Why aren’t more companies involved in real-time communications? It’s a great question, but it has been difficult to quantify. According to David Meerman Scott a common response is “We can’t because we don’t know what the ROI will be.”

Really? That seems a bit disingenuous. All around us we see the benefits of engaging in real-time benefit and how it improves our lives. Business should be no different. It’s part of life. David Meerman Scott makes the point that many companies have distributed black berries and iPhones to executives. Why do they do this? To have real-time communication, of course. Did they really have to do a study to understand the return on investment of being able to communicate throughout the company around the world in real-time? No. The benefits are readily apparent.

To back up his theory, David Meerman Scott contacted the Fortune 100 companies to find out how many could respond in real-time. Of the 100, just 28% responded in what he identified as real-time. Of those 28 companies that did respond, their corresponding stock price movement over a year increased 3%. In the same time the Standard & Poor 500 lost nearly 1%; companies that didn’t engage in real-time lost more than 2%. That’s a positive difference of 5% in an extremely tough market. Admittedly there are likely other factors at play. But it would be tough to deny that the companies with the mindset to engage in real-time today are also likely to be companies to have the best understanding of their customers and their markets.

To learn more about Real Business in Real Time check out the free webinar with David Meerman Scott. It’s the first in our series about real time business.