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From The Publisher:
A Q & A With Bill Gates
Question: Why did you write this book, Business
@ the Speed of
Thought?
Bill Gates: I wrote Business @ the Speed of Thought to help business
leaders understand how they can take advantage of the incredible changes
taking place. I think business will change more in the next 10 years than it
has in the last 50 and businesses that seize the opportunity and use digital
tools to move information inside their enterprise, as well as to reach out
to customers in new ways, they'll lead in this era.
Q: What's the meaning of Business
@ the Speed of Thought?
BG: Well, up until now, the speed of business has been limited by moving
information around, but with digital tools moving that information at the
speed of light, the only constraint is how well you use your knowledge
workers, your thinkers, to react to what's going on, to plan new products,
to make sure you're using all of your resources in the right way. So
'business at the speed of thought' says that business will be done in a new
way and it's about empowering those knowledge workers and reaching
out with digital tools to make sure that all the best thinking gets applied.
Q: Who should read this book?
BG: Well, Business
@ the Speed of Thought was written for people who
think about business. A lot of it is aimed at a CEO who is thinking how to
transform their company for this new era. A lot of it's written for workers
in these enterprises who are thinking about how they can be innovative in
moving their company to be more efficient. It's really for anybody thinking
about the future of business, thinking about how companies will deliver
services and products in better ways using the wonderful advances that
technology has made available. Part of my motivation for writing it is the
discussions I've had with CEOs over the last few years where they've
been asking what insights do we have about how they can use these new
advances? I thought it would make sense to take some examples of
companies that are leading the way, really get it down on paper so that
people could see a composite of what a modern company will look like.
Q: How does this book differ from  The Road Ahead
BG: Business
@ the Speed of Thought is quite a bit different than The
Road Ahead because it focuses on the business person — what is their
opportunity, what are some great examples of people who are already
doing the right things for this era. Of course, technology is the change
agent here. It is the thing that's creating the opportunity to do business in
new ways. So I update a few of the technological predictions, but that's a
very small part of this book. The real focus here is to even give people a
check list of the kind of things they ought to be thinking about as they
prepare their organization for this new world.
Q: What is a digital nervous system?
BG: The term Digital Nervous System talks about a company taking the
approach of getting all their information to be easily available and really
empowering their workers. It combines the latest PC, Internet and
communications technologies, but far more important than that is the
processes you build around digital activities. For example, capturing all
the information about customers and taking full advantage of that. For
example, being able to allow teams to come together even when they're in
different locations or even if they don't work for your company but they're
a partner company. That kind of capability can only come with a
comprehensive plan for the company to build a Digital Nervous System.
Q: What do web workstyle and web lifestyle mean?
BG: Well, the Web, of course, is referring to the Internet and the way that
all the rich information out there will allow people to find out whatever
they want to know. So the Web will change the way we work. The Web
will allow some work to be done from at home. The Web will allow
people to collaborate and share like never before. So I think that whole
approach to work deserved a term, so I coined that new term Web
Workstyle. Web Lifestyle is the home equivalent of that, the idea that
when you want to plan a trip, you want to stay in touch with relatives who
are far away, things like exchanging photos, finding the best prices, being
able to select creative gifts and just using it to communicate, that will
become commonplace. Any activity you're going to engage in, whether it's
buying or simply planning something, you'll be able to take advantage of
the Web and you'll even take it for granted. It won't be as much trouble as
it is today.
Q: How can I prepare for the digital age?
BG: I think every business person needs to get personally involved in
using the PC and the Internet, going out and buying some products, seeing
what type of home page their company has, see what their competitors
have there. That'll help them to appreciate that whatever constituency
they're working with — partners, shareholders, prospective employees,
and most importantly their customers — that this really is a new way of
communicating. Another key step I think a company should take is really
strive to get things off of paper and into digital form. The more you can
get that online, the more you increase worker efficiency and the more you
get creativity from all your workers about how other systems could be
moved into digital form.
Q: Does any company have a perfect digital nervous system?
BG: Absolutely not. No company today has got their information in this
easy to access form that is the ideal put forward in the book. Microsoft is
one of the pioneers who's done a number of things to move in that
direction. In fact, Microsoft is used as an example. The way that we track
some our sales data is good, the way that we've eliminated forms inside
the company is very good, but I'd say we're probably only halfway
towards what we really need to do to be as efficient as this era will
demand for all companies. I also included lots of examples from different
industries, examples from the car industry, from banking, from companies
that are leaders in their field where they've taken a certain area and used a
Digital Nervous System type approach and have gotten lots of benefit out
of it. In fact, it's created momentum in those companies to do other
projects as well. So there's a lot to be done, even in the companies that
have put the most into this.
Q: What does it take to build a digital nervous system?
BG: Building a Digital Nervous System does not require some huge new
investment in hardware and software. In fact, most companies have the
key building blocks today. They're giving their knowledge workers PCs
on their desktop. They're networking those computers together and they
probably got some kind of site out on the Internet and the ability to have
information flow into and out of the company across the Internet. A lot of
the idea is taking that and using it in a more profound way, taking
information that was on paper, and processes where information was not
captured and getting it onto your intranet and building tools so that the
knowledge workers find that information very easy to get to. So there isn't
a huge amount of money required here. It's much more a question of
stepping back, thinking through what's key to your company and having
leadership from the top that says that you are going to use this tool, you
are going to take these new approaches.
Q: How can technology reshape government and schools?
BG: Well, the basic idea of a Digital Nervous System where you have
everything online and easily accessible, applies to enterprises of all
types. Think about government. Their business is to help process
information and to make a lot of that information available to the public.
So the efficiency and improvement that can be gained by a Digital
Nervous System inside government is, if anything, greater than inside your
typical business. Likewise, think about education. Students are, in a sense,
the ultimate knowledge workers. Their whole job is to try out problems,
see how they solve those problems and have access to a broader set of
information than you need inside a typical business. So letting those
students have this tool, letting them bring back the things they've seen and
share that with other students, that kind of activity can make education
more effective than ever before. It was kind of amazing, as I wrote the
book, how the principles that applied to large companies, those principles
applied equally well to these different kinds of enterprises and smaller
enterprises. In fact, the smaller you get, the more you need to partner with
other people using these digital tools so that you can be competitive with
the large companies that will be doing the same thing.
Q: Can a digital nervous system level the playing field?
BG: There's always been an issue in business of what's the appropriate
scale, what things do you need to do inside a company and what things
should you do outside. I actually see these Digital Nervous Systems as
changing that balance somewhat. Big companies will choose to do some
additional things outside. But as big companies are doing these things
well, they'll be overcoming a lot of the overhead they have as a large
company. They have the benefit of their scale, the breadth of their product
line, the depth of expertise, but the cost to share information inside the
organization is what has made them often cumbersome and bureaucratic.
So these tools really address the things that make large enterprises less
efficient. For the small enterprises, what these tools do is allow them to
reach out to other small enterprises. Even though they may not be in the
same building, even though they may not be in the same city, they can
work together and present to the customer a set of offerings that are just as
good as a large scale company could do in competition with them. So yes,
it does equal the playing field between businesses of different sizes if it's
used in the right way.
Q: Is one country in the lead?
BG: Businesses in the United States have definitely taken the lead in
adopting these digital approaches and I think there are many reasons for
that. The popularity of the personal computer and the Internet there, the
fact that college students coming into these businesses have all been using
the Internet as students to sign up for classes or communicate with their
friends. So there's really an assumption that this will change business.
Part of the goal of the book is to get business leaders all over the world to
see that this is coming, because in many cases they'll have competitors in
the United States who will be taking advantages of these approaches. I'm
often asked does the U.S. have a permanent lead in this and the answer is
absolutely not. The technologies are available on a global basis. In fact,
in the government arena, the best work is definitely being done outside the
United States, but I think the message about how businesses will change is
definitely a global message. It's a global message because the opportunity
is there for everyone, also because businesses will be competing with
companies in other countries much more than they ever have in the past.
So I'm hopeful that the book stimulates more innovative use of these new
tools all over the world, particularly in places where so far the uptake has
been a little slower.
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