Speed Demons argues that the pace of business is accelerating:
The pace is picking up across such industries as retailing, consumer goods, software, electronics, autos, and medical devices. In many realms, the time it takes to bring a product to market has been cut in half during the past three or four years. At Nissan Motor Co., the development of new cars used to take 21 months. Now, the company is shifting to a 10 1/2-month process. In the cell-phone business, Nokia, Motorola, and others used to take 12 to 18 months to develop basic models. Today: Six to nine months.