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Irving Wladawsky-Berger Let me very briefly talk about some of the key things that we have observed are happening out there. It's very interesting that technologies that were very exciting quickly become boring because they become accepted. It looks like for things to be exciting you need a certain danger - will it happen, will it get accepted, will it move on? The internet itself has entered this quote 'boring' stage, in the sense that if we are able to connect everyone, reach everybody, we can send information to everybody in the world, it's okay tell me something else that's new. What I have found really interesting most recently is how much businesses are adopting the culture of the web. By that I mean that instead of the design of businesses being monolithic, let's plan it, let's build it, now we have it - like the web, the design point of businesses and business applications if based on change, based on the fact that whatever we do now has to keep advancing rapidly. And as a result of that the design is based on integrating into the business and in particular to the business we are talking about, into the business application more and more business processes that are getting automated and are becoming part of the whole infrastructure. That's a very big change. We all remember not long ago, maybe a year ago, where designing a new business application you architechted, you built it and then it was there, whereas now it's a thought much more of integrated business components. Now the reason is because there is so much creativity we can apply to make the business better. We can talk about how to have a better customer relationship. Have to have new processes to let us do better, advertising or marketing better, better promotions, better buying and selling, keeping track of the customer, what makes them happy - I know Mike Winch will talk about some of the more exciting things I have heard in that area - and continuing to move means look at new processes that the software vendor community might be building out there, new ways of linking with the supply chain, new ways of integrating information to make more intelligent decisions, new ways of reaching out to people. You are constantly in this style of what are the next processes that can bring value to the business? Because when you figure it out you can start automating it and making it part of your infrastructure. That way you are competing out there. This is very exciting but a lot of stress in knowing what is there and bringing it together. It also totally changes the style of building applications. As I said the style of applications I see more and more like the style of the web. Integrate various business processes with each other and with information and people and it's the integrated whole that implements the application. Now what are some major challenges? And there are many. In the old days, a year ago, when you wrote an application that was more monolithic, you can plan it, you can do capacity planning, you can test it, you can make sure it's available, you can do the systems management, you can manage the security and all that is needed. We need these applications to perform work, to be available all the time, to be totally secure and manageable and now we have to do it in this highly dynamic environment of the web and of the business in which things are always changing and in which the pieces come together. The classic web that we use today does not have this industrial strength. Classic IT has had it but the price we pay for it is rigidity that we have since decided we want to move on. So some of the most fascinating issues that I see both as technologists and business people and some of the main challenges I see in IBM as we continue our war is how can we have our cake and eat it too? How can we continue in this web culture of highly dynamic change in applications that integrate business process, information and people, but build them and continue to evolve them in such a way that we can handle the tough issues of performance and viability, management, security and all those that will come.
Mike Winch Some years ago it became apparent to me that many of the current area of competitiveness were no longer available for the future, in retailing, staff, price, range and location. Unfortunately, technology has actually screwed some of those things like for example price, any of our competitors reacted to a price campaign could be met, probably within a year in any of our stores through technology. Certainly, the range, if anyone introduced a new product, again within 24 hours, that product could be available in each one of our stores. Indeed on a kingdom location is becoming increasingly more difficult to achieve with Planning Permission and all sorts of other legislation, above all else cost. So they were no longer available to us. We had to look elsewhere and we looked to, probably of the greatest assets that we ever had within the Company then and today. One was our people and the other was the information we had. Now we could apply intellect, that information we thought therefore we could go into new areas of competitive awareness and that's what we tried to do. We did that by attempting to do some trials to see if we could incentivise our customers to change their behaviour. In a store in West London, we did some simple trials where we incentivised people to use our produce department through the check out till receipt by giving them 50p off the next purchase. We got 20-30% improvement in that particular area. Unfortunately, the store was not in a great location, it closed soon after, but not because of the trial, because of other reasons. The trial was a success in the sense that it proved to us we was able to incentivise customers. We then went to another store and ask people to identify themselves, which they did. They identified themselves with a simple reward, which was a cup of coffee and a donut. Every time they actually used the card, they got a coffee and a donut at the cafeteria. The store cafeteria sales went up because a child or their husband or partner also had something to eat or drink, so that we actually got increased sales there. It did show that a simple reward was sufficient to incentivise people to do things. Armed with that knowledge we then went and did something more seriously in three more stores, but we started to ask people lots of questions about themselves. We gave them a card and started to analyse their purchases, things that became apparent to us was what people say they do, on what they do are entirely different. For me it screwed up market research ever since. On particular customer said they would never use the wines and spirits department and yet, 30% of that particular transactions was in some rather cheap rather sherry that we sold at that particular time. It actually gave us a fantastic insight and probably one that changed the culture of the Company. We became aware that over 70% of our sales came from 30% of our customers. Up until then we had considered we were in the mass merchandising arena, we weren't, because there was customers specific as any other bit of the cake. We had some customers which were extremely important to us and a whole cloud of customers that didn't actually matter that much. We had to do, was to continue the loyalty of those good customers and we had to move those secondary customers to become primary with us. We saw this from the power of the information. Our business at that time, and even today, I don't think it just the United Kingdom, I think its probably global, is obsessed with the average square foot, was obsessed with the average basket side, obsessed with the average transaction side. Such as our customer data base, we have about £10M people in our customer database, we keep every transaction that ever goes through our business on line down to the lowest level of detail, time of day, check out use, name of the check out operator etc. etc. etc. Such as the accuracy of our database, we could actually work out our customer's average telephone number. But once we got that, there is nothing we can ring. We also learnt that all customers are more equal, and as I said before, I think illustrated that behaviour does follow reward. We went a lot further and last year we did 15M individual mailings to our customer database. We spoke about the Disney videos for people that had children or grandparents who actually bought videos for children. We looked into the data and we saw such things as people that had bought children's clothes, of besides of which, they would their Walt Disney video. We sold more Walt Disney's videos last year in the United Kingdom than any other business. Thus was the power of the information. We started to create a relationship with out customers through something called, shop and go. It's where the customers go round to gather to their own products. The important thing they care about is, good in relationship. We can actually talk to those customers on an one to one basis, as they go round the supermarket. We can talk about personalised promotion, we can welcome them to the store and we can encourage them to look at new products, which should be of interest to them. All these things were important. But it still didn't go as far as we wanted to go. We work with IBM Research some 18 months ago to create an environment where we can relate to our customers at any time or any place. What happened was, I shared the vision that we had as a retailer and IBM shared the vision they had as a technology provider. We wanted to be able to provide a platform where customers could shop in our stores anywhere anytime. The important thing that we didn't want to do is to replace the manual method of shopping with an electronic method of shopping. We wanted to add value. We wanted to create new ways of customer relationships that wasn't possible before the technology was available to them. So we and IBM Research used some very new techniques. Your admins get even greater understanding of customer behaviours. How customers behave in terms of products they provisionally buy, products categories, relationships etc. etc. We wanted to be able to communicate that by a new network in filling techniques. We wanted to be able to deliver light into the consumer's hand in a very easy to use method. We didn't want people to use the button that had an arrow going down to the left, we didn't want them to understand about something dot, something dot, whatever. We wanted them to just be able to pick it up and use it. We wanted a platform, we didn't think it was strange to be in the future OK. Any particular solution to be able to talk to our customers. Some customers may want to talk us by phone, some by television, some by whatever, and we want to be able to do that. So we used IBM's pervasive computer group as well to be able talk to a whole portfolio of customers. We created something called easy order, which I have here. At this moment in time easy order has been delivered on a source. It actually does have the inclusion of a bark codes read at the top, so as the , the bar code reader. However, that is just the first platform we have delivered it on. In the next few months we will deliver on digital signs, signs, PC's, intelligent bridges, whatever else is going to hit the market place, we will be there. Any network-computing device will be able to be plugged in to the Safeway Easy Order System. Because this was a personalised system, a one to one system, as soon as you plug it in, we know who you are. We launched this now a couple of months ago and I have seen people jump back when we have actually delivered this information on that device. They looked at what we have delivered and they said, but that is me, and they have looked at what its actually been to produce at that simple speed, they said, but you know about me. We have 25,000 products in our stores, most customers only buy 2-3 hundred. Unfortunately, it a different 2-3 hundred which everybody's buys, otherwise the stores would be a lot smaller. We can now go down into those customers databases and say, these are your 2-3 hundred products that you should buy. Are you interested in purchasing those and by means as you probably know, if you have a , that's a simple one, you can just say yes or no and just go down the quantity. But unfortunately, that's not good enough because a 50% of customer's purchases are impulse buys. We then said, OK, here are some ideas. What about these products? Do you like wine? How about these new wines from Chilli? You like Pasta? How about these new sort of Pasta Sauces? What we both do, is we don't talk about cheap frozen Turkey to a vegetarian. We don't talk about baby food to Pensioners. We talk about things that people are interested in. It's a personalised one to one system. Over 70% of the people that use this system accept what we actually recommend. We give personalised promotions, we give morale products, we give personalised recipes, so we know that for example, that if someone likes to create a meal with the bare ingredients, we give them a recipe with bare ingredients. If somebody just likes to just put it into the microwave, we say hey, here's a product you can put in the microwave, turn on and within 30 second or whatever, you have a meal for 2, 3 or 4 whatever. As I say, that's only the future. An IBM Industrial Psychologist created a system, which requires no training. People actually do require a little bit of training, as they have to know how to turn it on. In 10 minutes they are using it. They can download their personalised information within one a half minutes. I know its very early in the trials, but I have to tell you right now, people are spending more than they were previously. Its for us, it's the beginning of a success. Thank you very much.
Roger Van Scoy ...by range in terms of our storage capacity but when you think about what we move on a nightly basis. When you can move a by the night, it's a profound change and when there's years of equipment going on, you have to start thinking that far into the future and what it means. A little bit about First Data. We are not quite the household name that many of the Companies are that you see here. First of all from my accent. I am sure you have already figured out that I am not European, I am American and the fact when I read the programme for this particular section, it talked about the fact that you have European Executives. I can assure you I run First Data's business out of the UK. In fact I live in London but I have only been in here 3 months. So I am not sure how much I qualify for all of this right now. I am personally and as a Company, we are deeply interested in globalisation or electronic commerce. And so, I appreciate you welcoming me here as a European Executive. I also have responsibility for Asian Pacific region, which I just came out of. I lived in Hong Kong recently and so I have a view of our business on a international form. Let me tell you a little bit about First Data. Last year we had 5.2 billion US dollars in revenue, we're headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia. Our principle lines of business are payment systems, payment processing. We run the largest money transfer business in the World with Western Union and that subsidiary has a presence in 156 countries and first Western Union is, I would say, a global company. I am in our First Data Resources Group. We are the ones that are primarily into the business of debt card, credit card and merchant transaction processing in ATMs. We are the largest, in terms of volume, transaction processor in those industries in the World. We have over 60% of the issuing business in the United States and in the UK and about 45% of the acquiring business in those two regions. We're active in the internet through a joint venture with Microsoft, its called Transpoint and that's our bill presentment through the internet. We have a JV that we are actively working with Iball, and if you caught it last week, we announced a major relationship with Yahoo to do their merchant processing. So we see ourselves very much as an e-commerce player and a player in the Internet, and we certainly think that we process a lion's share of the transaction, credit card based on the Internet. Our objective as a Company is to play a role in the processing of every transaction from the point of sale to settlement worldwide, which is quite an ambition, particularly since we have such a small part of our business, I suppose, outside of the United States itself. So this aggressive challenge for US century Company is important for this concept of globalisation. Some of the stresses that we have found, as we have expanded and globalise our business. There are many and I have personally suffered many of them myself with plenty of sleepless nights on issues that I wont be talking about today. But the two that I would like to focus on are first, the rapid changing, adapting and improving technologies and the second is culture. So as it relates to technology, Steward talked earlier about the rapid change in technology. Our base business is very routed and fundamental; we do it the same way every day, every time kind of business. How do we adapt to a world that is changing as rapidly. A technology such as the Magstripe, which is commonly accepted on everybody's credit card, is a technology that in France was leapfrog with the Smart Card. It is going to be the leapfrog technology of choice in Asia, as Asia begins to expand. But we have a business that is more routed on the Magstipe technology. A very big challenge to us is moving towards the chip and being able to offer a value added service in that area and when you consider that our major investments are made to support the business in the United States, which will lag the chip technology, because of the investment that has made in Magstripe over the next 10 years, it is very much a challenge to our Company. Now in the UK, we have come out and we are supporting our customers that are introducing the Chip Card technology. So we will be there with Smart Cards. Secondly, culture. We operate in a business that's electronic. We tend to think that if we can get the bits of bites to match up and we can make it work, that it will work on an international basis. I have here to tell you that that's simply, in our experience is not true. There are probably three different methods of entry for a Company like ours into the market place or at least 3 others we present to you here. The first would be the way that we entered into the UK market, which 10 years ago, we purchased a Company that was in basically the same business that we were in and through that purchase, we learned the culture in the UK and we learned how to do business there. And then we evolved and migrated their technology to our technology. And that was a very successful endeavour. If you know anything about our Company you know that we have just have its huge write off. We're doing something very similar but interestingly different in Hong Kong. In Hong Kong we chose to go and sell our processing to potential customers and agree to convert them. Well in Hong Kong as everyone knows. Hong Kong is a mixture of the British and the Chinese cultures. So here you come with the American Cowboys riding in with our standard development methodology of just get it in there and you can fix it. You match that off against the British approach which is very oriented to detail and testing and to make sure it rights, before it goes in and you match that off against the Chinese culture which these people think that Edward Stenning was a god and the process management is to the ends degree is the only way to do it and 120% right is a minimum that is good enough. You put those 3 cultures together, you match that over us trying to do applications of development over 14 time zones, some 7,000 miles and you have a major problem in the areas of globalisation, and we failed in Hong Kong as a result. Primarily, we think that we did not understand going in, the implications to the culture. The third method would be to find partnerships and to develop business through partnerships, that is the method that we are pursuing in Japan, it's a method that we are pursuing in Germany and in Spain. And I am happy to say that about 3 weeks ago, we announced a major deal with , we should announce another deal in Germany in just the next couple of weeks and so that method with people that understand the culture, that understand the business environment, we believe is a successful recipe to our growth on an international basis. So, I hope that this has been helpful for you and First Data's experience can help you.
Anders Due Why our postal organisation going to e-commerce market. What are the good suggestions from that. To our point of view it is that the e-commerce market is one of the fastest growing at all. And like traditional mail order e-commerce, we generate distribution and from a distribution company's point of view, this is mainly the essence here. As I said before, distribution is part of our whole business or it is our whole business anyway. When we look into this area of new markets to go into, it was important for us to look at what are the different types of players there is the virtual world and when we asked the market and asked the question, How can we as distributors be valuable to this market? I think that we got one very important information and this was that the customers was demanding integrated solution. They would not have something from the distributor, something from the IT Company, something from their payment system. They wanted integrated solutions. So that was the learning of it. So what we had to do was of course to combine a new partnership with other companies, so this is also very much a story about doing partnerships. We did a partnership with IBM and it had run actually quite fast because in September 1980, we made a project between IBM and it was IBM in Denmark and our Company performed a non exclusive alliance which is and I think that in this market it is important with non because there are so many players an you have to combine it with a lot of different here. The solution that I came up with is what we call global merchant re-logistics and it was released here March in this year, so it is quite new. So what I can tell you is our thoughts about it but not very much about the success. What is global merchant re-logistics. It consists of all those kind of different pieces. It a national, credit and card payments in 27 currencies. VAT saves tax calculations, Casgo Management, statistics and reports, warehousing facilities including warehouse and management. Distribution including trades from return goods processes and also supporting services as those in wholesalers' facilities etc. So it's a whole combination of all what a merchant actually demands if you want to make e-commerce business. Here you have a more graphical picture of what kind of business that we have gone into and of course you see that the merchant is the call here but we have combined in small other pieces, that the merchant actually do meet to reach the customer. And what you have to recognise as well is, if you see the model that I showed before, we have had a division of responsibilities between IBM and Post Denmark and I will also have to say that IBM of course, do partnerships with all the Companies. Talking about management and so. But the important thing here, for us is that we stick to our business, logistic but confined with other kinds of important services to customers as well as through the merchants. What has been the critical success factors for us. For the merchants we have seen that the need to focus of manufacture and marketing and that we do all the other stuff. I thinks it a very important message to go to the merchants to give him, say, you can concentrate on what you are good at and then we do what we are best at. I think that kind of division is the best thing. The merchant has only to work with one partner but behind this one partner there lay a lot of other partners, just to make the combination between themselves. We have had a very specific target here that we want to have global or want to be global companies in this global merchant re-logistics in this year. And when I emphasise this, want to be, it has been very important for us to go out to customers and say, May you operate regional but when you go into this e-commerce business, you should look at yourself as a global player, because the next country isn't only a, so you have the possibility but you also have to put up the systems that can make you a global player - that's very important. The first customer, the merchants that we have on this system is legal, Danish based but actually very globalised and internationalised company who loans this product here from 18th March which is coming. This is very new but they have very big expectations for this whole system as well. If you want to have more information about this system, you could go to the legal website legal.com and you could see how this works out. So this is a kind of very practical business story so this should be my presentation, So thank you very much. I would like to thank the four presenters. Its very interesting because we have really in our panel here, people who are actually applying e-commerce. Two themes really come through very clearly. One is customers, essentially require integrated solutions, that is one theme. The other theme is people and culture. It seems to me that we came across a moment ago, is as important as technology. Let me throw that open to the floor if I may and invite questions to our panellists. Q. Delivery - how do you make sure you get the goods quickly? A. I think it's in fact, a big issue that you raise. I don't want to minimise the question was but was when we started this. Why do people go to this particular store. They go for things that I spoke about, ease of shopping range, price they like, types of products we have. They were the things that we had to attack. Very few people come to Safeway because they have these beautiful 40-ton lorries. They don't do that. They come for their ranges, they come for our easy is to shop OK. That is why this will make a big difference with electronic shopping, e-business in the retail arena. Right now, who comes to collect the products, because they can then go and , add further purchases, they can walk around the store, they can try some of the wines that we have spoken about. We can delivery and we do deliver to some homes. In the end, if home delivery really takes off in, I think most countries, at least the United Kingdom, it will definitely require different infrastructure that's currently in place. Maybe the post office , will have to take over as I cant imagine the high street in the UK with a Safeway lorry, a Tesco lorry, a Sainsbury lorry will bring London to a standstill. There has to be different solutions. Right now we are attacking the consumer retail interface. They personally think, that is where the successes will be. Not how good the delivery service is. I think we can safely say that over a time, I think the key thing is to get people to actually believe a slight use in the added value services, is how we can relate to them. We talk about distribution businesses, there are 3 main angles here. The first is that when you talking e-business with software, we don't have a role to play at all. When we talk daily business, its from a postal side of view. Its very difficult to handle this kind of . So what we are good at, at this stage is to call it traditional hardware from these kind of companies here, but I think the perspectives that distribution companies such as mine, would go into also daily basis, and I would say that the that we have is that we actually are meeting the customer every day, so it should be possible to set up a service like this. Can I ask IBM to pursue this further. In reality is how far the distribution will go, we do not know and we do not know because it was ....................... of new market place. For some companies since distribution to the customer is not a way you do business, that's probably not the key think to go and do. As we know there are some brand new companies that are starting with employment and they will deliver to you or they will deliver to a service, station nearby or some other thing. This gets back to the point that the reason the business solutions have to be integrated but very flexible and dynamic is that there will be constant change and it is very important that this business solutions are able to integrate the change in processes when they come along, and they will come along. So, we are just a computer company and we hope we can support all the diversities that found them in the market place as it feels more and more interested in business solutions. Q. This is more of a business question. As you go into the logistics business you are perhaps competing now with some of your biggest customer and how are you planning to handle that channel conflict issue. A. No, I don't think that we are in conflict with our customers, because we only do the distribution. We don't do any kind of handling of the customers/merchants goods so there is no conflict here. But you must - do you not already, for certain small logistic companies where you are actually doing the distribution, they're doing a lot of that back end processing to some of the value you are offering. Of course, when we go out of our country, we do partnerships with either or private logistic companies so, this is only a question about combining different kind of companies in the whole chains of what the customers like. I think that the comment about competing with our partners is an interesting one, which I think as technology brings us closer and closer together, we are going to find that more and more. For instance, there were two competing products in the exhibit hall today at lunch to what my company's delivery and yet IBM is one of our closest and most kindly regarded partners on an international basis of that we are trying to find ways to work with one and other even more. And so this whole concept of the fact that we are going to end up competing with those that we rely is something that is going to adding to the complexity of businesses we go forward, and we certainly find that every day. Can I add on this a little, because I can see the concept you have because where the conflict is between merchants, as far as I see it. If a merchant had the choice saying I have done my business in co salers or whatever. Traditional distributing channels and now I wan to set on it all by myself and this major conflict and every merchant has to be aware of that. What do you consider as the solution? Their competition I think, we are all under competitive laws and I mean you cannot put on rules for this. Only that one can feel integrated solutions, not just within a company but as a result of standards and other things Professor Varian talked about. The integrated solutions will include lateral services that other companies provide. We will see a lot of businesses having to decide why do and if I don't, then that's the kind of dysfunction to our choice to you or other people. And I think we will see a lot more sort of business really, sort of pouring down, because we can integrate with the information technologies in front of the customer, you can de-fabricate the services that a business provides and now towards doors you don't think you do very well, because in front of the customers they will come together. The interesting question then is well what is a business and I think the answer is very clear. In the end what's really important is the relationship between you and your customer. That's the one you have to manage really well, really tightly, as we all talked about and be back in services that support that relationship. Those are the ones that are candidates. To do in-house if you do them really well or to go ahead and out-house to somebody else, if you feel that's a better deal. I think that's a very interesting point and really goes back to one that was reflected by Mike. Personalisation is very important if any system is going to be truly successful. In very important in that excess. Let me invite further questions. Q. On the question of personalisation, it is also somewhat related to the question of privacy and how data are being used and certainly the example from Safeway may have raised more than one pair of eyebrows in the room now, concerning the use of very possibly very private data. I was wondering if you would comment on the part of Safeway as to how far you feel customers would go, giving out very private information in exchange for donuts or coffee. Or possibly, if other could comment on the question of how this should be treated in the future e-commerce based economy. Obviously this is a very serious issue or possibly, if other could comment on the question of how this should be treated in the future e-commerce based economy. We have some standard rules that we adhere to. First of all we commit to never let anyone else outside Safeway use the information. So we keep entirely to Safeway. Furthermore, if they just put a tick on the form, we will not use the information at all if that's what they require. But I think the key to it, let me give you a very simple example. Again, one that we worked with IBM. We booked a kiosk in our stores and it was the front this sequel shopping , it doesn't really matter what it is. They came in with their ABC Safeway card and put it in and it said. Good morning Mr Winch, and then it started some personalisation things about recipes. I was in the stores when we introduced that and a women came up to me and said, Excuse me and I have just put my card into the system and it didn't welcome me. I am sorry about that, we will look into it. We looked into it and then said. That's because she promised not to use the information. She said, but I didn't know you was going to welcome me by name. For her added value, was just to be welcomed by name. But for somebody else its not to have their name displayed. So, I believe the real answer is, if you are adding value to the customer they will be happy. Another example, we do surveys to our customers, we take 2-300,000 subsections and we ask them. What do you think about Safeway, what do you think about our range, our quality, our freshness, our prices, our value, whatever the questions may be. They respond to us. We then go back and we understand this, this and this. We done this about our prices, we done this about freshness and again on a one to one basis, not on a mass type of approach. We get nearly 70% responses to that questionnaire. That is unheard of in market research - believe me. We get 70%, why? Because we don't give them junk mail. We talk to them about things of interest, however, I am still concerned, and I think that what we will have in the future is technologies which will enable the customer to be able to either lock or unlock information we have. We can say, we have some benefit to you, either you unlock it or you don't. If you unlock, as you have the key to it ............ but they would be in control, I believe that, and so we are developing our processes around that. Right now its good, its fine, its working well. But I have to be aware that sometime some place, there would be some reaction, not caused by us, but may be somebody else that's not quite as professional as we are and we have to be aware. But in the end the customer would own his own data or even allow us to use or not allow us to use it and how well we add value to them. That goes for examples of how we can add value to individuals. Thank you very much indeed Mike May I follow it up from a question from me. Q. Can I raise a question of security. It seems to me that business has been totally driven by technology. What happens if the technology goes down? A. One of our biggest challenges is that, not only do we want to feel the assistance that keeps changing all the time, growing like crazy, reaching out around the world but, they have to more and more achieve the kind of availability that we are achieving in the electric utility or the telephone network. Both of which are a far simpler system. That's why we spend 6 million in R&D and IBM. That's why in the IT Advisory Committee, the US President and Vice Committee I'm a member of, we just put out a report that asked for toppling the amount of federal government investment in IT research, because these are such complicated problems. We have to solve them and the problems of how do you stay available all the time requires some invention in technical solutions. It also requires a lot of discipline, which is also the problem of security. Which is that, even though the internet is very exciting, even though you can do incredible things on the web, these are very mission critical systems reporting the customers and therefore, everything one does. All the processes as they integrated have to be handled really tightly. We find in IBM, we run a lot of projects, we work with a lot of customers. A number one issue when things don't go right is sloppiness, to say on our part. What we do is services engagement. If things don't go right, within stays in place, all the right business links would not be all the right questions and staff development at the right time to make it all happen. This is so important because as your question implies, availability, security system management are more important than ever in a very fluent environment. I actually also believe that a lot of the technology . The network environment is far more, I think available than any of those that preceded it. An example in a case you referred to ...................... We had a system where our suppliers were looking to one of our databases to share information for the internet. We gave them a specification of what they should actually have on their PC to look into our database. Everyone of the suppliers ignored it, everyone of them, everyone worked, because I think the way that the network world is going OK, because you don't have to worry about the level of. The think the new network world is probably going to be more Thank you Mike, thank you Roland. To really round this session off, I would just like to put one question to our panellists and it is quite a simple. Do you feel that there are any questions that we should be asking, that perhaps haven't come up in this discussion that concerns you about the future. Roger - I still believe, getting back to what I said earlier that the human and human spirit and the way that we do business as individuals is becoming more and more important, and as we try and mould ourselves globally, I think we are going to run into challenges that we don't know the questions to ask. Anders - The questions I am always asked is what shall I do. I actually always respond by saying, do something, try something. Its no good looking for the perfect solution, its no good working away for years and years and years but, try something, see what happens and then sort of go from there. They also asked the other question what's the biggest issue that I have had to deal with? Which I think is sort of what you are making. It's to cope with changes within our organisation because this is such a different way of working. People have to change their tongue or minds at. These are not easy things to accomplish in an organisation. Some people can't change those minds, as it's a new way of working and that's tough. Are you saying culture is a bigger challenge of technology. I think so, the biggest challenge I have in our organisation. |