Taipei Times (TT): Potential corporate adopters of any cloud -computing-oriented platforms, including your Clearvale (明晰谷), are highly concerned with security issues before allowing their confidential data to be stored and processed online. How do you address their security concerns? Is it the biggest hurdle keeping companies from using your platform?
Chen Pehong (陳丕宏): Yes, it is. But I think the security concern is overdone. The fundamental aspect to the cloud computing concept lies in its operation of a data center. Having professionals managing your data centers are like depositing your money with banks, which is just as safe and professional.
Especially when your company is a multinational with employees scattered across regions, storing and processing your data up in the clouds will be more efficient — another contribution by cloud computing.
PHOTO COURTESY OF BROADVISION
So, unless you yourself are an expert in database security, leaving the management of your data centers to professionals is naturally the best choice. Many telecoms operators such as Chunghwa Telecom (中華電信) or Softbank [in Japan] are accredited with top-notch quality assurance and certainly do a good job in managing your data centers.
So, security is a groundless concern and excuse to me. Instead, I think corporate culture poses the biggest hurdle when it comes to the application of cloud computing services.
Companies are traditionally accustomed to managing themselves via their Web sites or intranets in a one-to-many fashion. Whereas, the biggest revolution that social [networking] technology has brought about is transforming the one-to-many way of communication to a new many-to-many approach, that is, everyone can participate, contribute and has a say. Having been with the [Web commerce] industry for 18 years, I’ve seen many companies spending a fortune to set up Web sites, which end up with few feedbacks because the sites are seen merely as a [top-to-down] content publishing medium, in a web 1.0 format.
My PhD dissertation was about KM, or knowledge management, which many joked should stand for “knowledge morgue” because much of the knowledge we managed [in classic Web 1.0 days] was mostly stocked in a morgue unused.
Now [moving into the Web 2.0 format], a bigger emphasis is put on [free] flows of knowledge, by which, people learn to innovate or share different levels of ideas through networking medium like Twitter or Wikipedia.
However, there’s nothing risk-free [in the Web commerce world]. But with some form of governance and firewalls to safeguard not-to-be-shared information, the benefits [of adopting cloud computing-based platforms] could actually outweigh the harm of the risk.
TT: How does an enterprise social networking platform (ESN) help improve work efficiency if everyone is allowed to have a say in a decision-making process?
Chen: With networks of networks in place, a lot of our work can be accomplished very efficiently at one click. For example, our marketing staff can upload press releases at one click to the network, shared only by journalists.
By further resorting to cloud computing services, a company’s IT capital expenditures [CAPEX] can be curtailed since it no longer needs to allocate a big budget for hardware such as servers and [memory] storage devices.
So there are three big characteristics and benefits — virtualizing, mobilizing and socializing — after companies are serviced over the clouds. Virtualization allows companies to save IT CAPEX, while mobilization, which means access to information can be attained everywhere at any time through portable devices such as smartphones, allows companies to save operational expenditures.
Why is socializing important? Because it facilitates a platform, which allows participation from everyone to add value.
I often say that one shouldn’t judge [the value of] a company by its stock option. Instead, a “speak option,” which means every employee, even customer, has a say in the company, should be taken into serious consideration so as to keep the company agile and innovative.
Without free flows of knowledge, innovation capabilities won’t be cultivated. Few bosses out there are as innovative as Steve Jobs [of Apple Inc], who can churn out lots of ideas by himself.
TT: What sectors are likely to be early adopters of such a Web-based application?
Chen: Most consumer-oriented businesses understand the importance of Web-based services.
They’re fully aware they can’t get away with the rise of consumerism and the fact that the voice of each consumer is getting louder and easily heard on the Internet.
But we also have corporate adopters such as those in the traditionally conservative healthcare sector.
The younger generation of medical staff fully embraces the idea of information-sharing, although their hospitals are requesting for “private clouds” so that they won’t violate the law and avoid the risk of infringing their patients’ medical privacy.
TT: Mr. Wang, what is your experience with ESN adoption after your management -consultation firm, dubbed as McKinsey of China, started using Clearvale?
Wang Pu (王璞): Let me first give you a simple example of our Web 2.0 application: our virtual library. All companies allocate budget to buy books.
On top of that, you need a physical space in the office to shelf the books, which is another expense if you take expensive rental office space into consideration.
But a bigger chunk of our book budget is now saved after we got rid of our physical library space by subsidizing employees’ own collections of books if they allow their books to be digitized, shared or borrowed.
If each of our 10,000 employees contributes 100 books, we will have a collection of 1 million books accessible to everyone at a minimal cost.
About Clearvale, it clearly provides an internal platform for our coworkers to exchange ideas or have a say in the company in a more efficient way.
But in the long run, I hope its function will be extended to link us with our business clients as a major channel of communications for business collaboration, while helping cut travel expense and time cost.
TT: Can we, in general, quantify how cost-saving such an ESN has been?
Chen: It’s hard to generalize. The survey of an important human resource association in the US found that 70 percent of -employees who quit their jobs [did so] because they found themselves disoriented within the companies.
They had no idea where their companies were headed to with a lower level of internal participation and morale. They didn’t quit because they were underpaid and full of resentment over perks. So, if you consider talent drain as losses, such a network may help retain employees.
Wang: Another example would be with Foxconn Technology Group (富士康). Honestly, I think [Foxconn chairman] Terry Gou (郭台銘) has offered Chinese employees above par working conditions, including better pay and a nicer environment than its peers there.
But what triggered its earlier suicide cluster? I think its lack of internal channels of communication among employees should take the blame. Each of its employees should have been allowed to share their views, or have their voice heard. Instead, they were asked to remain silent and bury their noses at work, which only made things worse.
Its management obviously feels it’s troublesome if employees are encouraged to be opinionated. An enterprise social network would have allowed issues to be identified and actions to be taken in the early stage. If Foxconn Technology had installed such a corporate social network, its suicide cluster might have been prevented and it might not be required to spend a fortune to fix its corporate image afterwards.
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