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Gartner Analyst Steve Prentice |
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Mastermind Keynote:
Turning Your Business Into a Real-Time Enterprise
Tuesday, 25 March 2003
For businesses eager to win in the 21st century, time is the new competitive edge. Faster production cycles. Quicker time to market. Rapid executive decision-making.
Putting time to work to seize opportunities or fight the fires that threaten the business - that's the goal of the real-time enterprise (RTE). Five Gartner analysts, in Monday's Gartner Mastermind Keynote, "Essential Strategies for the Real-Time Enterprise," probed why and how companies should transform themselves into a real-time enterprises.
Gartner analyst Steve Prentice opened the keynote presentation with a dramatic, and well-received, recitation of a relevant scene from Alice in Wonderland. In it, the Queen of Hearts explains to Alice that running as fast as she can will only allow her to stay in place; that to move ahead requires running twice as fast as she can.
As a metaphor for the real-time enterprise, The Queen's observation set the stage for the keynote discussion.
The freedom to choose - for example, consumers choosing which bank or supermarket to use and businesses choosing which suppliers to entrust with their raw materials - is the driving force behind the real-time enterprise, explained analyst Andy Kyte.
Consumers and enterprises will do business with those suppliers who provide the goods and services that matter to them the most, at a price they are willing to pay. "Businesses need to react, and to make faster, better and cheaper markets and services," Mr. Kyte said.
Extracting time from business processes, common today in operations arenas (for example, computer manufacturing), must be extended into other realms such as management and leadership processes, he added. That task requires significant change throughout an enterprise. IT can assist, but is no "silver bullet."
Analyst Betsy Burton said the chief enabling factor for businesses desiring to become real-time enterprises is a revolutionary change in thinking.
Many businesses have already invested significantly in IT infrastructure and equipment, such as business intelligence systems and data warehouses. However, most are not mining those repositories of data for the information they need to adapt more quickly to changing market conditions. "You already made the investment; leverage it," Ms. Burton said.
To bring about the real-time enterprise, she advised attendees, requires integration of all disparate business processes so that they can link with each other. She offered the audience the following to-do list during the next 12 months to begin their company's transformation into a real-time enterprise:
Ascertain the need for real-time business data. "Look at your demand-to-service," Ms. Burton explained. "How fast can you respond to your clients' demands?"
Exploit straight through processing to make your business processes work together.
Change the way your organization thinks about IT operations. Avoid the silo or stovepipe approach to technology and applications.
Business process improvements are necessary for enterprises to "sense earlier and respond faster," said Gartner analyst Mark Raskino. "Opportunities are shrinking, so reaction time must be faster."
Change management is a critical issue in the transformation to the real-time enterprise. In leveraging IT assets to make the business more real-time responsive, Mr. Raskino urged attendees to set clear goals for elapsed time reduction such as cutting time to market for a new product launch from 14 months to four. "Put it into management's bonus target so that no one can wriggle out of it," he said.
CIOs are key players in the goal-setting process. "CIOs should ask senior management to set outrageous goals," Mr. Raskino said. Moreover, enterprises should choose just two or three areas to focus on extracting time from their business processes - those key functions that are most critical to your industry.
Making your business a real-time enterprise is essential, concluded Andy Kyte. "It's not an option," he added. Businesses that commit to removing time from their business processes will be more successful; they will survive and thrive and beat their non-real-time competitors.
Michael Gomez
Gartner Staff
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