Bill Gates - Business @ The Speed of Thought (1999)

23 Sourced Quotes

View all Bill Gates Quotes
Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning.

Bill Gates
In three years, every product my company makes will be obsolete. The only question is whether we will make them obsolete or somebody else will.

Bill Gates
When you lose a customer, it can be tempting to tell each other, "That customer's not very sharp. They just made the wrong decision".

Bill Gates
Learning from mistakes and constantly improving products is a key in all successful companies.

Bill Gates
Analytical software enables you to shift human resources from rote data collection to value-added customer service and support where the human touch makes a profound difference.

Bill Gates
The leader needs to create an environment in which people can analyze the situation and develop a good response.

Bill Gates
Leaders need to provide strategy and direction and to give employees tools that enable them to gather information and insight from around the world. Leaders shouldn't try to make every decision.

Bill Gates
Strategically, a major function of the CEO is to look for bad news and encourage the organization to respond to it. Employees must be encouraged to share bad news as much as good news.

Bill Gates
How fast a company can respond in an emergency is a measure of its corporate reflexes.

Bill Gates
Every company can choose whether to lead or follow the emerging digital trends.

Bill Gates
The most important 'speed' issue is often not technical but cultural. It's convincing everyone that the company's survival depends on everyone moving as fast as possible.

Bill Gates
The Internet is becoming the town square for the global village of tomorrow.

Bill Gates
If the 1980s were about quality and the 1990s were about reengineering, then the 2000s will be about velocity.

Bill Gates
Bringing together the right information with the right people will dramatically improve a company's ability to develop and act on strategic business opportunities.

Bill Gates
Teams should be able to act with the same unity of purpose and focus as a well motivated individual.

Bill Gates
Sometimes, I think my most important job as a CEO is to listen for bad news. If you don't act on it, your people will eventually stop bringing bad news to your attention and that is the beginning of the end.

Bill Gates
Only a few businesses will succeed by having the lowest price, so most will need a strategy that includes customer services.

Bill Gates
The need to communicate effectively with your customers will come up again and again.

Bill Gates
A bad strategy will fail no matter how good your information is and lame execution will stymie a good strategy. If you do enough things poorly, you will go out of business.

Bill Gates
The Internet will help achieve "friction free capitalism" by putting buyer and seller in direct contact and providing more information to both about each other.

Bill Gates
The most meaningful way to differentiate your company from your competitors, the best way to put distance between you and the crowd is to do an outstanding job with information. How you gather, manage and use information will determine whether you win or lose.

Bill Gates
Embrace bad news to learn where you need the most improvement.

Bill Gates
The flatter the corporate hierarchy, the more likely it is that employees will communicate bad news and act upon it.

Bill Gates