JULY 1999 BROADSHEET - The Virtual Company
The great thing about our meeting on 24th June on the Virtual Company was that we managed to present an integrated picture of the trends in company organisation for the future with three speakers who perfectly complemented each other. The net result was a measured view of the future enterprise developing from the present logistical problems, particularly transport, leading to a case study of a practically locationless business.
Alan Barrell of N W Brown Capital Partners Ltd and Vice Chairman of the Centre for Tomorrow's Company kicked off with the issue of inspirational leadership, quoting the great GBS, "... dream of things that never were and ask Why not?". Professor Charles Handy's book - "What is a Company for", and the RSA enquiry into the characteristics of a successful company produced other ideas. It is the harnessing of ordinary people to achieve the extraordinary, and the inclusive approach of paying full attention to all the important people elements, including, for example, the local community and suppliers. You don't butter up your customers directly, you "..make the customers important to the employees then the employees create the relationship with the customer." Basically, as came out in the May meeting on Automotive Electronics, people and organisation are much more important than technology itself. Contact: 01223 357131, alan.barrell@nwbrown.co.uk
Edna Murphy of New Work Solutions had studied companies that had effected what she described as corporate disintegration, to their great advantage. Everyone in the organisation became front line, working outside a hierarchy with great flexibility and fluidity. The distributed team became the hero. To achieve this a tighter systems integration was necessary which led to greater sustainability. Encouragingly the UK had the highest implementation of this approach by using the internet, a full 14% of the workforce, higher than any other country including the US. Local governments were beginning to work out incentives to companies to keep their employees off the road. Contact: 01223 577005, Edna.Murphy@dial.pipex.com
Dr Philip Gaffney, Managing Director of Cambridge Advanced Electronics, 2-3 years ago was becoming encumbered with maintenance and upgrades of its C-Scan image processing equipment and wanted to concentrate on the development of new products. It had no difficulty in losing the maintenance function to enthusiastic specialists and then started to equip its own design engineers with a box of kit each to enable them to work independently as well. They are all highly skilled and work to their own timetables as self employed individuals dealing directly with suppliers and customers, often in the customer's premises. Project management is by half day milestones via the internet and this accommodates alike the "brilliant slob" down to the manic workaholic. The company costs are £30 per month for each connection and recruitment is via the internet anywhere in the world. All of which is highly profitable to all concerned, but requires very tight financial control and absolute trust. Contact: 01223 508111, philip.gaffney@caeplc.com
On 24th June Walter Herriot launched an interesting extension of the St John's Innovation Centre. You could call it a Virtual Innovation Centre because it is offering the same start up services to budding companies without them having to be on site. It's called Enterprise Link and Dorcas Doolan is the Business Manager on 01223 422218. Web site: http://www.enterprise-link.co.uk, ddoolan@stjohns.co.uk
Congratulations again to our member Tony Hooley for winning three Small Business Awards. The latest, which was handed over recently by Peter Mandelson, is the Technology & IPR Exploitation Award.
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There are also other companies who give us generous help with specific meetings and services.
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