The entire new structure should be watched carefully for opportunities for improvement; however, there are some specific areas that have already been identified which are worth watching closely to see whether change is appropriate. These areas include:
Coordination of the UNIX network system administration with the MIS 3Com network system administration. This will get more complicated during the time of the move, since these networks will need to get even more deeply intertwined. Hopefully better technology can resolve some of these problems.
Coordination of corporate marketing and technical publications. Each of these organizations create material for the product; it needs a coordinated look and feel.
Coordination of the retail sales group at Generic and the dealer channel sales group in Sausalito.
Keeping all of Legal as overhead, or identifying components of the legal activity which should be charged back to business units, service center style.
Making training a business unit.
In a completely free market, if a business unit went to an outside service and demanded extremely short-notice turnaround, the outside service might well charge a premium price for the extra effort. Since our internal service centers are nonprofit organizations, this kind of ``premium charge'' does not make sense. Yet the absence of such a premium charge mechanism distorts the incentive system: to the PM or GM, it looks no more expensive to demand service on an hour's notice than on a week's notice, even though it may very well be more expensive--such sudden requirements cost us in terms of scheduling conflicts and angry frustration. What would be an appropriate mechanism for repairing this distortion?