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In the rapidly emerging, global digital
business environment, the speed of change will be limited
only by the laws of physics. What kind of organization will
thrive in such a world? According to the Theory of Relativity,
time stands still for an object traveling at the speed of
light. Therefore, viable companies in the near future will
be those that achieve the calm -- the zero time --
at the eye of the storm of change, by learning to move at
lightspeed.
These "Zero Time" companies will
react to change before it happens and provide value
for every customer at every opportunity. They will recognize
and satisfy customer needs before they are articulated.
They will identify future markets, often years before
they actually emerge, and rapidly acquire the competencies
needed to capture those markets. And they will zero in on
valued customers and act quickly to forge lifelong partnerships
with them.
While all of this may sound like science
fiction, it is very close to becoming business fact. As
you will discover in the pages of this groundbreaking book,
many of today's most successful corporations already possess
Zero Time capabilities, and it is only a matter of a few
years before fully-evolved Zero Time companies appear on
the scene. Once they do, those companies who cannot or will
not take the evolutionary leap into Zero Time will become
extinct.
In Zero Time, three leading researchers
from the University of Texas-affiliated IC2 Institute offer
us our first glimpse of the Zero Time corporation. They
explain how technology is impacting upon organizations and,
with the help of fascinating case studies from Intel, Ford,
Amazon.com, Dell, and other near-Zero Time companies, they
identify the five key disciplines needed to become a Zero
Time organization, including:
- Zero Value Gaps: aligning company values
with a select group of right customers in order to deliver
absolute gratification and lock in customer loyalty for
life
- Zero Learning Gaps: mastering three types
of learning -- stealth, just-in-time, and rapid learning
-- and instantly converting learning into customer value
- Zero Management Gaps: restructuring an
organization holonically so that every part contains
the entire organization's information, knowledge, and
capacity for action
- Zero Process Gaps: aligning work processes
throughout the company in order to achieve zero resistance
to total customer service
- Zero Inclusion Gaps: bringing all relevant
parties into the decision-making process, including suppliers,
customers, and customer's customers
A visionary guide to surviving and thriving
in a superfast business world, Zero Time is must
reading for managers at mid- to large-scale companies in
every industry -- and for e-business start-ups who want
to get it right the first time.
Raymond Yeh, PhD, is Chairman and CEO
of FunSoft. Dr. Yeh has been an executive consultant to
IBM, GTE, AT&T, NEC, Siemens, and Hitachi, and is the
founder of three successful software companies. A prolific
writer, he has authored ten books and more than 120 articles,
and has served as a columnist for BIT, Japan's most
popular computer magazine. Dr. Yeh taught at several universities,
including the University of Texas at Austin and the University
of Maryland, and was the Control Data Corporation Distinguished
Professor at the University of Minnesota.
Keri Pearlson, DBA, is the founder and
CEO of the Zero Time Institute and Founding Partner of KP
Partners. She served as a faculty member in the well-known
Information Management Program at the University of Texas
at Austin, Graduate School of Business. Dr. Pearlson has
worked with executives at many e-business startups and with
managers at several Fortune 500 companies, including 3M,
General Motors, FedEx, AT&T, Dell, and Cisco.
George Kozmetsky, DCS, is the Chairman
of IC2, a leading-edge think-and-do tank for commercialization
of science and technology at the University of Texas at
Austin. He is also the Executive Associate for Economic
Affairs for the University of Texas System and Cochairman
of the Cross-Border Institute for Regional Development.
Dr. Kozmetsky has received numerous honors and awards, including
the National Medal of Technology. He is the cofounder and
former executive vice president of Teledyne, Inc., and Director
Emeritus of Dell Computer Corporation.
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