Service / Support Management
Optimize, 7/02: Reinforcing The Front Lines
Real-time data can improve the routing and logistics of field personnel and parts--and the company's bottom line.
by Donald and Michael Blumberg [ About the Author ]
If the customer is king, why do companies pay so little attention to the service technicians who represent them at customer sites? The field-service staff that brings parts and repairs to customers is a key conduit of your products and promises to the outside world. Perhaps more important, it's also a strategic business unit--and managed effectively, it can be a profit center that brings significant revenue to the bottom line.
Over the past couple of years, a wide variety of companies have begun strategic projects to better manage their field service and optimize its return. The trend began in the IT and telecommunications sectors, at companies from Avaya to Verizon and from Compaq to Unisys, as well as at those with a high volume of corporate customers, such as GE. Like all good management techniques, the best practices have begun to filter down to companies in nontraditional market segments, like material-handling equipment (Caterpillar), heating and air conditioning (Enbridge), and restaurant-equipment repair (Ecolab). These organizations see a new way to manage the parts, people, and processes that bring companies to the end customer's home turf.
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Data Security
ZDNet, 7/18/02: Start-up has locks for Secure Notebook
By Declan McCullagh
NEW YORK--Rop Gonggrijp admits that it's not a promising time to start an Internet privacy company.
The founder of NAH6 knows all about flops such as Privada, abandoned software such as PGP and SafeWeb, and struggling firms such as Zero Knowledge.
Yet Gonggrijp believes it's possible for his new company to find buyers for its innovative products, which include an encrypted PC, a secure cellular phone and a better way to do secure e-mail. To encourage broad adoption, Amsterdam-based NAH6 plans to release much of its work as open-source software for noncommercial use.
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Finance / Technology
The Wall Street Journal, 7/18/02: For Silicon Valley, Stocks' Fall Upsets the Culture of Options
By REBECCA BUCKMAN and DAVID BANK
Stock options were the near-magical currency of Silicon Valley, financing much of the huge success of companies such as Cisco Systems Inc. and Sun Microsystems Inc. For years, tech companies didn't have to give employees much in the way of real money, because options, tied to the value of the companies' stocks, were so valuable.
To employees, options were better than cash, offering the chance for riches far beyond any salary. Options inspired creativity, fiercely hard work and enough loyalty to stick around for the payoff.
But that formula depended on a surging stock. Now, U.S. stocks are in a dismal retreat, with tech stocks among the biggest losers. Employees of tech companies hold millions of options that have lost all of their value and may never regain any, because their exercise price is far above the price of the stock itself.
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