Centec had number of in-house microcomputers when it signed up with Dialcom. Although they weren't large enough themselves for EM, they could plug into Dialcom's mainframe. Today, Centec's system consists of 15 terminals, several of them portable units, public and private-network telephone lines, and Dialcom's computer in Silver Spring.
Initially, Matheny and Minor were the principal users of electronic mail, but soon other employees were seduced by the system, with rewarding results. "After we installed Dialcom, you could plot our phone bill -- it just went down on a beautiful curve," says Minor. "It dropped off several thousand dollars during the first few months, with a lot more communicating going on."
Having used EM for five years, Minor is sold on it: "It's very cost effective... It's a lot cheaper and more reliable than mailing a letter, and a lot cheaper than the telephone."
The one advantage electronic mail doesn't have going for it at the moment is a high public profile. Unlike record keeping, word processing, or data-bank search and retrieval, EM is one computer skill with applications, benefits, expenses, and shortcomings that aren't yet fully appreciated or understood by most businesspeople.
"It's still a buzzword in the business community," observes the head of a national association who is enthralled with EM after having used it for only eight months. "People really don't know what it is, but when you begin to talk about its potentials, their eyes light up." Each new user discovers fresh possibilities. "Asking what you can do with EM is like asking what you can do with a pen," says one CEO.
Matheny points to his own daily correspondence to illustrate EM's uses. "Yesterday, I received a message from one of our marketing people -- someone who's out on the road a lot -- asking me to meet with a potential client; he also 'carboned' a copy to his boss. Then we got a message from our office in Cincinnati with the waybill number and estimated date of arrival of a computer systems shipment, which I 'copied' to several people who needed to know about it... And, finally, I got a fairly lengthy message about a show, the National Computer Conference in Houston that we're going to have an exhibit at."
"The other thing we've done," says Minor, "is, when we get major clients, we give them a terminal and a 'mailbox' so that they can communicate with us whenever they want to."
Minor notes that because a computer receives, stores, and recites the messages on demand, EM is unaffected by distance, time, or the availability of other people. The sender types in a memo or report when it is convenient. With a small portable terminal that connects to any telephone, correspondence is as easy from a hotel room in Paris as from the office in New York, and once in-flight telephone service is a reality, communication will be possible en route. The recipient enjoys the same ease and efficiency. As a result, the EM user doesn't have to wait for a stenographer to return from a coffee break, wonder whether a partner has reached the L.A. office, or calculate what time it is in Madrid. "You don't have to wait for the mailman, or play 'telephone tag' with people," says Minor.
As a result, white-collar efficiency increases 15% to 20%, according to a number of studies, and it isn't unusual for a typical executive to save from 30 minutes to an hour of work time each day. James Bair, of Bell-Northern Research Inc., estimates that heavy use may yield savings of up to two hours: 30 minutes of wasted time (only 28% of telephone calls are completed the first time, whereas 100% of EM messages are, and phone calls average 9 minutes, compared with 3 minutes for EM), one hour lost to interruptions and restarts, and at least 30 minutes of professional time for clerical tasks.
With EM, the savings accrue at virtually every step. The cost of composing an EM message is significantly less than that for a letter. Because of the informality of the medium, typos are tolerated, prompting executives to compose their own letters rather than go the dictatetype-revise-and-retype route. And with many terminals, editing can be done offline, that is, without using computer time. The cost of transmitting an EM message is generally less expensive than the alternatives.
One EM system charges about 18? to deliver a typical message at night (the average charge is 50?) compared with the Postal Service's 20? charge for three-day service or an overnight delivery service's $9.50. The costs of preparing and sending a letter -- executive time, secretarial time, paper, mail-room time, postage -- may well exceed $15. Another EM service, Telemail, estimates its equivalent "all-in" cost at $4.10.
Minor notes that Dialcom quickly chopped more than $2,000 from Centec's monthly telephone bill but says the company hasn't calculated all of its savings. "You realize that you're saving money, and recognize that you're working more efficiently," he explains, "so you simply accept communications as one of the built-in costs of doing business."
Manufacturers Hanover Trust Co. and Owens-Corning Fiberglas Corp. concluded that the system was responsible for major savings. Owens found that EM, competing with memos, letters, and phone calls, averaged a savings of 25? per message, cutting annual costs by $500,000. Manufacturers Hanover discovered that employees were saving as much as an hour a day and pegged the potential savings at $2.5 million.
