The PC industry has been on the decline since the turn of the millennium.  In technology adoption cycle terms, we are in a late majority phase of the industry.  If we are not the biggest shop in the main street, we would either be a boutique shop or a corner shop.  Boutique shops are for leading edge fashion and solutions, and corner shops are for milk and convenience.  Compucon has chosen the boutique approach.  We have attempted to introduce FMG-II (firewall mail gateway with spam filtering) and AZUL 360 (all-in-one business database) and both were leading edge concepts if they were successful.  They were not.  It is because Compucon did not have the DNA for them.  After years of searching, we found our DMA.  DNA is hereditary and organic.  DMA is too.   DNA exhibits in behaviours. DMA exhibits in change management.  DMA stands for Decision Making Abilities.  It is a framework for a company to manage industry changes and grow the company.   Some of our peers may think of E-myth (coined by Michael Gerber).  The term stands for Entrepreneurial Myth and prescribes what a person with specialist skills and a lot of entrepreneurial spirits entering business should do.  E-Myth is a good framework for the start up phase of a company.  Compucon has practised its teachings such as a vigorous Quality Assurance system and this has helped us do well for the last 19 years (by 2011).  E-Myth could not help us further such as in addressing the impact of laptops on desktops business for example.   We need DMA.  This is a small article to outline how DMA could help in case you are interested in organizational concepts.

A book entitled Healthy Organisation published in 2004 provides the original organizational concepts and the essence of the framework.  It prescribes 7 levels of DMA, with 7 being the highest and 1 being the lowest.  Most companies in New Zealand would have less than 3 levels, and a handful would have 6 or 7 levels.  For example, a MacDonald's fast food shop on Glenfield Road has Level One and Two only.  Level One pertains to daily operation and Level Two refers to the manager who makes decisions to solve operational issues.  Fonterra would have a CEO on Level 7.  He addresses a large multitude of issues including globalization, politics, economies, finance, and lines of products. 

The image on the RHS shows 6 levels only.  The dark blue triangle refers to strategies.  The light blue triangle refers to operations.

Compucon New Zealand operated with 2 levels for the first 10 years which were easy years in the PC industry.  A major decision was made in 1998 to keep the team size for 80% of the business only and to use contractors to completely fulfil our delivery obligations.  This decision meant that the company was not intending to make a profit from the last 20% of business (as contractor fees are higher than staff wages) but would like to retain all customers.  The decision was proven effective when the PC industry started the decline phase after Y2K. The decision is on Level 2.

The PC industry decline continued.  We reduced the team size by attrition.  This decision is still Level 2.

Then we introduced FMG and AZUL.  The decision is Level 3 because both areas did not relate to our core business.  We did not set up a business division to handle these foreign technologies but took the joint venture approach.  The core expertise stayed outside of the core team. Our QA system was not able to cover them as they were outside Compucon. Both joint ventures were aborted.

The lessons were expensive and we have learned.  When IPVS appeared on the horizon in 2007, we invested in it internally.  This brought along the issue of “spreading the butter too thin” and the bread may taste awful.  A higher level of decision making abilities was required.  We took about 2 years to prepare our team and successfully won and completed our first IPVS project in December 2008. 

The above is an attempt to explain the types of situations that require a different level of DMA.   You may find the concept applicable to your own business management.