“Ok, we will have to design and build some sort of ICBM or buy one, that will cost a lot of money. Also, I’m not even sure you can get an ICBM that’s fast enough for that distance. And have we thought about acquiring land for the launch site or what sort of launch system will we considering?.”

“But I want to do it in my car.”

“Oh, well, that’s a big ICBM, to hurtle that sort of load in that sort of timeframe across that sort of distance. Molto-dinero. Also, re-entry procedures at the New York end could be tricky and …”

“No, I meant, I want my car to be used for the journey.”

“But that’s not possible!”

“What sort of engineer are you? Can’t you just soup it up a little?”

“Well even if we could make your car amphibious, there’s no way it can travel 5,500 kilometres in 12 minutes”

“I don’t want an amphibious car!”

“Have you considered a ship of some type?”

“Yes a ship will get me and my car to New York.”

“Excellent. It takes about a week for a ship to cross the Atlantic I believe.”

“But I just said in my specification that it has to take 12 minutes! Also I wish to travel via the Pacific Ocean, as it is prettier this time of year.”

” … !!! “

I don’t hold that software makes an existing business process “efficient” at all. Rather I think software makes possible a new process, which should be more “efficient” in terms of money gained less dollars spent – but its a new process, not the old one. In effect, new software creates new business opportunities. New software will only make an existing, unchanged process, less efficient, if a new business process is not designed along with the new software. If the business just wants new software without changing “what they do” they are wasting their money, IMHO.

Of course there is the possibility (probability?) the business doesn’t actually understand what it is they actually do anyway. This is not an uncommon position for many businesses that are happy to cruise along in neutral making some marginal profit on some marginal activity. Usually these businesses are also found to be beating their workers with sticks (usually only metaphorical ones unless they ‘offshore’ their operation to countries where killing your workers is just a part of ‘Business as Usual’. Typically they hold that marginal process can be made ‘better’ simply with just more exhortation (or threats) to greater and greater efforts at a totally demoralized (if not actively hostile) workforce, but I suspect that’s a story for another day!