Old news is no news
This article was written by us on 20 November 1998:
"The most powerful weapon a business has..., is its knowledge. Mapping this knowledge effectively adds huge value to your company's bottom line. But few know how to create, measure or use it. Some say that knowledge is the engine of business: and communication is its fuel.
Ernst & Young set up a Centre for Business Innovation to examine the kind of corporate issues its blue chip clients will need to understand in five years' time. Ironically the 30-odd members of this club including IBM, AT&T, and HP, all said that they had no idea how to manage information or knowledge. The very companies that are leading the information revolution didn't have the conceptual tools to understand or manage that vital resource.
Knowledge creation depends on engaging the collective intellect of individuals communicating with each other. Data Warehouses, designed to assist decision making at the corporate level, value data more highly than people and so it's the data that is protected, not those that might hold the knowledge you require for that very decision. Technology cannot force people to share information and knowledge unless it is accompanied by a change in the company's value and management systems."
This article related to recruitment, but the lessons apply just
as much today to the IT outsourcing and BPO markets. For both the
supplier and client communities, the ability to manage knowledge is
vital.
As more business processes become targets for outsourcing, the
ability to articulate and use knowledge of what that process does,
how it fits within the larger structure of the company, what its
strengths and weaknesses are, and ultimately how these links will
be effected by outsourcing, becomes ever more important. We do not
know whether Ernst & Young, still have their Business
Innovation Centre, but we wonder how effectively they, and the
other outsourcing suppliers, are managing their and the clients'
knowledge?