* Options for moving up in the storage business
Boss got you down? Current project getting boring? The guy in the adjacent cubicle suddenly having arguments with inanimate objects because a voice in his head told him to stop taking his medication? Maybe it’s time to move along.
And the good news is that, according to “Fortune” magazine, there are some pretty good places to move to if you are in the storage business.
EMC, Maxtor, and StorageTek, all important storage players, are listed on Fortune’s list of America’s Most Admired Companies in the “computer peripherals” category. These rankings are based on an assessment of each company’s reputation in eight categories: innovation, employee talent, use of corporate assets, social responsibility, quality of management, financial soundness, long-term investment, and quality of products and services.
And that’s not all, because the news gets even better.
Other companies that play a significant role in storage, but whose markets include more than storage alone, are also listed as among the U.S.’s most admired companies. These include IBM, HP and Sun (categorized as “computer” vendors rather than as storage vendors), and Veritas (in the “software” category).
Now let’s put these opportunities – and they may well be just that for you – in some useful context.
Understand that the rankings are made by a cross-section of large company executives, so the basis for their assessments may differ from your own. One thing that is fairly consistent in this list – and this goes for the entire “Most Admired” list, not just for the companies in the technology sectors – is that the majority of the listed firms are very large companies, most falling within the Fortune 1000. If you are only interested in smaller firms, this list has little to offer you.
The geographical distribution of the companies is predictable, and is consistent with the way the storage industry has been localized for the last several years. This means that the opportunities tend to appear in Colorado, Massachusetts and Silicon Valley. On the other hand, it is important to keep in mind that these are all very large vendors, and each of these companies has multiple sites in many locations: one may be near you, even if you are not in one of the three “geographical storage centers.”
What if you are interested in storage opportunities at smaller firms, or at start-ups?
Such companies aren’t likely to make this sort of list: they are, after all, small, and fewer people are aware of them. But many of these are at least as admirable in the way they go about their business, as are their larger brethren. And from what I hear from some of my venture capital clients, opportunities at start-ups are definitely on the rise.
All of which goes to show that if it is time for a move, there are a number of very good prospects out there to consider.
On the other hand, if it’s not time to move along but your boss is still obnoxious, maybe just taping a copy of this column on the managerial door might help to make a useful point: there are more good alternatives out there than existed a while ago, and if companies are to be competitive they had better start treating their employees as assets rather than as costs.
