The Next Leap in Productivity: What Top Managers Really Need to Know about Information Technology

4.26. What Kind of Productivity Improvements Are We Talking About?

The improvements in productivity are measurable. Remember, we look at the total number of LOC in the organization divided by the number of people who are working on that code, the LOC per head, as a proxy for productivity.

Currently, the industry average LOC per head is 10,000 to 20,000. This is roughly equivalent to a book of 80 pages. With ADP, I have seen productivity go up by a factor of 10, with each person responsible for between 100,000 and 200,000 lines of code—a book of about 800 pages. There are more correlations to understand in this larger volume of code, but ADP's emphasis on automation makes this possible.

When you achieve this 10 × boost in productivity that ADP can deliver, it has a dramatic impact on the enterprise. Now you can implement disposable software because you can implement new code rapidly—and be confident that it works.

With this capability, you can react quickly to market changes and requirements. You gain the ability to make strategic decisions with your IT systems, which are basically the brains of your enterprise.

That is the key to achieving the second quantum leap of productivity.