September 13, 1999

Toshiba: Change Comes From Inside And Out

By Clinton Wilder

erhaps the greatest difference between E-transformation and previous trends like reengineering is this: It changes your customers' culture and business processes as well as your own. So you better make sure they're ready.

About two years ago, Toshiba America Information Systems Inc. launched FYI, an extranet for 350 North American dealers of its copiers, fax machines, and network printers. At that time, Amazon.com wasn't the household name it is today, and many dealer employees were essentially being asked to go online for the first time. "The key was making the first steps be very valuable to the customer," says Lisa Richard, Toshiba's VP of strategic planning. For that reason, Toshiba gave its dealers discounts and access to information they never had before, such as their own sales profitability down to the machine level. Says Richard, "The biggest mistake that companies make [with new online systems] is saying to customers, `Here it is, come and get it.'"

Toshiba has continued to enhance FYI. It now includes a data warehouse, built with an Oracle database and Toshiba mapping tools, that lets dealers see their two-year sales histories by month and product model. The company recently added to the system its national accounts business, by which Toshiba sells its products directly to large companies and local dealers provide support. Later this fall, Toshiba will launch an online service for its dealers' 2,000 service reps called Service Information System, which will feature an Oracle8i database of CAD drawings, product schematics, and video clips.

"In the beginning, we had to help our customers change and feel comfortable about it," Richard says. "Now their expectation levels are very high, and we can barely keep up."

Richard is the first to admit that transformation doesn't come easily. "It wasn't just the customers--our own internal thought processes had to change, too," she says. "There's always an inherent desire to stay with what's in place and keep costs down. You have to be willing to chink away at that."

Return to main story, "E-Transformation."

Illustration by Matsu

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