Cybercrimes in our technologically driven world are on the increase—identity theft, pornography, and sexual predator victim access, to name a few. The FBI’s computer analysis response team confirms their caseload includes 800 cases reported per day in 2017. To keep up with the changing world we live in, law enforcement, corporations, and government agencies have turned to new crime-fighting tools, one of the most effective being digital forensics. The leader in this technology is Guidance Software, founded in 1997 to develop solutions that search, identify, recover, and deliver digital information in a forensically sound and cost-effective manner. Headquartered in Pasadena, California, the company employs 391 people at offices and training facilities in Chicago, Illinois; Washington, DC; San Francisco, California; Houston, Texas; New York City; and Brazil, England, and Singapore. The company’s more than 20,000 high-profile clients include leading police agencies, government investigation and law enforcement agencies, and Fortune 1000 corporations in the financial service, insurance, high-tech and consulting, health care, and utility industries. Guidance Software’s suite of EnCase® solutions is the first computer forensics tool able to provide world-class electronic investigative capabilities for large-scale complex investigations. Law enforcement officers, government/corporate investigators, and consultants around the world can now benefit from computer forensics that exceed anything previously available. The software offers an investigative infrastructure that provides network-enabled investigations, enterprise-wide integration with other security technologies, and powerful search and collection tools. With EnCase, clients can conduct digital investigations, handle large-scale data collection needs, and respond to external attacks. Notably, the company’s software was used by law enforcement in the Casey Anthony murder case and the Sony PlayStation security breach, and was used to examine data retrieved by U.S. special forces in the Osama bin Laden raid. Guidance Software also helps reduce corporate and personal liability when investigating computer-related fraud, intellectual property theft, and employee misconduct. It protects against network threats such as hackers, worms, and viruses and hidden threats such as malicious code. In response to increases in the number and scope of discovery requests, Guidance Software developed its eDiscovery Suite. The software package dramatically improves the practice of large-scale discovery—the identification, collection, cataloging, and saving of evidence—required in almost every major legal case these days. eDiscovery integrates with other litigation-support software to significantly decrease the time for corporations to accomplish these tasks. At the same time, it improves regulatory compliance and reduces disruption. The result is many millions of dollars in cost savings. In late 2017, Guidance Software was acquired by OpenText, an enterprise information management company that employs more than 10,000 people worldwide. Sources: FBI website, www.fbi.gov, accessed January 15, 2018; Guidance Software website, https://www.guidancesoftware.com, accessed January 15, 2018; OpenText website, https://www.opentext.com, accessed January 15, 2018; “Casey Anthony: The Computer Forensics,” The State v Casey Anthony website, https://statevcasey.wordpress.com, July 18, 2011; Declan McCullagh, “Finding Treasures in Bin Laden Computers,” CBS News, https://www.cbsnews.com, May 6, 2011; Evan Narcisse, “ Who’s Cleaning Up the PSN Debacle for Sony?” Time, http://techland.time.com, May 4, 2011.
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Do you think that you would be interested in a career in the technology space? Here is an overview of the history of Acer Corporation that will provide a glimpse into this industry. Acer Group was established in 1976. The Acer Group’s family of brands includes Acer, Gateway, Packard Bell, and eMachines. The multibrand strategy of Acer allows each brand to target different customer needs in the worldwide personal computer market. Acer was the third-largest maker of personal computers (second largest in notebooks) in 2008 and had revenues exceeding $16 billion. In 2017, Acer is sixth in the personal computer industry with revenues exceeding $70 billion. This Taiwanese firm has established itself as a global player in the PC market and has expanded into gaming and other related businesses. How it got there is through innovative use of alliances and acquisitions as well as forward-looking development within the firm.
Acer was founded in 1976 as Multitech. The focus of Multitech was on trade and product design (internal innovation). Just three years later, Multitech designed Taiwan’s first mass-produced computer product. The focus from the start was on a product for export—Taiwan is such a small market the firm knew it needed to make a global footprint in the computer market. Multitech, which became Acer in 1987, developed a long-term mission to allow anyone to use and benefit from technology. They have built their reputation on the development and manufacturing of sophisticated, intuitive, easy-to-use products.
When Multitech first started, the PC market was young and the founders saw many opportunities. Acer holds more patents than any other Taiwanese-based corporation, and Taiwan accounts for 70 percent of global computer hardware manufacturing. When Acer beat IBM to the market with 32-bit PCs in 1986, it signaled the beginning of the end for IBM’s PC business. Until 1990, Acer was more internally innovative than it was externally oriented for alliances and acquisitions.
In 1990, Altos Peripherals was acquired. This marked the beginning of two decades of multiple alliances and acquisitions by Acer. Because of Acer’s success in developing innovations, other companies were willing and eager to develop different types of alliances. Some of the early alliances allowed Acer to partner with some of the biggest players in the computer technology industry. For example:
This strategy has continued:
As Acer grew in strength in the marketplace, it began to make acquisitions. These acquisitions were aimed at multibranding as well as obtaining technological innovations. For example:
To illustrate the usefulness of this strategy, in 2011 Acer Inc. bought iGware Inc. for $320 million to try to enter the potentially lucrative cloud market. Then in 2012, Acer created cloud software and infrastructure tools for devices. Acer also developed equity-based partnerships. Examples of this strategy include:
While Acer was changing its business model from internal innovations as well as evolving from a manufacturing company to a development and marketing firm, it continued to spread its global footprint. It did this through various partnerships and by developing innovative products with its partners and within its own R&D areas. For example, in 2003 Acer launched the Empowering Technology Platform to meld hardware, software, and service to provide end-to-end technologies to customers. In 2008, the Aspire One was launched as the company’s first mobile Internet device. In addition, Acer made a strong move into the high-end gaming market with the Aspire Predator series. These steps were designed to enhance and strengthen Acer’s global position. Acer’s product range includes PC notebooks and netbooks, desktop computers, storage systems, peripheral devices, LCD televisions, and e-business solutions. The firm is number one in a number of markets with various products. The Europe, Middle East, and Africa (EMEA) market is a stronghold for Acer’s mobile computing solutions. Acer is the largest supplier of LCD televisions in Western Europe. Acer is first in the notebook market in Italy, Spain, Austria, Holland, Switzerland, Russia, Belgium, Denmark, Hungary, Poland, and the Slovakian Republic. In the United States and Canada, Acer is making its mark through its Channel Business Model (CBM). It developed this model as it expanded beyond Taiwan and continued to improve it as it divested its manufacturing facilities. This model allows Acer to be flexible in adapting to global IT market trends. CBM involves collaboration with partners and suppliers to develop and market top-tier products and services. In 2003, they used this model to co-brand a notebook computer with Ferrari, the Italian carmaker. In 2009, Acer unveiled the Acer F900 and M900 smartphones at the Mobile World Congress. They began by shipping to channel partners in EMEA and Asia. These products have a relatively large 3.8-inch-wide VGA display and a 3.75G HSPA connectivity for high-speed data transfer, and they are the introductory products with Acer’s new widget-based user interface that provides easy navigation with vivid 3D animation. The acquisition of Packard Bell was key to Acer’s entrance into this market with this advanced product. From 2008 to 2013, Acer’s strategy was to enhance worldwide presence with a new multi-brand strategy. With the successful completion of the mergers of Gateway and Packard Bell, Acer then heavily emphasized its goal to further strengthen its global footprint with a multi-brand strategy and solid partnerships. Since 2014, the Acer Group has been transforming into a hardware + software + services company. To accomplish this shift, Acer needed to spin off or divest certain units. This accomplished two things: 1) it made cash available for acquisitions and other new business development, and 2) it refocused the strategy of Acer. Examples of the spin-offs and divestments included:
Acer continues to lead in notebook technology while extending its product lines to enhance people’s lives through technology. In notebook technology, Acer was the leader in branding notebooks (Ferrari 4000 carbon-fiber notebook—2005), green notebooks (2010), and lightest notebook with the longest battery life (Aspire line—2012), as well as the Chromebook launch in 2015 with a 15.6-inch screen. However, its product lines have multiplied into cloud technology, gaming, and other technologies that “add value to customers’ lives” (Acer annual report). Acer has used a variety of strategic moves to continue to be competitive in the changing world of computer-related technology. Early on, they used internal innovation as a primary growth strategy to build a reputation and establish a footprint in the industry. Then they used external methods of acquiring technology and markets—mergers, acquisitions, alliances, joint ventures, equity positions, etc. Acer continues to nurture its strengths in research and development while continuing to look for new opportunities for acquisition and alliances. Sources: Anonymous. 2009. Acer website, “Showcases Multi-brand Products at Computex 2009 including Aspire Timeline Notebook, Aspire One Netbook, Aspire All-In-One PC.” JCN Newswire- Japan Corporate News Network. Tokyo, June 3, 2018; www.acer-group.com; Acer Group 10-K reports. Page 2
What do you do when you have more than 600 business units operating through 360 independent affiliates in 140 countries around the world—processing complex invoices in various languages and currencies? You seek out the best technology solution to make the job easier. At global pharmaceutical giant Novartis, the IT department is a strategic resource, a community of 2,000 people serving 63,000 customers in 200 locations and 25 data centers. Because most of the company’s invoices come from international suppliers, they have differences in design, language, taxes, and currency. Consequently, many ended up as “query items” requiring manual resolution by Novartis accounting staff—which delayed payments and made those invoices extremely costly to process. In fact, finance personnel spent so much of their time resolving queried invoices that other work suffered. A solution was badly needed. To maximize its investment, Novartis needed a flexible solution that would meet its current and future needs and function in other business departments in a variety of geographic locations. It should provide fast, accurate document capture and multilanguage support, and should extend to other types of information—such as faxes and electronic data—in addition to paper documents. Finally, in order to obtain financing for the project, return on investment (ROI) was required within nine months of project implementation. Input Accel for Invoices from EMC/Captiva was the answer. The software extracts data from paper documents, applies intelligent document recognition (IDR) technology to convert them to digital images, and sends relevant data to enterprise resource planning, accounts payable (A/P), and other back-end management systems. The specialized Input Accel server manages output by recognizing and avoiding holdups in the workflow process. It also ensures if a server goes offline, others will carry on functioning, thus avoiding downtime. Now Novartis scans incoming invoices at a centrally located site, and the images are transmitted to the Input Accel for Invoices server for image improvement. Invoice data is then extracted and validated against supplier information. Most invoices are transferred directly for payment, with relatively few invoices requiring transfer to one of three accounts payable clerks who deal with queries manually. Novartis is a global leader in research and development of products that improve health issues. Input Accel was selected by Novartis to be part of its accounting system. Thanks to IT, overall efficiency has increased, processing errors are reduced, and accounting personnel can use their time and expert knowledge for more meaningful tasks than resolving invoice errors. For Novartis, it is “mission accomplished.”
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sources “OpenText Acquires EMC Enterprise Division,” MetaSource, http://www.metasource.com, September 20, 2016; Novartis corporate website, http://www.novartis.com, March 20, 2006; “Processing Invoices From Around the World,” ECM Connection, www.ecmconnection, February 2, 2006; Kathryn Balint, “Captiva’s Paper Chase Paying Off,” San Diego Union-Tribune, December 9, 2005, pp. C1, C5. |
What are external sources of technology and innovation development and when are they best used?
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