How To Turn Knowledge Into Commercial Power

The greatest business need, observed during a lifetime spent on consulting assignments, is to enable people to become more effective. This need comes not only from competitive pressures, but also from cost pressures that is forcing a reduction in the depth of organisational hierarchies. Being more effective also means being more flexible as businesses increase the rate at which they change. You find that your people need to handle more responsibilities, new organisation structures, new processes, new policies, new products/services, new ways of doing business, new business environments.

Like many enterprises, you may already be experiencing the opportunities,and threats presented by the information superhighway. There is increasing computing demands being made by the stakeholders in your business for inter/intra access that automatically, rapidly, and securely provide the data/information:

that is needed (whether adhoc or by subscription),
when it is needed,
where it is needed,
in the form that it is needed,
and at the level of detail that it is needed.

This means that the global trend is such, that it is no longer just your managers who need information to make decisions resulting in actions capable of averting commercial downturns and/or improving the fortunes of your venture. It is important that all your employees should be treated as knowledge workers - from the junior empowered worker to your senior business manager(s). In fact, in your enterprise you would want to organise your stakeholders into groups, and you would want to assign differing access rights and privileges to each group.

This data-information-knowledge-wisdom-decision-action-result capability is crucial to your business, already facing a challenging, rapidly changing commercial climate, where the customer demands a prompt service, better quality products/services at the lowest possible price, and past customer loyalty is not a guarantee for your future prosperity.

Unfortunately, whatever your niche market, much of the information that you receive in your company is more of a potential than a prescription for action. What is needed in your organisation is an environment that enables the transformation of data into business intelligence while having effective processes for:

• identifying information needs,
• acquiring information,
• organising and storing information,
• developing information solutions,
• distributing information,
• and exploiting information.

“It is quite possible for the management to collect more information than it can use to advantage, or which is more costly, or hinders production more, than the information is worth. This is a real danger that has to be guarded against continuously, for routine that serves a valid purpose when initiated may cease to be useful by some later change in conditions.”

Edward T. Elbourne