This was a huge area that had a lot of problems already, with even more to come as the growth of electronic messaging gets bigger and bigger. Such a company responds to its bigger customers first, Palmer explains, but its smaller customers have the same demands as the larger, better-financed ones. It's not worth a million bucks each to do it. But you have to, if you want to retain those people. If the needs of this new, evolving marketplace could be boiled down to one word, that word would be speed.
Most companies take two weeks.
This changes the way the organization functions. When I put in a sales promotion, I don't have to wait for two weeks to see if it's making any sense. The effects of such a management style are felt throughout a company. I view information technology as the fuel that's been added to the gasoline drum. It reduces the risk of, 'Let's create a product for the fall season a year from now,' where you order raw materials, have the product built, put it on a freighter, and then find out that the whole world has changed between then and now.