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Past Symposium/ITxpo
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The Need for Speed and the Real-Time Enterprise Tuesday, 12 November 2002 The need for business speed was driven home by analysts on the opening day of Gartner Symposium/ITxpo 2002 at Darling Harbour, Sydney, today. A four-pronged analyst assault was launched at the Keynote presentation to highlight the opportunity for companies to cut costs and increase customer satisfaction by making things happen faster. “When was the last time a customer ever complained that you delivered something too quickly,” Asia/Pacific chief analyst Bob Hayward rhetorically asked the 1300-strong audience. Hayward was joined by a multicultural cast of American Daryl Plummer, Australian John Roberts and Briton Andy Kyte to launch the concept of the Real-Time Enterprise in the Asia/Pacific. “Faster implies less waste,” said Mr Hayward, “and it usually means it is cheaper, too.” He said the Ford Motor Company had cut $1.2 billion of expense by using technology to improve systems that reduced product cycle times from seven to four years. While Mr. Hayward lamented the world was spinning too fast, colleague Andy Kyte said the “demand for speed comes from each and every one of us.” He told amusing stories of frustration at choosing the wrong queue at the supermarket, or being left on hold, listening to Vivaldi, by a call center – crimes against the concept of a real-time enterprise. “The need for speed has not been decided by 12 guys sitting in a room at a top of a mountain,” said Mr Kyte. “We are all demanding everything to be done faster. “If you don’t like it, then form a political party on the ‘we want less…and we don’t really care when we get it’ platform.” Stress from the speed of business is something everyone will have to get used to, he said. “Business needs to become agile. It requires competitive intelligence and the ability to us IT effectively. This is not going to be achieved overnight but you must set this goal for your company to be successful. “This is all about dealing with the demands of people who want things now,” he said. Mr. Hayward said the secret of the real-time enterprise is to focus on the elapsed time that occurs in a process between a client’s order and the delivery. Information that becomes stuck in a system is of no use. “CIOs must look upon elapsed time control as being just as important as cost control,” he said. Product cycle times are shrinking. If it takes 60 days to achieve a goal this year, by 2006 that time might be only 14 days. “You have to vigorously identify and remove all human and technical bottlenecks, and to continuously explore opportunities to deliver real value,” he said. “Most business and government take longer than they should, or could.” However, Hayward conceded, the business community’s skepticism of technology needs to be addressed. “You must convince them that the Internet can still improve bottom line performance.” The real-time enterprise message is married to the other two key themes of this year’s Symposium: business value of IT and enterprise architecture. Analyst John Roberts warned the audience against implementing new technologies without specifying key metrics for either success or a return on investment. “Without pre-defined measures, it is impossible to measure a benefit,” Mr. Roberts said. “Once a project is implemented, the value becomes embedded into the business process and cannot be extracted easily.” He warned CIOs that “your credibility rests on not just defending the costs of your organisation, but also articulating its value.” Mark Hollands Gartner Staff |
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