These are some facts about Frank Russell Company.

Frank Russell Company is one of the world’s largest investment management companies, managing some $50 billion for organizations and individuals in 30 nations.

Frank Russell Company provides consulting services, guiding the investment of some $1 trillion for over 250 clients.

Frank Russell Company provides securities brokerage services, which saved clients over $500 million in trading costs in 1998.

Frank Russell Company and Mellon Bank Corporation work together to analyze and evaluate the performance of more than 1,000 clients.

Frank Russell Company operates through a worldwide network of subsidiaries. Frank Russell Company has engaged the services of Saltmine Creative, Inc., based in Seattle and London, to redesign its Web site, www.russell.com.

“What’s wrong with the company’s Web site?” I wondered, so I cranked up the Web browser and visited with them. I expected to find the World Wide Web equivalent of the art of Pablo Picasso. Instead, I found an attractive site full of information about the company. The menus were easy to navigate. The site included information about career opportunities and provided a way to contact Frank Russell Company.

In short, I found nothing wrong with the Web site, so I returned to the press release that had made me aware of this development. Reading it more closely than before, I found reason number one in these words of Mike Phillips, Russell president and CEO: “A creative, globally focused Web presence will enhance Russell’s relationships with its distributors and their ability to provide individual investors with the same level of investment management knowledge that Russell has long offered to some of the most sophisticated institutional investors throughout the world.”

English: Russell is not content with its existing customer base. It wants to offer its services to more people. Russell chose the Web as the way to achieve this goal.

Phillips shared another reason: “We believe working with Saltmine will enhance two of our greatest strengths: our pledge to help bring financial security to people around the world, and our commitment to building relationships with other unparalleled local businesses.”

English: Russell wants to forge relationships with other businesses. The Web is a logical way to do that.

These two reasons didn’t surprise me. The third reason made me stop: “Saltmine will help Russell build an Internet presence that capitalizes on its world-renowned reputation for intelligent, leading-edge thinking.”

English: Russell views itself as a leading-edge company and wants its Web site to cause others to view it as leading-edge.

Frank Russell Company knows that image is everything. It’s a lesson we who develop AS/400 applications would do well to learn.

Continuous Improvement

Until several years ago, I’d heard it said, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” Then my employer at the time, a large multinational corporation, sent me to a week-long training program in which I was introduced to modern manufacturing concepts. I became familiar with words like kanban (a just-in-time technique developed at Toyota) and names like W. Edwards Deming, the consultant whose ideas revolutionized the world of manufacturing. What I most gained from the week was a greater understanding of the importance of continuous improvement. As our instructor expressed it, “If it ain’t broke, make it better.”

Failure to improve is disastrous for business. The American railroad industry is a good example. Instead of seeing themselves in the business of transporting people and goods, railroads saw themselves in the business of running railroads. Their failure to change with the times put many of them out of business and reduced others to government-operated “enterprises” that stay afloat only with subsidies from taxpayers.

In the same way, failure to improve is disastrous for IS shops. If we AS/400 professionals see ourselves in the business of keeping a set of COBOL or RPG programs running, we will find our reliable AS/400s thrown out the door in favor of unreliable Windows NT machines with slick GUI screens.

Payback Time

Many of us have completed Y2K projects but have little to show for it. For example, I modified many database files, expanding the date fields from six to eight digits in length, but I did not change the screen formats.

Now, it’s time to do the opposite. It’s time to concentrate on the presentation layer. One strategy that has so far proven successful is to replace a display file with a Web browser. You probably have many programs that prompt a user for input parameters (e.g., a date) and then submit a job to run in batch. Replace the display file with an HTML screen, modify the driving CL program accordingly, and leave the meat of the program as is. The users will still be running the same old Open Query File (OPNQRYF) commands and RPG programs, but they’ll think they’re running a brand new application.

The result is that your application has a new image. Your IS shop is perceived to be leading-edge or, at least, not behind the times.

If you’ve not approached management with the idea of modernizing the presentation layer of your software, consider doing so. If a large, successful corporation like Frank Russell Company is spending money to improve its image, maybe you should, too.

Ted Holt is IT manager of Manufacturing Systems Development for Day-Brite Capri Omega, a manufacturer of lighting fixtures in Tupelo, Mississippi. He has worked in the information processing industry since 1981 and is the author or co-author of seven books. 

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MC Press books written by Ted Holt available now on the MC Press Bookstore.

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