InformationWeek

December 6, 1999

Companies Cope With Real-Time Operations
By Jeff Sweat

ots of companies want to move in real time, and the technology to support those efforts is falling into place. But once companies have achieved real-time operations, can they handle them?

The real-time enterprise exacts a toll on people struggling to keep up the pace. "The more tools you give people to work 24-by-7, the more pressure you put on them to always be available. It becomes harder to balance work and life," says Karen Isaacson, director of human resources IT for Kraft Foods Inc. To make it easier for employees to manage business and personal tasks, Kraft has a program called WorkLifeSolutions, which offers benefits such as flexible work arrangements and emergency dependent-care referrals.

Even workers who count on real-time information can be pelted with data on the job. Traders at Jefferies & Co. are used to constantly monitoring events for opportunities that spring up at a moment's notice. But the company tries to shield them from information overload, making sure new applications are similar in interface and concept to previous ones, so users don't have to learn more than is necessary. Jefferies is also using technology to weed out unnecessary information, from a proprietary system that filters data, routes it, and stores it appropriately, to software from BackWeb Technologies Inc. that notifies traders of only the most important information.

Some technology causes overload, especially if not used correctly. Online music retailer CDNow Inc. recently had to remove Instant Messenger from the desktops of its customer-service representatives, because they were constantly using the software for personal messages. "They spent a lot of time chatting with their buddies-in real time," says Michael Krupit, CDNow's chief development officer.

The rising tide of information could generate a backlash. "There's a discomfort in the generation over 30, a feeling of being driven by a process and never being in control," says Ernst & Young's Christopher Meyer, co-author of Blur: The Speed Of Change In The Connected Economy (Addison-Wesley, 1998) "The pace gets faster, and as you get older you don't like it. But I can't see how to stop it."

Bernard Miller, CIO of Diamond Multimedia Inc., a vendor of graphics hardware, says the company hasn't figured out a way to slow the frenetic work pace-but it has hit upon a partial cure. "We party hard," he says. "When we have a chance to break, we go out and let off some steam." In a real-time world, time to party may be all anyone can ask for.

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