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Q: Can you explain what you mean by "Real Time"?
A: Real Time is a phrase associated with very high speed computers capable of assimilating information and responding almost simultaneously. The Intel Pentium chip, or chips like them, are adding intelligence and speed to all sorts of things from home appliances, power tools, inventory systems, call centers and help desks, ATM machines, television sets, satellites, cellular phones and even toys.
Almost everything we encounter—food, clothing, transportation, communications, entertainment, work—have significantly changed in the way they are produced and delivered through the application of information technology. Computer-enabled work is now done right under the skin of the car, traffic light, cash register, gas pump, or TV. The effect of Real Time on today's world is that consumers now experience—and have come to demand—instant satisfaction when they make a request or touch a button. This ubiquitous technology is progressing very quickly, with thousands of new "smart" products entering the market every year either alone or embedded in familiar appliances and equipment.
Q: How will Real Time affect the everyday lives of consumers?
A: This new medium—digital technology embedded in silicon chips—is essentially the oil or electricity of our age—and its effects will be as transparent and far reaching. While we don't often associate our culture or "who we are" with technology artifacts, surely electricity had enormous impact on changing our media, our work, and our human communications. Likewise, Real Time technologies will have both a physical and psychological effect on people and culture in our modern world. The difference is that these new technologies are usually hidden or transparent, as in the many ways a shopper can now pay for groceries. The effects are many: banks become obsolete, financial services are offered within supermarkets, checks are approved in seconds and, consumers come to expect these services.
Real Time will also make information increasingly disposable. Consider that, as inhabitants of the information society, we already rely on gadgets to keep store of our memory: answering machines, speed dials, pocket wizards, 411, and so on. Now add to this the proliferation of media with 500 channels of television, dozens of radio stations, newspapers, magazines, on line services, kiosks, computer-delivered messages in stores. Everything we need to know (or even things we only occasionally want to know) is available anywhere, anytime at our fingertips—so why keep it on store shelves, in our heads, or in files? Information in a computer and on a network never gets old or inaccessible.
Q: How will Real Time affect how businesses operate?
A: Businesses will have to become capable of servicing this "never satisfied customer." They will have to prepare, in essence, for the eventuality of anything. My definition of perfection in service is customers serving themselves so effortlessly—through "transparent" technological intermediaries—that they are hardly aware of doing so. In this sense, consumers in the Real Time world may not even notice any significant difference since all the systems of society will be running in Real Time. But for the businesses catering to these consumers, the stakes are high—they will be forced to operate in real time or they will not survive.
Q: Do non-technology companies need to pay attention to the implications of a Real Time world in order to be competitive?
A: There are virtually no non-tech companies in the Real Time world. All retailers will use inventory management, just-in-time ordering, customer credit card payment systems, customized coupon print-outs, as well as customer data bases and credit verification systems. Manufacturers of all kinds are using computer design tools, programmable manufacturing, and computerized distribution systems. Farmers use laser-guided tractors for grading fields as well as satellite based global position systems. Ranchers and dairies use genetically enhanced means of increasing productivity and speeding development of animals. A local printer allows customers to design their own business cards on line, select the paper and quantity, and take delivery in a few days. Just last week I took my clothes to a local dry cleaners. They had installed a new computer system for identifying each article, tracking it through the cleaning process, and billing.
When a business ties together technology, speed and service, customers take notice. Companies can either compete, or risk being left behind: Amazon.com is driving Barnes & Noble into the speed business. Federal Express is driving DHL and the US Post Office into the speed business.
Q: Twentieth-century technologies like mechanized factories were criticized for disconnecting and dehumanizing the workplace. You say that Real Time, twenty-first century technologies like the Internet will instead offer individuals more freedom and control. What is the source of your optimism?
A: The technological innovations of the industrial revolution evolved and penetrated society as the result of government support for large institutions, and of market collusion. Monopolies, regulated industries, and a general attitude of "what is good for General Motors is good for America," prevailed. From a marketing perspective, consumers were best manipulated by "mass" media and promotions, but not heard from. The linear process of design to manufacturing to distribution to sales and finally to the customer was a one-way, non-feedback process.
The new infrastructure of technology currently being put into place is based on communications and networks of people and businesses. Networks offer the constant flow of interactive, two-way information. Traditional geographic, sovereign, and psychological boundaries collapse with the wireless and Internet-type technologies. Access replaces broadcast. Whereas in the past individuals had to wait until the institutions decided what information to release and when to release it, now the individual can access many sources, gather facts and data, network and discuss with friends, and influence the outcome of corporate activity. In the interactive world, the individual controls the flow of information. At the very least, the individual becomes a participant in the ebb and flow of opinion, ideas, knowledge, and dissent.
Q: In a Real Time environment how will the idea of brand need to change? Will brand loyalty be stronger or weaker?
A: I contend that the concept of brand is changing rapidly. Traditionally, brand was closely tied to a name, an ad budget, and good distribution. Brand today is much more a result of the consumer's experience with the product; the service relationship with the company, retailer or sales person; and the sustaining interactivity of the relationship. As businesses adopt a service orientation, using the new tools of interactivity—the Internet, kiosks, 800 numbers and help desks, information anywhere, anytime—a new concept of brand will emerge reinforced by the producers' actions in the marketplace and not merely words and slogans. Further, because choice has replaced brand as the primary consumer value, consumer brand loyalty is fleeting. In order to maintain customer loyalty and sustain attention and interaction, services extend the value of any brand by engaging the customer in a service-like relationship and dialogue. Brand in the new context is service, access and the immediate response to the consumer anytime, anywhere.
Q: Is this what you mean when you say that every product company will in some way become a service company?
A: Yes—information turns every business into a service business. Today, information is used to offer customized services and goods, to offer new choices to the customer. And with increased choice, the individual is in the driver's seat. Producers are desperately trying to find out what you want. Kellogg's cereal and Hershey's chocolate bars have 800 phone numbers printed on them encouraging consumers to call for nutrition information. Pepsi has its website, www.pepsi.com, on each can. Information in the hands of the marketer is being used to cater to and customize solutions to your every need. With this paradigm, time to acceptance is more important than time to market. Customer satisfaction, 800 response numbers, call centers, help desks, on-line and fax services, direct marketing, and the deluge of management books on the importance of customer satisfaction are all manifestations of the new era of service. Buyers have access to far more information about the products and services they buy and are demanding more of the producers because they now have the power to do so. Today's consumer has the power of choice.
Q: You say that to become a true, Real Time organization, a company must create a parallel version of the producer-consumer dialogue, or feedback loop, internally. Can you describe this internal feedback loop and how it works inside companies?
A: In most companies today, an individual customer's needs must still be traced back through layers of hierarchy until it is "considered" for response. Traditional marketing deals with the "masses" using research to identify customers' needs and wants. The customers themselves cannot be addressed directly because the old systems can't accommodate individual choice. Modern communications technologies, particularly networks, allow the needs and wants of any particular customer to be shared with engineering or manufacturing. Engineering talks directly to manufacturing, comparing ideas, sharing specifications and cost goals, for example. Every department of the organization can share in the commitment to common goals and procedures. Service and support people can share their daily customer concerns with appropriate engineering, manufacturing, or distribution managers. Corporations in the future will use their networks to develop the infrastructure and communities of interest necessary for sustaining customer loyalty and brand equity. They will do this by maximizing three spheres of corporate communications: the intranet, linking vital resources within the company and protected by an information firewall; the extranet, linking an enterprise's extended family of suppliers, distributors, retailers, and partners; and the Internet, an open, free-ranging array of millions of computer hosts providing information on competitors, government activity, the media, and academia.
Q: This sounds like it will require a fundamental change in how business is done within organizations. Are there any companies in which you've seen technology adoption lead naturally to a significant change in the company's culture?
A: I define culture as the things we learn to do in order to survive in any particular environment. Twenty-four hour on line networking is a culture at companies like Hewlett Packard and Sun Microsystems. If you do not adopt this culture you do not participate in decision processes or become educated on new products, services, or customers. That's the incentive for people in companies to participate in the internal dialogue. It has also been my experience that organizations that live by e-mail are better equipped to deal with change. Busy, mobile executives can collaborate, exchange ideas, hold meetings, bring up items for immediate attention, share proposals and databases anywhere, anytime. In a world where competitors and customers will not wait for a business to get its act together or make a decision on their schedule, this network is the only way to achieve world class customer satisfaction and competitiveness.
Q: In a number of ways, you compare Real Time to TQM. Can you explain how they're similar and what learning from TQM is applicable when you're creating a Real Time company?
A: Like TQM in the 1980s, Real Time systems will be essential in order for a company to compete in the decades to come. TQM is a total commitment, top to bottom, of the organizational process. Total quality took a total commitment by management to invest, train, and change the processes necessary to achieve world class competitive quality. I believe that this same attitude must permeate the corporation seeking to compete on Real Time. TQM also took most American companies a decade of investment and learning. Real Time customer satisfaction is not easy to deploy. But most important is that business leaders understand what to do and then how to do it. I hope this book will get them started.
Q: What is the biggest stumbling block that companies face on the road to becoming Real Time organizations?
A: We still love our factories more than we love our customers. Businesses have a difficult time sustaining customer attention. Systems and operations are "factory-driven"—directed towards efficiency, productivity, and costs—all essential for a successful enterprise. However, as Peter Drucker has pointed out, the reason for being in business is customer satisfaction. I believe that the biggest competitive battle corporations face is sustaining the loyalty of their customers. New tools of technology are rapidly changing the game and executives will have to change their priorities from price and delivery to access and service.
Q: You write that successful marketing in a Real Time World means that everything becomes entertainment. What do you mean by this?
A: An important characteristic of the new technologies is their ability to deliver video, animation, three dimensional graphics, and excellent sound. In a world where speed is paramount, the consumer's attention is fleeting. One event folds rapidly into the next and attention is lost. Entertainment is engaging. Network news shows have adopted an entertaining format because the "talking head" can no longer sustain viewers' interest. When every e-mail message or report is simply a long text message, interest wanes. Animated memos, video e-mails, product demonstrations, and people-to-people services over the Internet will engage and command attention. I do not wish to offer a value judgment on this phenomena, but I do want to point out that the trend in this direction is already set. Increasing bandwidth and multimedia capability combined with increased competition for customers will heighten the entertainment aspect of business communications.
Q: What are other requirements for marketing in a Real Time world?
A: First, companies must envision the overall strategy for designing and servicing the marketplace in Real Time. Most organizations have many of the components already in place: client-server IT systems, databases, networks, and training. However, most organizations think of such systems as expediting distribution rather than interacting with the customer. One important component is designing the customer interface. Federal Express designed its self-tracking software for use by its customers. The design of the interface that appears to the customer is perhaps the most important element for achieving continued interaction. The twelve button keypad on the telephone represents such a design. The greatest feature of the Apple Macintosh was its interface and ease of use.
Q: Has your Real Time message been difficult for business people you've worked with to swallow?
A: Most business people today sense the increased demand for speed in product development, design cycles, inventory turns, and competitive response. Where most fall short is in the development of interactive marketing systems. I do not find executives unwilling to buy into the Real Time nature of their competitive environment. Nor do they deny that customer loyalty is a critical goal. Their biggest concern is about implementation, and developing a strategy for creating a unique customer interface and rapid response system. Most of the technology is here and senior managers well understand that things are changing too fast to wait until a competitor initiates action first.
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