Customers in the information age expect and demand immediate attention and instant gratification. Regis McKenna, author of Real time: Preparing for the Age of the Never Satisfied Customer (HBS Press), tells how companies today need to manage the transition from economies of sclae to economies of time.

Business will have to become capable of servicing this never satisfied customer. They will have to prepare, in essence, for the eventuality of anything. Perfectcion in service is defined as customers serving themselves so effortlessly - through transparent technological intermediaries - that they are hardly aware of doing so. In this sense, consumers in the Real Time world may not even notice any significant difference since all the systems of society will be running in Real Time. But for the businesses catering to these consumers, the stakes are high - they will be forced to operate in real time or they will not survive.