Systems; Infotech : Managing Infotech for Knowledge

TRIMILLENNIUM MANAGEMENT : INFOTECH
Managing Infotech for Knowledge

By Sid Khanna

From telephony to television, from computers to convergence, infotech has clearly changed both the way we live and the way we work. Today, it is no longer relevant to ask how infotech supports your business strategy. Instead, it is important to consider how infotech will affect your business strategy.

KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT. The next advance in infotech will come from the management of knowledge. Knowledge Management (KM), as Andersen Consulting defines it, is the preparation, preservation, and exploitation of accumulated business knowledge in a manner that expedites the provision of the right information to the right people at the right time. For knowledge-intensive sectors, knowledge that comes through from R&D to innovative products and processes is the critical element. For industrial-age manufacturing companies, knowledge about customers that can improve service is what counts. This raises questions about processes and systems needed for efficient knowledge management. What changes are needed in the organisational arrangements and processes? How will these be supported by technology tools and applications?

Accepting that knowledge is an under-used resource, firms are turning to knowledge-management to develop systems for creating and capturing knowledge. The job-title of a Chief Knowledge Officer is starting to appear on the corporate roster, as firms understand the need to capture intellectual capital, and let their employees have access to it.

Knowledge is information put to productive use. And, although the two are related, knowledge-management is not simply an extension of information management. Becoming a knowledge-based company depends on having an infotech infrastructure that organises knowledge, and makes it easy to use and share. Inculcating a desire to share knowledge presents a challenge to industrial age companies. Most have hierarchical rather than flat structures, and team-based organisations, which don't facilitate free flow of information. There are the 4 basic initiatives that will help organisations transform themselves from being data-driven to being knowledge-driven.

BUILD A STRONG DATA INFRASTRUCTURE. The transition from data to information and knowledge is yet to happen. Most firms possess data, but this suffers from inadequacies, such as disorganised capture and storage, limited accessibility, and inadequate usage. Today's enterprise-wide systems remain enterprise-bound, unable to share information that channel partners must have to achieve success across the extended supply chain. Ironically, the information that companies require urgently to enhance supply chain management resides outside their systems. Some of the key elements of being knowledge-driven include ensuring information-reliability and consistency; ensuring information sharing; separation of routine and strategic information; and the inclusion of external data about customers and suppliers.

CONSCIOUSLY ALTER THE WAY THE COMPANY IS ORGANISED. To achieve this, organisational forms will have to change fundamentally: from a discrete number of traditional forms, characterised by strict hierarchies and functional and product divisions, to a variety of often overlapping new forms that are more effective in achieving improved knowledge sharing across functional, product, and geographical divisions. The roles and activities of senior managers will have to change to enable the simultaneous management of physical- and information-assets. CEOs will need to focus on strategies that leverage and protect these assets while CIOs will be the chief guardians of these new information-based assets.

CREATE A SKILLED WORKFORCE. The millennial organisation will require a highly-skilled workforce and broader roles. Many workers may not possess the skills required. Thus, the firm's ability to acquire and develop skilled workers will directly affect its performance.

Many new tools and applications have been developed in the area of information-management that leverage the convergence of infotech, telecom, and content generation. I see 5 such applications that will reconfigure information management this millennium.

THE NET. The Net provides unprecedented reach in terms of potential consumers, business partners, and information available worldwide. It facilitates the collection and dissemination of knowledge-information.
SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT. Companies are moving towards supply-chain management applications that integrate capabilities of 3 kinds. In the short term, the system must be able to handle day-to-day transactions and e-commerce across the supply chain and, thus, help align supply and demand by sharing information. In the medium-term, the system must facilitate planning and decision making, supporting demand-and shipment-planning, and master the production-scheduling needed to allocate resources efficiently. In the long-term, it must enable strategic analysis by providing tools that synthesise data for use in what-if scenario planning.
CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT (CRM). CRM is about maximising the lifetime value of the customer to the organisation. It requires companies to enable customers take control by offering multiple, flexible interaction methods, and by allowing them to configure offerings. This requires companies to learn about the customer from every interaction with her and will help organisations develop new channel models to service customers.
DATA WAREHOUSING OR MINING. Businesses have accumulated vast amounts of consumer data, but its potential to predict business trends and customer behaviour has gone untapped. To convert this potential value into strategic business information, firms are turning to data-mining. Data mining can be defined as the process of selecting, exploring, and modeling data to uncover unknown patterns for business advantage.
GROUPWARE AND COLLABORATION APPLICATIONS. Groupware and collaboration applications are the basic building blocks for capturing, indexing, and retrieving unstructured data generated within and outside companies. It is a powerful tool to collect knowledge generated on a daily basis. Such applications encourage the cross-functional sharing of data generated through different sources.

This millennium will see many of our business premises change radically. Information management will itself become quite difficult to define today, and organisations that will succeed in utilising knowledge management strategically and innovatively will emerge the winners in the Information Millennium.

Sid Khanna is the Managing partner of Andersen Consulting ( India )

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