AT&T Moves HQ to Dallas, TX
Monday: June 30, 2008 6:37 AM
Last week, AT&T announced that they are going to move the corporate headquarters from San Antonio to Dallas, TX. This seems like it would be big news; a fortune 10 company moving to a new location. Can you imagine Ford moving his Green River plant to Oklahoma or Mr. Walton moving from Bentonville, AR.? Yet, the AT&T move barely made it to the AP. Why?
First, we don't really have "workplaces" anymore. They have been replaced by "workspaces". Does it really matter that the person you are calling on the phone is in the next cube, down the hall, or on the other side of the world? The clear answer is no. The majority of information worker activities are managed electronically with Office products, developed applications, and collaborative software. Distributed teams are the norm while centralized locations are become rare. Work can easily be disassembled and distributed around the world and then reassembled for the customer at the point of purchase.
The second observation is that time and space have been condensed by the advancement of technology. You use to have 20 years to develop products, now you may get 6 months. It now takes only a couple more hours to build a designer handbag as compared to building a car. Personal computers are customized on demand while you can order just about anything 24 hours a day at Amazon.com. We have reached the point where workforces are so distributed that moves like these have very little impact to the customer or employee.
The move itself will have one benefit. I would be remiss not to mention the bragging rights of moving to the beloved home of the Dallas Cowboys.
Last week, AT&T announced that they are going to move the corporate headquarters from San Antonio to Dallas, TX. This seems like it would be big news; a fortune 10 company moving to a new location. Can you imagine Ford moving his Green River plant to Oklahoma or Mr. Walton moving from Bentonville, AR.? Yet, the AT&T move barely made it to the AP. Why?
First, we don't really have "workplaces" anymore. They have been replaced by "workspaces". Does it really matter that the person you are calling on the phone is in the next cube, down the hall, or on the other side of the world? The clear answer is no. The majority of information worker activities are managed electronically with Office products, developed applications, and collaborative software. Distributed teams are the norm while centralized locations are become rare. Work can easily be disassembled and distributed around the world and then reassembled for the customer at the point of purchase.
The second observation is that time and space have been condensed by the advancement of technology. You use to have 20 years to develop products, now you may get 6 months. It now takes only a couple more hours to build a designer handbag as compared to building a car. Personal computers are customized on demand while you can order just about anything 24 hours a day at Amazon.com. We have reached the point where workforces are so distributed that moves like these have very little impact to the customer or employee.
The move itself will have one benefit. I would be remiss not to mention the bragging rights of moving to the beloved home of the Dallas Cowboys.
Comments (1)
Todd,
Nice post. One of the biggest cultural challenges the org I work for is dealing with is the historical issue of "knowing who to know who might know about XYZ", coupled with an aversion to documenting processes in a simple and structured way that can be easily accessed in a central repository.
I work from home a few days a week (long commute, so I juggle). I find myself playing phone tag with people when chasing down project issues where as with my team (who have started documenting processes and using Sharepoint more 'aggressively' and more structured than others) I know information is only 3 clicks away.
The difference is like night and day.
Hopefully our programme of work to roll out what we do across a few other areas will help improve efficiencies (and have me travelling around less).
Posted by: Daragh O Brien on July 3, 2008 06:39