14:25`	16
	re: .0 Sounds like the points outlined can be summed up in the statement: "we succeeded because of good management". The role of management is to facilitate the output from the worker level. Your management appears to have removed the roadblocks to success and has consistently allowed people to point out and change problems in "the system". It also appears that your management keeps people pointed in the right direction. Sounds great. We need more groups following this example. -- Russ
1981.3		JMPSRV::MICKOL	We won with Xerox in '92	`Mon Jul 13 1992 20:10`	11
	I am also a member of a successful corporate account group that has a positive manager, equality, no prima donnas, etc. Being part of a true team has provided me with the most satisfying work environment in many years. The entrepreneurial spirit has worked for us. I commend that author's group described in .0. We need more account groups with that kind of leadership. Regards, Jim Xerox Account Group Rochester, NY
1981.4	Bravissimo!!!	COUNT0::WELSH	If you don't like change, teach Latin	`Tue Jul 14 1992 03:40`	19
	Great work! Well done, and thanks! We need more account teams to work this way. The bit that caught my attention was that about creating an NAS demo and taking it around. In my opinion (fwiw) if all our account teams were competent to create, install and use such a demo, it would be a bigger step towards saving the company than anything done "at a high level". Including the whole entrepreneurial reorganisation (nice though it may be). In the UK, however, most account teams I have spoken to think that being "entrepreneurial" means they have to stick to business wheeling and dealing and buying lunches, leaving all that techy stuff to people they hire in from resource centres. At $900 a day internal rates, however, the resource centre people don't look all that attractive, so the account teams don't use them. So they get made redundant... /Tom
1981.5		LIKWOW::PACE		`Tue Jul 14 1992 18:31`	21
	Hi Folks Just thought I'd add a few words from the Los Angeles Govt. District. Here we are in the heart of depressed Southern California, Aerospace industry is in the pits, etc, etc...... Our entire district has been organized as a team for the last two years. Takes a lot of explaining, but basically no individual budgets, sales reps and support treated as equally as the system allows, clear plan and definitions about operating as a team.... This years results.. Budget -- 83,290,000 Actual -- 101,008,000 for 121% We can make it work..... It took creativity, we sold everything we could, including some of our manufacturing capability (we are going to build boards for an aerospace company doing a commercial venture).
1981.6	FWIW, Russ Gullotti is passing around preliminaty numbers of ...	YUPPIE::COLE	Is this a rut we're in, or a LOOONG grave????	`Wed Jul 15 1992 09:05`	3
	... $70M over Q4 forecast for revenue, and growth of 10+% for Digital Services. Yearly budget was missed by 3%, so they had targeted about 13% growth! No other details, like expenses, certs, backlog, etc.