Over the past several years, I have interviewed dozens of senior executives of Fortune 1,000 companies and asked two questions: “Is there information that would help you run your company far better if you had it in real time, and, if so, what is it?” Without exception, they answered yes to the first question, then ticked off the one to three items they wanted. Dave Dorman at AT&T said he wanted real-time customer transaction information, such as contract renewals and cancellations. Rick Wagoner at GM wanted real-time progress reports on new vehicle development. Others on his senior team wanted certain narrowly defined data on product quality and productivity. Dick Notebaert at Qwest wanted customer satisfaction numbers. The CEO of a well-known services business wished he had real-time transaction volume data on a limited group of his best customers, while the CEO of an events business wanted to see minute-by-minute tracking of how much show-floor space has been sold.
Give Me That Real-Time Information
It’s not hard to head off disasters before they happen. You just have to know what to look for.
Summary.
Reprint: F0404E
Real-time information about things like network outages, product development, and customer satisfaction is available, but few executives capitalize on it. That’s because they’re not asking the right questions.
A version of this article appeared in the April 2004 issue of Harvard Business Review.