The real-time enterprise is a business concept that focuses on efficiency and removing unnecessary processes. It aims to improve response times, share information, and minimize costs. Transparency and reducing overall costs are also important factors. The concept has been around for a long time but was only implemented in the early 21st century.
The real-time enterprise is a responsive business concept. In a true real-time enterprise, as soon as the business needed something, they would start working on it. The time between desire and acquisition is so low that it seems to have no break. While that’s the ultimate goal of the concept, it’s actually typically a little less immediate. In real terms, the concept focuses on efficiency and the removal of unnecessary processes.
The idea of the real-time enterprise has been around for a long time, but it wasn’t until the early 21st century that the technology and infrastructure was in place to actually implement the concept. As a pure concept, the process would have worked very mechanically. When a person needed something, he would contact the person or department in charge of that thing and work would begin to secure it. It doesn’t matter if the person needed a paper clip, tech support, or a new server system – everything would have a direct supervisor.
This level of involvement would break an organization into a rigid hierarchy. Each person would have people directly above or below them working on a specific aspect of the business. The department would get word that something was needed and it would leak directly to whoever was responsible for that one thing.
When introduced into the real world, the real-time enterprise loses much of the dehumanizing automation and shifts more towards efficiency. Overall, this real-life concept focuses on three areas, improving response times, sharing information, and minimizing costs. Each of these things connect to improve overall business processes.
Improving the company’s response time is the cornerstone of the concept. These apply to all aspects of the business, both internally and externally. Because improvements affect the entire company, everything from procuring office supplies to completing development projects to managing suppliers is examined to find ways to maximize efficiency. The first step is usually to remove excess processes and staff. Subsequently, departments are usually rearranged to ensure that each person has direct involvement in the activities.
Another important concept in the real-time enterprise is transparency. This means that a single department or group of people does not hold specific information about the company. This will allow a worker to access the information needed for their job, even if another department has generated that information. This will eliminate a number of time-consuming processes.
The last important factor is the reduction of overall costs. By eliminating unnecessary steps in the business process, a business makes money in two ways. First, eliminate superfluous employees, positions and processes. This will save the business money by removing labor costs. Second, because each process takes less time than before, more can happen in the same amount of time, resulting in higher productivity.
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