Zero Time: Providing Instant Customer Value––Every Time, All the Time - Hardcover

Yeh, Raymond; Pearlson, Keri E.; Kozmetsky, George

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0471382450 ISBN 13: 9780471382454

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons, 2000

Synopsis

In the superfast world of the 21st century, businesses must react instantaneously. Being a zero-time company involves more than compressing time - it's about providing value for every customer at every opportunity. To achieve this, firms must be willing to restructure and compress relationships: they must take advantage of all that the digital world has to offer. To put it simply, without the Internet, you can't be in zero time. With case studies from companies like Intel, GE and Cisco, this book identifies five key disciplines companies must adopt in order to remain competitive. It aims to enable companies to do business and evolve in the 21st century, where time is the key variable driving all others.

About this title

About the Author

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 start-ups 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.

From the Back Cover

Praise for Zero Time

"Zero Time provides valuable insight into the critical success factors of the digital age: total customer experience, velocity, and operational efficiency-all components of Dell's direct model." -Michael Dell, Chairman and CEO, Dell Computer Corporation "Zero

Time will become a secular 'bible' for the twenty-first century-speed in 'closing the gaps' is essential, not only for success but for survival."-Herbert D. Kelleher, Chairman, President, and CEO, Southwest Airlines Co.

"With this publication, the authors continue to make significant contributions to the world of business, and we are deeply grateful for their remarkable insight and vision."-William H. Cunningham, Chancellor, The University of Texas System

"Zero Time contains some of the most powerful and creative ways of thinking about learning systems, customer focus and delight, trusting corporate cultures, and organizational agility that I have ever seen."-David M. Darst, Managing Director, Morgan Stanley Dean Witter

"Zero Time boldly identifies the point at which the much-noticed innovations of companies as different as FedEx, Dell Computer, General Electric, and Cisco will converge as a dramatic new model for American business . . . From the pile of new volumes on corporate change, this is the one to select for your strongest essential insight."

-Barry Munitz, President and CEO

The J. Paul Getty Trust

"The business issues associated in moving at Internet speed to serve a customer base that desires instant gratification are clearly stated [in Zero Time] . . . The corporations that put these recommendations in place will be the winners in the electronic business age."-Ralph J. Szygenda, Group Vice President and CIO, General Motors Corporation

"Zero Time is the executive's guide to the new millennium! Yeh, Pearlson, and Kozmetsky have distilled the essence of the chaotic dynamics of today's paradigm-busting business world into a coherent set of principles and guidelines for success."-Alan B. Salisbury, PhD, Past President

Learning Tree International

From the Inside Flap

In the rapidly emerging, global digital business environment, the speed of change will be limited only by the laws of physics. What kind of organizations 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 customers' 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.

Edition details

• Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
• Publication date: 2000
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0471382450
• ISBN 13: 9780471382454
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 288