Managing Systems Migrations and Upgrades: Demystifying the Technology Puzzle

Managing Systems Migrations and Upgrades

Demystifying the Technology Puzzle

Charles V. Breakfield

Roxanne E. Burkey

Table of Contents

Cover image

Title page

Copyright

Dedication

Introduction

Chapter 1: Outside Looking In

1.1 Problem signs and how we got here

1.2 Outside review for problem identification

1.3 Reliability factors

1.4 Evaluation points

Chapter 2: Marketplace Pulse

2.1 Positioning for technology change

2.2 Technology companies’ market value: Perceived or actual

2.3 Real costs and enterprise costs

2.4 Opportunists and entrepreneurs

2.5 Strategic alliances and manufacturing shifts

2.6 Enterprise positioning for competitive advantage

2.7 Dominating market share

2.8 Technology drivers

2.9 Technology time continuum

2.10 Cost versus risk factors

Chapter 3: Selling Cycle

3.1 Manufacturers need new-generation products

3.2 Competitive market shifts

3.3 Figures don’t lie—ROI versus CLIR

3.4 Renting versus buying technology

3.5 Outsourced support—someone else’s problem

3.6 Change forced by obsolete technology

3.7 Selling visionware—first mover advantage

Chapter 4: Development Cycle

4.1 The technology treadmill

4.2 Project life cycle—historical comparison

4.3 Early adopter issues

4.4 Condensing the product cycle—beta testing

4.5 Technical support and tech transfer—enterprise side

4.6 Staff motivation—maintaining technology skills

4.7 Downtime minimized

Chapter 5: The Migration Process

5.1 Typical problems with migrations

5.2 If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it

5.3 Evaluating problem existence for technology resolution

5.4 Evaluating and dealing with disruption potential

5.5 Upgrade process: How to digest technology disruption

5.6 Necessary control points to maintain

5.7 Technology manufacturers and developers explore the changes

5.8 Technical training: End users and technology staff

5.9 Managing and evaluating change—end-user expectations

Chapter 6: Technology Shortfall Impact

6.1 Technical pyramid collapse

6.2 Developers face pressure at the core-product level

6.3 Shortened payback schedule on equal or broader capabilities

6.4 Hybrid designs rarely available from a single vendor

6.5 Expanding enterprise worker disconnected technical gap

6.6 Complexity level determines change impact

Chapter 7: Support Issues

7.1 Service bureaus

7.2 Problem diagnostics to apply valid technology changes

7.3 Application providers

7.4 Software for rent houses

7.5 Outsource providers for technical communications

7.6 Management and end users—technology challenged

7.7 How to get and keep trained staff: Staff loyalties versus demands

7.8 Back-end technologies: Heterogeneous environments

Chapter 8: Move-Forward Model

8.1 Hybrid solutions—open systems

8.2 Move-forward model and manufacturer process changes

8.3 Quality products, manufacturer survival

8.4 Recovery in the face of disaster

8.5 Technology-communications disconnect

8.6 End-user perceptions

Chapter 9: Summary Findings

A: Glossary

B: References

Attributations

Index

About the Authors

Copyright

Copyright © 2002, Elsevier Science (USA). All rights reserved.

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Dedication

Thanks to all my girls for their support and endurance while I wrote. Special thanks goes to my old master, Terry Gardner.

Charles Breakfield

When one undertakes a project of this sort, it is important to have the support of those who are close. I am most lucky to have helpful, supportive, cooperative males in my life that have made it possible for me to focus on this effort. My guys hold a dedicated place in my heart above all others. Special thanks to my coauthor, without whom there would be no humor between these covers.

Roxanne Burkey

Introduction

Technology is exciting, especially for those who have been in the industry for more than 10 years. It is also a lot of fun. Where else can one work for 36 straight hours to repair Web servers mangled by yet another virus and, at the same time, get groused at by hundreds of fellow employees for turning off Internet access while fixing the problem? What other career path can cause early balding tendencies, male or female, even when they are not a part of the family genetics? Not everything about technology is good or bad, but it is always a constantly changing and evolving challenge. Enterprise information technology (IT) managers face the daunting task these days of not only understanding which technologies are required to maintain a competitive edge, but also how all the offerings may or may not fit into a given environment. It is no small matter to decide which technology platforms and functionality to base an enterprise’s IT infrastructure on, but the many issues surrounding implementation, maintenance, and future migrations must all be considered. Added to that, the ever-changing landscape of technology players in the marketplace increases the challenge of the technology puzzle.

There are many synonyms for the word puzzle, including mystery, dilemma, brainteaser, problem, and challenge. Each of these describes the technology puzzle pieces discussed in this book, and each brings on a bad case of fear, uncertainty, and doubt in many of us facing the options for technology solutions. Unfortunately, it seems that advertising hype has captured many of our imaginations and given us the expectation that we can have it all and have it delivered with 60-day billing. The reality may fall somewhat short of that expectation.

Things sound so good when quickly said, and promises abound. Those of you who have said or heard the words, Oh no, I admire you for your mind, and I will respect you in the morning, know what we are talking about. In highly sophisticated technology regions, the promises of the advertising that surrounds technology are very attractive and seductive. A single device, the cell phone, can promise connections anywhere, anytime, with no problems. Nice thought, but what about the high mountains of New Mexico or Arizona, or perhaps when one is visiting Japan? Services at those times are not quite what the user expects. The user immediately wonders, why is that? and thinks, this is not right.

The Internet is such a wonder. It can be anything to everyone and everywhere all at the same time. It has been said about the Internet, however, that you can find anything and everything there, except profits. How did we make the quantum leap from third-world countries striving to feed the starving to exploring the world through the Internet? How can regions of the world that barely provide phone connections promise contact with the outer bounds of information from around the globe? Do we really believe as individuals that all these things are here now, today, or are we laying the foundation of what is possible tomorrow? More importantly, where are the lines between reality and the promises of the future?

Technology is a mystery that needs exploring to flush out all of the capabilities and discover new paths to more technology. To get there though, we need to use what is available, find the flaws, and then create more capabilities. The route is not clearly chartered, and the pitfalls come from running before walking. As far as technology has expanded, even with the changes so rapid that it is increasingly hard for an individual to maintain pace, there is so much farther to go. It may not make sense to apply even the best technological inroads to a given enterprise environment, since these may not provide solutions to current problems. Giving up, however, is not the answer. As with any great mystery, it is necessary to find the edge of the envelope, to keep pushing and trying harder, and, yes, to expect even more—including profits from the Internet.

From an enterprise’s perspective, the dilemma is which of today’s technologies to apply to improve business processes and how. It takes a curious, yet strong individual at the head of an IT department to look with an open mind at what technology has to offer and determine whether it really has a place in the enterprise’s environment. If this were really easy, then anyone could do it. Not everyone both understands the now, however, and can plan for the when. The realities of budget constraints and investment paybacks are clearly important when designing e-business strategies. The choices are vast, and the consequences enormous: mistakes end careers.

The brainteaser portion of the puzzle has to do with the right application of technology at the right time with a level of commitment that ensures success. The IT manager who researches available products is faced with more questions and concerns about which directions technology will take the enterprise data environment. The heart of the matter, which competing businesses must understand, is the problem of technology disconnect. Enterprises are bombarded by technology-knowledge vendors racing to become the market leaders in the unknown spaces of technology.

Make no mistake: It is warfare at its most primal. These up-and-coming or sustained warriors are fighting to gain market share by assembling the most knowledgeable workers, with the best expertise, to enable claims to market dominance. Competition is so fierce that normal positioning includes sales in advance of even the old technology becoming outdated. Technology leaders, including Nortel Networks, Microsoft, IBM, and even Cisco, focus competition on the next generation of technology or the new upgrade. The next upgrade’s acceptance and purchase provide the funding for research and development (R&D) for the next generation of technology shifts. Unfortunately, this practice traps organizations, sometimes repetitively, into promising technology within time frames they fail to meet. Dealing with the complexities of technology only after it is installed is simply not desirable; these must be dealt with in real time.

Technology R&D competition has become so heated that building technology is not as fast as buying technologies in the form of small startup or single-focused companies. In business, the age-old question of whether to buy or build when it comes to R&D investment is still pertinent, particularly in the technical world. It would appear that buying companies for technology during periods of hyperactive economic growth is the approach to take. The downside risk factor to consider is that, during economic downturns, a company may have to sell off its aggressively acquired acquisitions at a reduced market valuation for needed cash. (Translation: We took a bath on buying that company and then selling it.) Buying high and selling low is to be avoided, partially because during an up-scale economy, acquiring required technology through acquisition is easy with stock as a part of the purchase. Downturns demonstrate that some technologies are simply not critical, right or wrong. Another, more significant factor is the psychological perception that everything depends upon getting there first and being number 1 or number 2.

The problem piece of the puzzle deals with the economic downturns. This piece might influence an enterprise to choose to build the technology required, even if it means proceeding at a slower pace. The creative force and vision of so many are not depleted simply because the coffers are not as full. Often overlooked here is the benefit that the pain of integrating different corporate cultures and properly digesting an acquisition are avoided, making development teams stronger in some ways. This does make one question whether acquisitions and mergers ever really work to create a better, more synergistic organization or as ploys to eliminate target competitors. The sum of the total and the weakest link adages both come into play.

The riddle factor at play invokes the questions: Where does one go? and Why?, which equate to the questions: What is known now? and What will be known tomorrow? The time-value of knowledge is much like the time-value of money, except that they work inversely to each other. Money, invested over time, will yield wealth when patience is also applied. Knowledge, particularly technical knowledge, loses value over increasingly shortened time lines. Yesterday’s knowledge is not as valuable as tomorrow’s knowledge. The technology of the 1970s and 1980s, while so expensive at its introduction, is nothing more than a collector’s item today. Even yesterday’s Wall Street Journal analysis has little value compared with next week’s unwritten analysis. Time is the eternal enemy of technical knowledge, and moving faster through the development and deployment phases is the only way for a company to turn technical knowledge into wealth.

Knowledge should not be confused with information. The marketing of information has little or no value, since most anyone can do it. Witness the unfortunate outcome of the many dotcoms and Internet service providers (ISPs) that raced, invested, set up cyberbusinesses, and were summarily destroyed. The authors here are fierce proponents of small business and entrepreneurs, and the untimely demise of these enterprises due to poor planning and undercapitalization is sad. If an enterprise, regardless of its product or service, cannot delight customers, as well as provide value, then its business proposition is nothing but a gimmick doomed to be swept away. The irony, however, is that knowledge, whether proprietary or restricted, at some point has a high propensity for becoming simply information.

Enterprises that do not look to push the knowledge boundaries in their business plans will only be functioning as information dealers, such as ISPs and retail stores. There is nothing wrong with these businesses, but because they are built on common information, the marketplace does not reward their business plans in the same way it does the limited-knowledge businesses, such as technology manufacturers or developers. The information businesses rushing to opening cyberdoors in the mid-1990s ignored the value proposition key to every business’s survival: Does this particular business knowledge provide value to potential buyers, or is this just another marketing gimmick?

Without a monopoly on knowledge status, information companies cannot survive. Witness the struggle of the ISPs, ASPs, and even AT&T against the incumbent local exchange carriers (ILEC). The startup business model of the 1990s has continued to impact the economy and has added to the technology confusion. The expanding business environment gave false signals of security and allowed usually prudent businesspeople and entrepreneurs to gamble on the information, rather than the knowledge, side of the technical environment.

Rather than being based on solid, defined business plans and significant solvency with adequate purchase capital, today’s new business approach is often optimized through hopeful technology stock in place of actual cash reserves. This printing of money in the form of stock and using it to finance purchases of small or startup companies is the high-tech version of the prelude to the 1929 stock market crash. Arguably, irrational speculation caught up with the market in the year 2001, as it did with investors in 1929. The trend of valuing stock in terms of anticipated returns rather than actual earnings has led to the reclassification of enterprises as either old or new economy in an attempt to explain why earnings rules do not apply to new-economy enterprises. A speculative economy has a history of harsh corrections and is a poor foundation for the long term. As a result, a major, established enterprise may find itself competing with the technology startup enterprise in a different manner. It is not a level playing field and the economic downturn of 2001 demonstrates its harshness.

Reality check: The stock market returned to its senses at the end of 2000 and reminded everyone in 2001 that speculation in the new-economy stocks was just as subject to gravity as speculation in the old-economy stocks was. Get-rich-quick schemes dissolved, and investors remembered that corporate earnings, not technologies, are the reason to invest. The ISPs without monopolies or without valued or restricted knowledge were written into the history books marked as casualties.

Regardless of the times, poor business practices are simply that—poor. Technology, such as any other poorly planned enterprise investment not based on valid sound reasoning, is doomed to failure. This book explores the planning tools and ideas to consider with technology to help arm IT professionals with an understanding of the basics, which are somehow skimmed over by creative advertising campaigns and media hype. Sound investments are always based on either saving or making dollars for the enterprise. This does not always mean immediate returns, but the reasoning and realistic time lines for returns cannot be overlooked simply for the sake of technology.

Resilient is the human spirit, and technology plays to the thoughts and creativity without raising barriers to design and ideas. The reality barriers still exist. The time between the formulation of the idea for telecommunications, to the placing of the first actual rough call, to the day the average person could take advantage of the telephone services at a business and personal level spanned years. Personal computers (PCs) and networks, on the other hand, were rapidly accepted and refined for business and personal use. So, a look at an enterprise’s current environment and how it formed its current configuration is an important part of the technology puzzle.

The information age was launched on the foundation of telecommunications and basic office machinery, followed by enterprise-wide data access with the introduction of mainframes. Mainframe environments were developed primarily for military purposes and included lots of rules and rigid processes. The information access rules and processes were eventually perceived as barriers and even fiefdoms. PCs and the ability to push information out to more and more educated, talented, and creative people provided the means for technology to make things easier in an enterprise’s environment. Things that took dozens of man-hours could be programmed into machines and take seconds. The shape of the workflow and ability of the enterprise to focus on products and services to customers has been significantly changed by the addition of technology. Each layer of technology adds the potential to free people up to think and create.

The local area network (LAN) and wide area network (WAN) environments and PCs have once again come to be viewed as fiefdoms of disparate information caches without continuity. So, a look at how technology is not only perceived today, but its impact on the leadership potential of a given enterprise is a part of what is discussed. To a degree, the history of how the enterprise arrived at its current state is important to understanding where it is able to go and how much that change will cost in dollars and internal turmoil. An enterprise’s greatest asset is the people that are pulling together as a team to create the optimum output of goods or services for customers. Technology is best positioned to complement, rather than inhibit, that potential. A look at some of the events that shape today’s environments where technology is prevalent is a key aspect of this book.

Technology is a demanding child, however. It requires continual care and encouragement to provide the best results. It is typically expensive and consumes both time and attention. The results, however, are usually worth it. The challenges it poses continually make one think, plan, and push the edge to get that extra bandwidth here or processing power there. Human creativity thrives on the possibility of applying technologies to solve problems that do not yet exist. The reality, though, is that when applied correctly, technology solves many problems that did not exist for our grandparents or parents; when incorrectly applied, it is expensive from all aspects. Today’s global population is more educated than ever before. With that expansion in education comes the thirst for knowledge and ideas. Technology applied to any and every industry is a great quencher of that thirst using some good and some poor ideas to reach visions of where technology is headed.

Many enterprises contain technology situations that include varied components with potential interoperability issues, some due to poor design, but many resulting from acquisitions and mergers. The evaluation and resulting migration strategies are discussed from various perspectives throughout the book. With the varied number of situations, there is no one formula to which all enterprises or IT Managers can subscribe. That is not to say that the marketing information does suggest that each solution will fit every need, but, as with clothes, one size fits all boasts considerably change the appearance of each individual. An enterprise’s needs, strategies, and internal and external dynamics are chaotic in nature, requiring a differing level of positioning for technology. To meet this, risk assessment as well as knowing what can be given up and what should not be compromised are also discussed in order to provide a frame of reference for better decision making.

The goal, then, of this effort is to provide broader insights and ideas to consider and apply to technology changes of a specific enterprise. This accumulation of information and experience is not designed as a textbook that is a total guide. To be quite honest, technology is not that rigid. Instead, we offer history, antidotes, tools, plans, real examples, and opinions focused on functional requirements as well as possible areas of impact. We also focus on where technology is moving and how that migration overall is impacted by technology’s global reach and individual acceptance of the value added by technology.

Chapter 1 provides perspective and permits a view that is often too close for the average IT person to see when within an enterprise environment. Chapter 2 looks into what drives technological trends and how to cope with the increased volume of choices and changes. Chapter 3 offers a look at how R&D drives the technology cycle and why it is an important phase of the technology changes planned for an enterprise. Chapter 4 discusses how market economy is driven by designs and selling today, positioning for tomorrow. Chapter 5 focuses on what to expect with technology changes and how to brace for the impact of both voluntary and involuntary changes. With all the disjointed information surrounding the choices available, Chapter 6 discusses where some of the gotchas arise for the IT professional making technology-buying decisions. Chapter 7 discusses the myriad resources and expertise required to fit various technology configurations. Support for technology is available in many flavors, and the proper combination is based on the specific enterprise’s needs. Finally, Chapter 8 considers the latest in the technology front: primary directions for technology and what the drivers are for the future.

If, by the time the reader reaches the end of the book, he or she has laughed some, learned a little, or thought of just one thing to make an environment more conducive to technology change with a little less pain, then we have done our job. Recognizing the need to make the information useful to the geek, the business guru, the IT manager, the CEO, and the CIO, as well as to Jane Doe, we pushed the mix of information to let readers take the pieces wanted. Enjoy!

1

Outside Looking In

Enterprises are faced with rising costs in technology and difficulty deciding what changes to make and which technology to embrace. The volatility of the stock market over the last few years, together with the spread of blame from telecom, to technology, to dotcoms, compounds the confusion. The practice of stepping back and reviewing a situation or seeing it through someone else’s eyes often helps clarify the view. Issues and concerns are worldwide and many groups are wrestling with how to master the use of technology. Mistakes are natural and they are either dealt with or ignored. It is important to look at what is happening all around to gain a better insight of the choices available that present the best options.

Business leaders meet annually to discuss the directions of business in the global economy. Insights from these enterprise leaders indicate that technology is spawning new challenges, as well as opportunities for change, not only in how business is conducted now, but how it needs to position itself to conduct business in the future. Rapid changes brought on by the Internet’s ability to level the playing field for business is part of the solution and part of the problem. Building the foundations within an organization to battle the new competitors and maintain a reasonable profit margin is difficult in these times. Understanding the leading issues can help determine the position of the enterprise relative to other global organizations.

The largest concern to the technology group within any enterprise is the reliability of the services provided to internal and external users. Customers, vendors, and staff need to know the information required is available and accurate. Existing systems that cast doubt on performance or access to information are not acceptable. Increasing the ability to automate mundane functions while freeing up human resources to deal with problems and resolve issues is critical. An enterprise’s ability to respond reliably to the needs of its users is poised to face today’s global challenges businesses.

Once positioned for technology changes, an enterprise must remember that all changes require careful planning. The changes that result from mergers and acquisitions are the most difficult to mesh from a technology standpoint. Review of the cost, time, impact on the organization, interoperability within the environment, and reliability is critical to success. Changes, especially in the area of technology, impact the enterprise at many levels from internal functionality to end-customer interactions. Information technology professionals are asking for failure when they take on changes that are poorly thought out or planned on the fly. From the foundational information provided in this section, one can gain insight as to what enterprises are facing and the reality of changes over the last 20 years that are impacting businesses. A big picture view of the evolution of technology and where to go from here is a part of being outside and looking in.

1.1 Problem signs and how we got here

To the person on the street, the world of technology must seem a confusing, even mysterious, stream of events, breakthrough announcements, product introductions, initial public offerings (IPOs), and acquisitions. Computerized day traders push and pull the NASDAQ index up and down by invading, then retreating against, technology stocks. While visiting a Web-based day-trading company, a manager exclaimed, Oh no, the technology stock I put my mother-in-law in just fell through the floor. Oh well. Then, he asked associates if they knew of the company and what its business focus was. It is not surprising to hear novices, boasting of their latest trades, indicate that the neat technology advertising efforts drove the stock-trading frenzy. If asked questions about a particular company’s technology and whether it played a part in the selection process or even the importance of the stated earning per share, most typical responses include a blank stare. Technology is moving too fast, and now the impact is too great to simply accept directions. The shift in the telecom market segment between 1998 and 2000, as indicated in Figure 1.1, is in line with the shift in the technology market overall.

Figure 1.1 Telecom industry market shift, 1998 to 2000.

For these novices, the herding instinct is very strong. They know very little of the underlying technology, but they want very much to participate in the action. Unfortunately, the underlying explanation of what is really going on in an exciting and very enigmatic industry does not mean much to those outside the technical industry. Many technology-savvy professionals find it difficult to qualify or explain their jobs to outsiders, and when asked what they do, they might say they manage 1s and 0s rather than try to explain in detail. Even within the confines of the technology industry, professionals are introduced as gurus for particular technologies or processes. As a result, the depth and breadth of technology is unclear to outsiders, but it is terribly interesting as well as something that everyone is talking about.

With regard to particular products or unique technologies, the drill is usually to enlist a specialist’s input as the final word on the subject. Since there are so many specialty technologies and because no one can be an authority on everything, enterprises have come to depend upon these technical gunslingers to deliver the final word, and all decisions flow from that event. The problem becomes quite troublesome when technical knowledge is replaced by personal charisma. When this happens, CEOs of technical companies make directional or visionary statements that tend to be accepted at face value by enterprises. This is not to say that these industry leaders are being intentionally deceptive, merely that they are trying to forward technology focus for profitability. When decisions are made with a limited knowledge base to evaluate what is being said, the tendency is to accept such statements and operate as though the decisions are absolute.

Since the advent of the computer age, with its promise to make things better as well as easier, people have been compelled to accept the promise of technology’s contribution as a market mainstay. There is an old joke about a bank statement calculation extracted from a computer and given to a customer who exclaimed, This can’t be right! The teller calmly states that the statement has just been pulled off the computer and how could the computer be wrong? The customer goes away shaking his head saying, Yeah, how could the computer be wrong?

Actually, there are several ways. Do you recall the computational error in the first-generation Intel Pentium chips? What if the input was incorrect or the output was tampered with? If you accept the output source as flawless and 100% accurate all the time, then the information must also be flawless. If you have no way to check the output or to gauge its accuracy, you are stuck. Nontechnology people today are forced to accept statements from technology professionals without question, because they lack the necessary background information to challenge those who are in a position to know. Humans have long recognized that they cannot know everything about everything. Therefore, they depend upon experts and leaders to provide missing information to make appropriate decisions. In the case of technology, which is advancing at such rapid rates, one needs to ask the following questions. Where do the experts and industry leaders get their information? What happens when the experts disagree or contradict one another?

The old adage is true: people don’t buy from companies; they buy from people, particularly from people they believe and trust. That, however, does not mean that those people are always correct in their advice. The analysts today review the status of technology providers and offer insight to the public on what is right and wrong. If the information is not reviewed from multiple perspectives, then the accuracy of the decision is questionable. Investment in technology, either for a personal portfolio or as the next step in an enterprise’s technology expansion, must be based on accurate information.

1.2 Outside review for problem identification

Globally, enterprise leaders are assessing the status of their particular industries and enterprises. The measurement for the assessment is based on many factors, with the strongest focus being on competitive position. Currently the competitive focus is looking toward the Internet and its increasing promise to level the playing field for enterprises to compete fairly worldwide. The importance of the Internet to workers, peer enterprises, and competitors is strongest in the European and the Asia-Pacific markets, where greater speed and flexibility are in higher demand. As a consequence of the Internet, technology is transforming industries and commerce overnight with enhanced business productivity and customer value-added functionality. Enterprises are trying to harness new technologies, adapt products, respond to customer needs, and expand mergers and alliances rapidly, while retaining and expanding their customer bases. Clearly, those enterprises that can effectively apply technology changes will survive.

For example, help-desk costs are skyrocketing in most organizations. With the increasing complexity of distributed assets and the proliferation of mobile users, organizations are looking for ways to minimize costs for user support without compromising high-level service expectations. Table 1.1 lists some ways to reduce help-desk support costs.

Table 1.1

Help-Desk Tools to Explore

Implement software and processes for scanning PCs remotely on demand to improve the help-desk staff’s efficiency and ability to solve user problems without making a trip to the desktop.

Develop and publish standard desktop configurations.

Identify and remove nonstandard installed hardware or software.

Use remote control (i.e., Timbuktu) to avoid visits to the desktop to solve more problems more quickly.

In a survey conducted by The Conference Board of 506 CEOs around the world in late 2000, 33% of responders cited downward pressure on prices and 32% reported maintaining technology-skilled workers as major obstacles. Conference attendees agreed the three fronts requiring battle plans by enterprises over the next 5 years were, not surprisingly, increasing competition from all sectors, the Internet, and the effects of consolidation. To one degree or another, each of these fronts was marked as a major cause of growth obstacles. This survey also indicates that the global regional impacts are varied owing to the respective economic and globalization changes. Industry restructuring by consolidation efforts and the impact of the Internet affect economic growth, market expansion, and ultimately the demand for technology-skilled workers. The trends are toward smaller, focused business units situated closer to the market in hopes of increasing agility and bettering an enterprise’s position to respond to the rapidly changing market. In general, strategies and contingency plans for product introduction and growth must respond much more quickly to these changes. The old business standard of planning 2 to 5 years ahead is only acceptable if immediate shifts and changes are possible in response to market shifts.

According to the survey, each business size has its benefits as well as its limitations. Focusing on business-to-business (B2B) relationships, smaller enterprises with more personalized services are more agile and responsive to the needs of customers, whereas giant enterprises offer a foundation for centralized purchases, discounts, and global services to customers. The effect of global enterprise access is uncertain, as the rules of engagement remain partially undefined. This is creating entry barriers to some markets. The increase in some markets, along with better information flow, is forcing increased competition on price points alone. Even with the push toward developing better customer relationships, the liberal use of the Internet in the current market environment is forcing prices for most consumer goods down.

Increased access to and use of the Internet for B2B, as well as consumer-to-business models, is not only driving prices down, but also generating higher customer expectations for services at a lower cost. Web presence is vital to competing, and North America has the jump on strategy as well as those emerging integrator firms specializing in e-business strategy development. Enterprises are seeing success, learning from the failures of Internet businesses, and rapidly adopting strategies to gain fair share of the $10 billion in Internet sales volume expected between 2001 and 2003.

With analysts pointing to many industries as being overcapacity, together with the impact of eroding pricing power, many firms (especially in manufacturing and commodities) are increasing their reach by increasing their size and, thereby, their product offering. Acquisition is the primary vehicle for accomplishing this, especially for mature industries. Acquisitions, however, bring new problems to the enterprise. Ultimately, primary customer relationships are jeopardized during merger and acquisition activities. Although larger companies seek growth through acquisition, mid-cap companies seem to position themselves to either acquire or be acquired, or they reduce themselves to small niche players (Figure 1.2).

Figure 1.2 Enterprise evolution wheel.

These demands for innovation place a larger call for skilled technology workers. Fierce competition to hire or retain this critical asset is generating an ever-widening problem of higher-risk and higher-gain relationships between staff and the enterprise. Table stakes often demand greater hiring bonuses, stock options, and work-time flexibility, which many large firms are as positioned to optimize as an IPO or new marketplace entrant. General market uncertainty also has many knowledge workers riding out the storm to watch for security and stability before shifting enterprises. Western-style speed, innovation, and responsiveness have led to far better corporate and economic growth rates over European and Asia-Pacific-based firms.

The technical talent hiring, however, is increasing operating costs driven by high salaries offered by technology companies and the entire services sector, including media/communications, finance, business/professional services, and the healthcare industries.

Emerging fallout now occurring with the push to acquire talented staff is that the focus is too much on technology talent as opposed to leadership talent. Skilled technology talent is now sought across industry lines, as more and more enterprises are using technology to drive their competitive edge. Higher salaries are causing headcount reductions. This seems to permit a lowering overall in the enterprise’s leadership talent with the vision to look at business issues and use technology to meet needs. Technology for the sake of technology is not giving the enterprise the full positioning or direction needed to face global competition.

To meet today’s economic and marketing challenges, enterprises must increase customer loyalty, speed to market, and flexibility, and they must retain, as well as compete for, talent, especially technology-skilled talent. Corporate mergers and consolidations are wreaking havoc with customer retention. The relationship that customers create with various firms may or may not be a part of the cultural change that occurs with acquisitions. Customers in turn are more demanding, requiring broader services and significant price considerations for single-vendor solutions, especially for technology purchases. There is, however, a tendency to stay with localized businesses and known branding, owing in part to the level of service expected from local providers or known brands. Customers are increasingly requiring technology support and services as enterprises add more customized solutions.

Drivers for change then include both technology triggers and economic conditions. Older, established enterprises are forced to compete in new ways for talent and customer retention. Greater deployment of technology tools that effect the outcome of business practices plays across all industries as well as the primary global regions and is driving enterprises often not to think out all of the available options, but to focus instead on the current hype. Older styles of management and organizational structures are impediments to the kind of agility required by companies competing in these times. Enterprises that contain leadership, as well as knowledgeable technical professionals with a clear understanding of core competencies, will find more sustainable positions in this highly chaotic global market.

1.3 Reliability factors

Reliability has a personal meaning to most people, since it is based on expectations. For example, one expects to hear a dial tone when picking up a phone or the car to start when the key is turned. In years gone by, when a telephone call was placed, a local operator asked to whom you wanted to speak and made the connection from a switchboard. For a while folks missed having that operator ask questions or make chitchat before placing the call, but things change. Now, if an operator were required to place calls, the telephone company’s workforce would quadruple. Today, the telephone is relied upon for personal communication and its unavailability becomes a major annoyance. A large portion of the workforce commonly expects the use of cellular or wireless phones.

Technological changes have impacted the daily lives of people around the world, primarily in a drive to automate functions and provide more time for humans to pursue other, more meaningful activities. In the United States, the efficiency derived from automated processes has made functioning without power almost painful. From basic household chores to office work, the impact is a wonder when one reflects on how far technology has come. Dishes are rarely washed by hand, and sitting around to listen to the radio broadcast for Saturday night’s War of the Worlds or running next door to chat with a neighbor are not the common pastimes once enjoyed. Now the dishwasher takes care of the dirty work and MTV and the Internet are much more fascinating. Again, the expectation is that the TV is working, that all channels are available, and that with the Internet one can know all and see all. The focus has shifted to rely upon access to those applications of technology.

Still, many questions remain unanswered for the technology consumer. Why is a U.S. cell phone not functional in Japan? Why does it matter if a PC operates with Windows 95, Windows NT, or Solaris? Why is the network so slow? Why is it that UNIX is considered so much better than Windows NT, yet Microsoft has the market share? What is all the fuss about ISO compliance, standards, and certification? Why is it so hard to make changes to my computer at work and so easy at home? Understanding the extra factors of the work environment, its added layers of complexity, and why things change so fast is a part of looking at the changes needed, the affordability of those changes, and their impacts.

New technology is usually terrific at first blush. The promises of new functionality, time saved, increased capacity, or a lighter workload from additional flashy, lighty things are easy to believe. We are a society that consumes technological improvements as quickly as they come onto the scene, and the byword is that the newest gadget is just right for that special someone. Gadgets and toys are an ideal way to gain technology acceptance. The young have less inherent barriers to change or new ideas than adults do. Look at the evolution of one type of activity and the impact of technology: Pinball machines gave way to Pac-Man, which gave way to Game Boy, which gave way to Play Station. Each change brought on greater complexity and greater challenge. Costs increased at each step of development, but the value to the consumer increased as well. With pinball, the challenge was to shake the machine just right to win without causing a tilt, while the Play Station game’s multiple levels require memory, logic, passwords, and progressive skill use.

Technology applications in business are similar. The comptometer, adding machines, and typewriters were decisively radical additions to the office environment; yet, in today’s offices you will rarely find either these devices or the staff dedicated to performing these activities. Additionally, administrative assistants, who today rarely type communiqués for their bosses, have replaced secretaries. Most of those capabilities and functions have been pushed to the individual using a PC, which has revolutionized the office environment and impacted how business is conducted.

When PCs were introduced into the office environment, they were not highly relied upon to complete job responsibilities. If the PC was not behaving during the day, other activities filled the time until the dataprocessing department fixed the problem. Things have changed though, and the demands on technology for performance have steadily increased across all industries. Thus, it is important that, when reviewing a new technology and evaluating the reasons behind adopting or rejecting it, the IT manager know the current state of the operations with regard to the technological impact. This includes understanding the enterprise’s infrastructure, staffing requirements, and migration direction for any change, as well as the industry’s and a specific technology’s position within the marketplace. Current reliability expectations and the standards to which products are built have increased exponentially in recent years.

The odd thing is that striving for reliability and meeting standards is part of an effort that began over 100 years ago. The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), the world’s largest technical professional society, was founded in 1884 by a handful of practitioners of the new discipline of electrical engineering. Today’s IEEE comprises more than 320,000 members who conduct and participate in its activities in 147 countries. The men and women of the IEEE are the technical and scientific professionals making the revolutionary engineering advances that are reshaping our world and determining the minimum standards for manufacturing in the broad and narrow sense. Standards, however, are only a minimum requirement that can be ignored by a careless manufacturer or by the business consumer. With the current demand for and rate of technological improvement, determining what standards should apply and where is no small task.

Reliability by design, then, is an engineering discipline that applies scientific practices to ensure that a product will perform its intended function for the required duration within a given environment. This includes designing in the ability to maintain, test, and support the product throughout its total life cycle. Reliability is best described as product performance over time. This is accomplished concurrently with other design disciplines by contributing to the selection of the system architecture, materials, processes, and components for both software and hardware, followed by verification of those selections through thorough analysis and testing. Products, however, have a reduced life cycle these days, as is exemplified by the speed with which new PCs with faster speeds and greater storage capabilities come to market. Faster speeds and greater storage space have increased so rapidly because the demands on the product’s capabilities have increased: Enterprises want the Internet and its contents at its workers’ fingertips in nanoseconds all the time.

Ignoring reliability in product design invites failure. Failure is increasingly unacceptable to enterprises and its knowledge workers. Therefore, reliability is considered a critical ingredient of all designs created across all industries. A few product recalls, with the cost to corporate image alone, have taught manufacturers that considering reliability at the design stage is preferable to hoping for expected performance achievement. Table 1.2 lists the minimum skills and knowledge technology manufacturers must have to create and offer reliable products.

Table 1.2

Technology Manufacturing Engineering Competency Requirements

Statistical analysis

Product reliability modeling for selection of redundancy over component reliability

Trade study analysis

Reliability predictions

Worst-case stress/tolerance/sigma design performance analysis

Engineering-based physics of failure

Failure modes/effects/criticality analysis

Reliability test planning and testing (to include product stress screening and accelerated life demonstration)

Failure analysis

Maintenance concept definition

Maintainability and supportability analysis

Maintainability test planning and demonstration

Human engineering analysis

Product safety analysis

Performance monitoring for product effectiveness

The more complex the product, the higher the demand on the skills of its developers and the more costly the manufacturing process. As product designs change to optimize performance and reliability, the application impact can be major or minor. Those who have Beta movie tapes recognize that equipment available today will not support that medium. The same holds true with floppy disks and