Conference 7.286::digital

         It hurt in '88 but it hurts much more in '94. 
    What are we doing wrong? We've got [had] the best salespeople,service-
    people,products and partners. And yet....

	Since we are at History can somebody give me a pointer to a 
	fiction written by George VANTREEK (sp?) telling the life and
	dead (or rise and decay) of a company which looked very much like
	ours. Since Marketing lost its history I do not know were to
	go and find it.

	Thanks
	Jo�l

    How does it go(?).......Those who FAIL to learn from failures in the
                            past are DOOMED to repeat them.( For Digital
                            it is over and over and over again.)

    
    
    
    Re: .3
    Those who do not study historyt are doomed to repeat it...
    				Spengler???? German philosopher???
    Come on guys, somebody out there has a degree in philosophy!
    
    
    I re-read the whole report yesterday.  We included some direct customer
    and Digital manager quotations without attribution to give a flavor of
    some of the interviews.
    
    Statements made by Digital Managers about their customers during
    interviews.
    ==========================================================
    
    He's a volatile sleezeball.
    
    He's completely inflexible.
    
    He's a hothead.
    
    There's more payback to fixing problems than avoiding them.
    
    
    Statements made by customers about Digital during confidential interviews
    =========================================================================
    
    (I'm not going to list them all, just some of the most interesting
    ones)
    
    "Why do I have to do DEC's job for them"
    
    "You are sincere but inept."
    
    "Something is wrong: this is not the Digital I've been doing business
    with all these years."
    
    "I have to have two full time people jus to manage your administrative
    paperwork."
    
         and my two personal favorites
    
    "The only explanation I can think of for how this sale went is that the
    salesman had an undiagnosed brain tumor."
    
    "Digital explains what they won't do, not what they will do."
    
    As my base note stated DIGITAL knew these things a long time ago.  Many
    of us have worked and our working hard to improve them.  But it is such
    a struggle against the organization and the processes -- which ARE the
    RESPONSIBILITY of MANAGEMENT -- to improve how we treat our customers
    that I know if the team was recreated and went out to new customers, we
    would still hear similar things.
    
    So where do we go from here?  
    
    1) Empowerment of individuals at all levels of the company to do the
    right thing. 
    2) Training of individuals to understand what is the right thing for
    both the customer and Digital (see the dinosaur string for an example)
    3) A major reduction in the different types of things we sell.
    4) Understanding of who we are and what we sell. 
    
    
    1) Empowerment
    
    Those people who work with customers must be able to control the level
    of service required.  Those people who support those who work with
    customers must understand that their job exists solely because of that
    customer. Doing the right thing must again be a way of life for Digital
    employees. (See Anker's string on renewal)
    
    2) Training in Business Sense
    
    Empowerment works only in context.  If every sales rep or first line
    manager is driven only by customer satisfacton events then our
    customers' failures to plan will constitute emergencies on our parts and
    we will gyrate wildly, inefficiently, and unprofitably.  ICs & first
    line managers must be trained to understand when and how to respond.
    
    3) Reduce the number of things we sell.
    
    The hackneyed phrase here is "return to your core competencies".
    Hackneyed but true. We must focus and rebuild credibitility. I was
    having a discussion the other day about how big Digital will wind up
    being in terms of population.  One said 60,000 and another countered
    with 40,000.  I said it will go to 40,000 IF we don't get to 60,000
    fast enough. We must be the proper size to design, build, sell and
    deliver profitably what only we can provide the marketplace. 
    
    4) Understand who and what we are.
    
    Confusion is rampant within Digital.  Guess what: our customers can see
    it. Selling anything other than hardware and a small handfull of
    software products is a crap shoot -- who knows whether a given software
    product will be funded past next quarter? Who knows what delivery
    organization will provide what kinds of services? 
    
    This point is really a corollary of the previous point.  Simplify what
    we are so that we can understand it and the marketplace can understand
    it.  (Certainly a theme in this notesfile has been we lack a vision;
    this is another version of that discussion.)
    
    There are other things to say, but's getting late and I'll let others
    finish this off
    
    regards,
    
    johnb  

copied from an E-mail to me from a compatriot in Switzerland.  Neat....
    
    
    
                NEW ELEMENT DISCOVERED
    
    The heaviest element known to science was recently discovered by 
    university physicists.  The element, tentatively named 
    "ADMINISTRATIUM," has no proton or electrons and thus has an atomic 
    weight of 0.  However, it does have one neutron, 70 vice neutrons, and 
    161 assistant vice neutrons.  This gives it an atomic mass of 232.  
    These 232 particles are held together in a nucleus by a force that 
    involves the continuous exchange of meson-like particles called morons.
    
    Since it has no electron, Administratium is inert.  However, it can be 
    detected chemically, as it impedes every reaction it comes in contact 
    with.  According to researchers, a minute amount of Administratium, 
    added to one reaction, caused it to take four days to complete.  
    Without the Administratium, the reaction ordinarily occurred in less 
    than one second.
    
    Administratium has a normal half-life of approximately three years, at 
    which time it does not actually decay, but instead undergoes a 
    reorganization in which assistant neutrons, vice neutrons and assistant 
    vice neutrons exchange places. Studies seem to show the atomic number 
    actually increasing after each reorganization.
    
    Research indicates that Administratium occurs naturally in the 
    atmosphere.  It tends to concentrate in certain locations such as 
    government agencies, large corporations and universities. It can 
    usually be found in the newest, best-appointed and best-maintained 
    buildings.
    
    Scientists warn that Administratium is known to be toxic, and recommend 
    plenty of fluids and bed rest after even low levels of exposure.  
    Attempts are being made to determine how administratium can be 
    controlled to prevent irreversable damage, but results to-date are not 
    promising.
    
    

    
    RE: .5 Seen this ad nauseum.  Also the one about Digital order
    takers....er I mean sales reps.    
    
    
    Mike (who's been in administration for 8 years and is quite tired of
    the abuse)
             

    Mike.... I'm with you....
    
    I no longer tolerate the abuse.... I walk away...  just like those
    order takers do when I tell them we can't book a $1M order with a PO
    for $500K.... (and they wonder why 8^})
    
    Toodles....JP