A wake-up call for companies

Nation's Business, March, 1998 by Dale D. Buss

David Wolkoff doesn't see himself as some sort of sociologically attuned business pioneer. He just wanted to maximize the amount of play on the par-3 golf course that his family's real-estate business was opening in Edgewood, N.Y. "We figured we could get more revenue if we stretched the daylight out, and the only way we could do that was to put lights on the course," he says.

So when Wolkoff, his brother, and his father opened Heartland Golf Park in 1994, they installed 80 stadium-style light fixtures on the 1,000-yard, nine-hole course and made tee times available until 3:30 a.m. Nocturnal golfers began showing up immediately -- even though greens fees after 7 p.m. are $20, double the daytime rate. Now they're coming in droves.

"We do the level of business that a busy, 18-hole regular course does during the summer, but the majority of people play at night here," says Wolkoff. "A lot of people who play just don't have time to leave their jobs during the day. But they can come here, say, on a Wednesday night and get in a round."

A growing number of small-business owners like Wolkoff are recognizing that the traditional eight- or 10-hour workday and the five-day business week have become remnants of the past. The marketplace has shifted into what some observers call "24-x-7" -- a milieu in which early mornings, evenings, nights, and weekends are regarded as seamless phases of a new, never-ending business stretch.

The phenomenon is spanning economic life worldwide. Once solely the province of enterprises that predictably operated around the clock, such as hospitals, truck stops, and emergency plumbing services, the around-the-clock economy now influences nearly every type and size of business. It is providing a launching point for some trailblazing entrepreneurs, tempting opportunistic owners of existing companies, and forcing still other small-business owners to adapt -- or lose ground.

"It's being pushed and driven by a whole bunch of factors, and there's no way to stop this movement to a 24-hour-day basis," says Bill Sirois, vice president of Circadian Technologies Inc., a Cambridge, Mass.-based consulting firm that helps companies make the transition.

Several imperatives have converged to produce the shift:

* Cycle compression is sweeping through business, accelerating deadlines. And technologies such as fax transmission, voice mail, and the Internet have enhanced the ability to communicate at any time.

* In manufacturing, the ceaseless search for efficiencies and the high cost of adding capacity are compelling many small companies to squeeze more out of existing facilities by adding second and third shifts. They gain in sometimes unexpected ways, such as avoiding costly weekend shutdowns.

* Time-starved American consumers, in their desperate search for convenience, are demanding all sorts of products and services outside the bounds of traditional availability. Why else would a bookstore stay open until 11 p.m.?

Here's how small companies make their way in the 24-x-7 economy:

Recognize the opportunity.

CorporateFamily Solutions has prospered by providing workplace child care and other family-support services to Fortune 500 companies.

So when Saturn Corp. and Toyota Motor Co. wanted to establish 24-hour care for children of second-and third-shift workers at the companies' Tennessee auto plants, Nashville-based Corporate Family Solutions stepped up to the plate.

"Businesses now have to put their supports in place even during non-traditional hours to help them get as productive a work force as possible," says Marguerite Sallee, president and CEO of the company, which grew to revenues of about $75 million in 1997 from $10 million five years earlier. "And we have to align our work with the needs of our corporate customers."

Nearby, Wright Travel Inc. also has established a foothold in the sleepless economy by staffing its office, at Nashville International Airport 24 hours a day. Some executives make reservations at night, says Pam Wright, who founded her Nashville-based agency in 1981 and now has 30 offices nationwide. "Plus, there are more Internet bookings, which we take care of at night."

Thomas Bollum started Anytime Access Inc. in Sacramento, Calif., as a consumer-loan call center in 1989. The firm provides around-the-clock consumer-loan services via phone and the Internet to small banks and credit unions around the country. By 1995, revenues had reached $400,000. Then he got lenders to hot4ink their World Wide Web sites to AnyTime's, and as the institutions' Internet loan applications exploded, so did Bollum's revenues. They quadrupled last year. This year Bollum expects to click across the $8 million level with 200 employees, up from 15 employees in early 1996.

"Many consumer-loan providers [say] they'll get back to customers within two to four business days simply because no one is available in the office on Friday night," Bollum says. "But we are, and we can get back to them 24 hours a day."

Pathology Laboratories Inc. in Toledo, Ohio, serves medical providers near the Ohio-Michigan border. In part because doctors' offices extending their hours to accommodate patients who are working longer days, the independent lab two years ago switched to around-the-clock service from its previous format of 10 hours each weekday and four on Saturday.