Managing Computers in Large Organizations

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Managing Microcomputers in Large Organizations http://www.nap.edu/catalog/167.html About this PDF file: This new digital representation of the original work has been recomposed from XML files created from the original paper book, not from the original typesetting files. Page breaks are true to the original; line lengths, word breaks, heading styles, and other typesetting-specific formatting, however, cannot be retained, and some typographic errors may have been accidentally inserted. Please use the print version of this publication as the authoritative version for attribution. PRODUCTIVITY THROUGH AUTOMATION 113 management response would be to allow turnover or reduction in the work force. However, if a marketing manager or an engineering manager is given a device that doubles productivity, it is much more difficult to decide how to take advantage of it. Do you give the marketing manager two markets to manage? Do you give the engineering manager both engineering and marketing to manage? It will be a major challenge for the management of Reynolds and other companies to find ways to restructure jobs to take advantage of the improvements in productivity made possible by automation. Inevitably, some people will be displaced. Managers in our company and the country at large are going to have to address the issue of retraining these people. A second management issue we are now facing in the course of increasing security for corporate data is the question of who owns what data. Reynolds has bought a sophisticated computer program that requires identifying who owns each piece of data, who can access it, who can change it, and who can delete it. This raises some interesting questions. For example, does a piece of tax information in a division system belong to the tax department or to the division? A third issue involves measuring productivity. Economic feasibility has been blithely assumed, but it needs to be tested at every point. On the one hand, Reynolds has established a goal to double the productivity of its salaried work force. On the other, we don't even measure the productivity of our salaried work force today. We can measure the ratio of the total number of salaried employees to pounds of aluminum or dollars of sales. On an individual basis, however, we don't know what productivity is and we don't know how to measure it. I believe this question of how to measure individual productivity is an issue we will wrestle with at least for the rest of the decade. A final management issue involves multiple functions and responsibilities. In the past auditors have taken a lot of comfort in the careful separation of responsibility. One person requisitions a purchase, a second approves, a third receives, and a fourth pays the invoice. Automation makes it possible for a single individual to perform more than one function. Reynold's management, as well as its auditors, must consider what kinds of controls to build into automated information processing systems. These controls Copyright © National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved.
Managing Microcomputers in Large Organizations http://www.nap.edu/catalog/167.html About this PDF file: This new digital representation of the original work has been recomposed from XML files created from the original paper book, not from the original typesetting files. Page breaks are true to the original; line lengths, word breaks, heading styles, and other typesetting-specific formatting, however, cannot be retained, and some typographic errors may have been accidentally inserted. Please use the print version of this publication as the authoritative version for attribution. PRODUCTIVITY THROUGH AUTOMATION 114 must provide adequate protection for corporate assets, assure proper processing of financial transactions, and at the same time achieve the necessary improvements in productivity. I think the broad conclusions to be drawn from Reynolds' efforts are clear and important. First, information processing is just too important a component of every salaried employee's job to subcontract it to information specialists or anyone else. It needs to be a part of each employee's job description. Second, the decreasing cost of automation technology and the increasing cost of people will not only permit but will mandate that every salaried employee's productivity be improved through the use of automated technology during the course of this decade. Third, redesigning jobs to take advantage of the productivity potential provided by automation is going to present major challenges to management in this decade. Microcomputers are machines. Like all machines they have advantages and disadvantages. To deal with them successfully organizations need an automation strategy, an understanding of how microcomputers fit, an automation plan, and a mechanism to monitor performance. Reynolds is only one company that has begun this process. I believe that all firms that successfully automate their information functions will develop a competitive edge over those that do not. Copyright © National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved.
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