Evidences

Question 1
1 YOU can’t accuse Gary Reiner of being
verbose. Ask General Electric’s chief
information officer a question, and you get
an answer that is right to the point. And he
regularly checks whether his listeners are
still following: “Are you getting what you
need?”
 Question 2
3 GE’s aim is to monitor everything in
real time, Mr. Reiner explains calling up a
special spreadsheet on his PC: a “digital
dashboard” with green, yellow and red colors
that signal the status of programs that are
critical to GE’s business …
 Question 3
5 … In years to come , experts predict,
many companies will use information
technology to become a " real- time
enterprise"- an organization that is able to
react instantaneously to changes in its
business. And as firms wire up and connect
to form networks with their business
partners…
 Question 4
6 But the real-time enterprise is not simply about speeding
up information flow. It is also about being able to monitor a
business continuously and react when conditions change. Today,
businesses "are mostly shooting in the dark", says Michael
Maoz, of Gartner, and IT consultancy…

7 Mr. Maoz also emphasizes the third main benefit of a real-

time enterprise: using newly available information to offer new
products and services. New hardware, such as wireless
sensors,…
 Question 5
2 Anything else would be
disappointment. After all, America’s GE is
a

known for its obsessive quest for perfection.

And Mr. Reiner heads the company’s most
important initiative: computerizing or
digitalizing, as much of its business as
possible…
 Question 7
2 …And Mr. Reiner heads the company’s most
important initiative: computerizing or digitalizing, as
much of its business as possible. That not only
means buying and selling things online but, more
importantly, setting up a digital nervous information
system that connects everything involved in the
company’s business: IT systems, factories,
employees, suppliers, customers and products.
 Question 9
4 As chief information officer, Mr. Reiner
was the first in the firm to get a dashboard.
Now all GE’s senior managers have them. The
principle is always the same: the dashboard
compares certain measurements such as
response times or sales or margins, perform
against goals, and alerts managers (in real
time) if they need to take action.
 Question 11
6 But the real-time enterprise is not simply about speeding
up information flow. It is also about being able to monitor a
business continuously and react when conditions change. Today,
businesses "are mostly shooting in the dark", says Michael
Maoz, of Gartner, and IT consultancy…

7 Mr. Maoz also emphasizes the third main benefit of a real-

time enterprise: using newly available information to offer new
products and services. New hardware, such as wireless
sensors,…
 Question 12
8 …It is also likely to make economies
more fluid and perhaps more volatile. The
financial markets have already shown that
putting even parts of the economy on
autopilot can lead to accidents. The stock
market crash of 1987 was caused in large
part by automated program trading.
Perhaps, one day, the “now economy” will
have to have circuit breakers installed.