The key feature of a real-time enterprise is spontaneous transaction flow. In most businesses today, an event like a customer order spawns thousands of transactions that go through a series of vertically organized departments. As a result, most companies have a highly fragmented view of their customers. A real-time enterprise addresses that problem. The Internet is still the most important business platform of the past century.
Nothing rivals the Net when it comes to reinventing business processes.
Size begets complexity, and complexity loses. But the Net can enable big companies to behave like the small, homespun companies that they once were. I started worrying that the show could become very unpopular very fast. For whatever reason, I desperately need the approval, week after week, of 17 million complete strangers. Logistically, there aren't enough hours in the day.