Three hundred years ago, change happened slowly.  Most aspects of life were pretty much the same as they were fifty years before.  Slowly, communication improved  a bit (movable type).   Manufacturing improved quite a bit, and the steam engine was invented.  The telephone further improved the way we communicate, and electricity changed the world.  And  about 100 years ago, the rate of change began to accelerate.  The automobile changed the way we travel, and radio, and then TV changed mass communications.  The advent of the computers changed how corporations worked.  Then in the early 80’s, personal computers started to proliferate.  Following Moore’s law, computing capabilities continue to double every 18 months.  Digital information, and portable computing devices are examples of more recent changes which have entered the market place, and gained broad acceptance.

While technology is clearly changing quickly, the rate of global technology adoption is also accelerating.  In 1975, 2,000 PC’s were sold, and ten years later, in 1985, world wide PC Sales exceeded 7 Million Units for the first time.  Apple introduced the iPhone in Q3 2007, and sold approximately 7 million units in Q4, 2008.  Technical obsolescence is accelerating, and the rate at which new technologies are incorporated into the fabric of society is growing quickly.

Recent changes in cloud computing promise to deliver tremendous value to corporations of all size.  Corporations that are able to adapt to change, will realize tremendous competitive advantage; and this technology wave will move much faster than changes of the past.

The rate of technical change, and the speed of change are both accelerating.   The acceleration of technical availability (new technologies) poses an increasingly difficult challenge for businesses - particularly large businesses.  Organizations are not geared to change, rather, they are geared to optimize discrete tasks.  Born in the industrial revolution, where processes were decomposed into specialized tasks, which could then be optimized, almost all large companies embrace the concept of “workforce specialization”.   For large companies, there is some benefit to specialization.  The problem is specialization and the associated organizational departmentalization lead to empire building, and bureaucracy - which both make it impossible for organizations to embrace new technologies, and change.

In most companies, bigger is better.  Having more head count justifies a larger office, a bigger salary, and more status.  The measure is seldom the amount of work, the true impact on profit, or quality - the measure is size, subjectivity, and in many cases the ability to manage internal politics.  So, what can be done?  First, management must change the measure of success.  Departmental success should be measure by having less people, by being able to change, and by the ability to impact the business as opposed to manage politics.  The ability to change - to de-construct, and to implement new technologies should be rewarded.  In order to take advantage of the increasingly rapid rate of technical change, large companies need to get leaner, focus more on core businesses, and manage external providers to deliver services.

The world has seen a number of technologies that have changed the way business works. Humans became farmers, and then very efficient farmers. Industrial specialization lead to efficiencies that propelled a change in the work force. Computing significantly reduced clerical tasks, and further efficiencies lead to improved business performance. Enter the recession of 2008. There’s a new change, and we must respond.

Large monolithic companies built form business models of the past are too slow, bloated, and bureaucratic to survive. Bear Stearns has fallen, Merrill Lynch has disappeared, GM is on the brink, and GE is in trouble. Built for a workforce and processes that no longer apply, large companies must change or perish. Fortune 2000 companies must get leaner, more focused, and re-think their operational models. By outsourcing non-core business functions and capabilities, companies can restructure and reinvent themselves to thrive in the post recession world. Continuing to operate in the traditional ways will lead to more challenges: enterprise companies must re-invent themselves, become leaner, and become more efficient.

OC4 provides high quality enterprise application management and cloud computing advisory services.  Our cloud-based platform has successfully passed all security audits, and we believe it is the most secure enterprise cloud platform available.  Because we leverage the cloud, our price for managed services is generally at least 40% lower than similar offerings.  Our goal is to help our customers focus on their core business by expertly running non-core applications.  We work well with fully outsourced, or hybrid outsourced models.  OC4's secure enterprise email platform is an ideal solution for franchise businesses, and for enterprises undergoing consolidations or divestitures.  Having migrated over 50 million mailboxes over the past 10 years, our email migration capabilities are world class.