News Stories:

Click-on these handy "jump links" to quickly access the news item
you're looking for.

1. RTE means drive faster with an eye on the clock

2. Skyscrapers `back in vogue'

1. RTE means drive faster with an eye on the clock
DAVID WILSON, SCMP, 13 April 2004

Sit back and listen to a freeware MP3 which pipes the sound of rain and waves, then take a hit of your favourite sedative. Otherwise, especially if you are already suffering from stress and duress, you may find that the jargon on trial this week triggers palpitations.

The jargon in question is the "just-in-time" or real-time enterprise (RTE). It probably merits a moment of your attention because, well, it is the future, according to the esteemed crystal ball-gazing enterprise Gartner.

It predicts that by 2007 the leaders in every business discipline "will have achieved leadership or fortified their lead through real-time capabilities".

Sam Sliman, a bigwig at the tech consultancy Optimal Solutions, explained how the hot trend arose. Traditionally, businesses have limped along, performing a laborious routine: "plan [figure out what you're going to do, how much you will spend, and so on], execute [do it and spend the money], review [track plan versus actual performance] and optimise [make adjustments before starting the cycle over again]".

Before computers emerged, it took many man hours (and a high boredom threshold) to produce the information needed for this process. As a result, it could only occur about once a year.

Mr Sliman said RTE practice could make a firm instantly responsive to changes in the business climate.

He portrayed RTE as the son of ERP (enterprise resource planning): the management system which brings to mind the tip given by the American backwoods philosopher Henry Thoreau: "Simplify, simplify".

In theory, ERP integrates all facets of a business from manufacturing to marketing. RTE also poses as a total solution. Only in its case the refrain is: "Accelerate, accelerate".

Mr Sliman said RTE eliminated the inefficiencies which dragged down a business.

The question is how. The program which RTE cheerleaders invariably recommend is the digital dashboard. Take the model offered by NetSuite, a private company which pitches itself as "committed to helping entrepreneurs achieve their dreams".

The NetSuite dashboard purports to let companies manage all their business processes in real-time. That means it displays information concerning all aspects of business, ranging from accounting to sales force automation.

The information supposedly updates instantly and so, in theory, you continually stay abreast of events. If that is true and this flickering embodiment of urgency really does represent such a welcome prospect, you might assume the Web would be awash with alternative instant gratification business software. In fact, aside from the odd accountancy tool, hardly any is in evidence.

This suggests that RTE is just another vapid and crass office trend designed to make drones, grunts and slaves sweat harder. Or maybe the average business really is living in the dark, which means a mere panel alone can illuminate and, thus, invigorate its performance.

NetSuite chief executive Zach Nelson said: "Most CEOs know more about the details of Ben and JLo's life than they do about their daily business metrics. Our new dashboards provide a `My Yahoo!' like view into every aspect of a business - sales, marketing, distribution and finance."

Todd Walter, a chief technology officer at data warehousing firm Teradata, insisted that RTE was the only way ahead. "If I were the CIO of a company that hasn't begun to make the leap to a real-time enterprise paradigm, I'd be scared to death right now," he said.

The message is clear: speed up or disappear. Let us hope that this "now economy" emphasis on immediacy is able to produce more than just added stress and frustration. The cautionary saying: "The faster I go, the behinder I get" comes to mind.

2. Skyscrapers `back in vogue'
Keith Wallis, The Standard 13 April 2004

Human ambition and a resurgence in property investment has renewed interest in constructing tall buildings despite the terrorist attacks on the twin towers of New York's World Trade Centre.

From Hong Kong and the mainland to the Middle East and Australia, developers have rediscovered their love affair for tall structures, according to leading design firm Hyder Consulting.

Andrew Davids, the firm's director for building structures, said the firm is working on 16 projects involving buildings of more than 50 storeys.

These include five residential towers in Hong Kong, two schemes in Sydney, Australia, plus five residential blocks in Dubai and Kuwait's central bank headquarters.

``There has been a surge in tall building designs. After September 11, we thought it had all dried up, but what happened was a sudden rush of inquiries about 12 months afterwards,'' Davids said.

He believed both emotional and practical considerations drove the surge in interest.

``Constructing taller and taller buildings is part of the human psyche. Building taller has to do with human aspirations. What limits the height of a building is not the technology, it is human aspiration,'' he said.

Economies awash with cash have made these dreams reality.

Johnny Fan, Hyder Consulting Hong Kong technical director, said: ``In Hong Kong, there is quite a substantial amount of cash in hand. All the banks are flooded with money.''

Davids said that in Australia the growth of superannuation funds led a lot more people to think about their retirement and as a consequence the possibility of investing in property, particularly affordable high-rise projects. ``People pulled out of the stock markets [to go] into property,''

In the Middle East, strong demand was helped by changes in the ownership regulations last year, particularly in Dubai, that allowed foreign passport owners to invest in property.

From a contractor's viewpoint, Davids pointed out that developers have shifted towards design and build as the delivery method of choice.

``Of our 16 projects, for about half of them we are employed by the main contractor,'' he said. This shift to design and build is being driven by a client's desire to better manage risk that comes from all of the construction team working more closely together.

Davids said that although there has been renewed interest in tall buildings since September 11, 2001, there have been changes in design criteria since the terrorist attacks.

He said the World Trade Centre collapsed not because they were hit by the two passenger aircraft, but as a result of the subsequent fires after the aircrafts' fuel tanks exploded.

Consequently, the focus has been on designing robustness. Davids said: ``The real question is whether there are things the design team can do to prevent local damage causing total collapse.'' This includes adding structural reinforcement to make buildings more robust. Davids said developers have become more sophisticated in the past three years.

Many thought little could be done to save a building in the face of a direct hit from an aircraft, bomb or missile attack. But now there is a belief buildings should survive and it is ``not necessarily an expensive exercise to change the design''.