The Four Hundred

For the first time in more than three years, COMMON has released a "top concerns" report, a compilation of the most pressing IT-related issues facing COMMON members. According to the report, based on surveys of 585 people conducted in 2001, organizations are much more concerned about the integration of the Internet into company processes than they were three years ago. While this finding shouldn't come as a shock to anyone, it does indicate that e-business is growing on the OS/400 platform.

Releasing the top concern survey and report used to be an annual occurrence for COMMON, the OS/400 platform's largest national user group, with more than 23,000 members. From 1992 to 1998, the organization issued reports that plotted the changing concerns and requirements of its membership, which is predominantly made up of OS/400 users. After the 1998 report, however, the top concerns program fell victim to COMMON's budget cuts, and one of the group's most direct lines of communication to IBM, along with COMMON's requirements process (since renamed the Global Idea Exchange, or GLIDE, but still defunct), was gone.

Then, at the 2001 spring COMMON conference in New Orleans, COMMON's president, Charlie Massoglia, announced the return of the global top concerns program. Massoglia is a strong supporter of the program, and bringing it back was one of the goals he set out to accomplish when he was elected president in October 2000. From April 2001 through the end of the summer last year, COMMON members were encouraged to fill out the 15-question survey, in which the respondents were asked to rate how a variety of technological issues were affecting their organizations and their jobs.

Organizations such as IBM have used the top concerns report in the past to help tailor their marketing efforts to the changing needs of users. And COMMON has used it to identify where it can provide its members with education on new topics. You don't have to be a member to obtain a copy of the report (although you do have to be a member to participate in the survey itself).

According to the report (see PDF file), the three most pressing concerns, in order of importance, were the integration of the Internet into company business processes, the availability of applications that fulfill business needs, and the ability of staff to acquire and maintain technology skills. Other significant concerns included the ability to seamlessly integrate applications and data without regard to platform or location, and the ability to secure business systems and data.

When compared with the last top concerns survey, from 1998, the results of this current survey reveal several shifts in thinking among OS/400 professionals. The most significant change--and the least surprising--was the rise of the importance of the Internet to OS/400 shops. The most pressing Internet-related concerns that OS/400 professionals identified in the 1998 survey were the positioning of the Internet as a business solutions tool, ranked at number four, and the enabling of legacy applications for use on the Internet, which, at number 11, scored in the bottom third of concerns in 1998. Today, of course, the Internet is the top concern among OS/400 shops, according to the survey.

Other noteworthy changes in top concerns rankings have to do with the quality of IBM's customer service. In 1998, the availability of consistent, high-quality service and support from IBM and its partners ranked as the third most important concern among respondents to COMMON's survey. In the most recent survey, that concern dropped to number 10 on the list, garnering a "notable concern" ranking. The survey results suggest that one of two things has happened over the last three years: Either the quality of service from IBM and its business partners has improved or the level of service that OS/400 shops expect has declined.

The survey also appears to capture the growing concerns that the IT industry as a whole has about security. In the 1998 survey, the capability to secure information from unauthorized access ranked number nine out of the 16 concerns and was classified as a notable concern. In this most recent survey, the capability to secure business systems and data moved up to number five and qualified as a significant concern.

That COMMON has released the 2001-2002 global top concerns survey results has to be seen as a victory for Massoglia and his supporters. Initial reports from COMMON officials last year pegged the release date of this report as the fall 2001 COMMON in Minneapolis, almost a year ago. According to Bob Boyson, a COMMON director involved with the survey, the demands this survey put on some volunteers' time was just too great and contributed to the report being nearly a year late. Just the same, the fact that the group did submit a completed survey bodes well for those who believe that COMMON should be helping to identify changes in the industry and shaping people's capabilities to deal with them through education.

Both Boyson and Gary Lagarde, the author of the report and a candidate for COMMON's board of directors, said they think the top concerns survey should be continued, but that decision will ultimately fall to the board, which will vote on whether to keep it as part of the budget. This report cost COMMON about $50,000 to produce. If the COMMON board chooses to conduct another top concerns survey in 2003 (with questionnaires distributed around the time of the spring conference and the results released, hopefully, near the fall conference), it won't cost as much because much of the software necessary to produce the report has already been purchased, Boyson said. Another level of savings would be had by distributing and collecting the surveys entirely over the Web. Most of the surveys for the latest report were transferred over the Web. In the past, all surveys were printed out and mailed, which ran up considerable bills for the organization.