The Intelligent Organization

Successful organizations have to manage more than capital and labor. Savvy managers know that they must pay close attention to another key asset: knowledge. The author discusses how understanding the four dimensions of knowledge management— content, culture, process, and infrastructure—can help companies ensure that they have the right knowledge in the right place at the right time! Last night you had a delightful dream. Your best sales manager won a huge contract with an important new client she had been pursuing for years. Throughout those years, this client had continued to use your competitor’s product—not because it was a better product, but because it had a better user interface. Your competitor’s R&D people must have done some heavy-duty customer testing and product marketing. Just to catch up, you had done the same. It took you quite some time to bring your R&D and marketing departments together to support common product and quality goals. And then you’d had those intensive discussions with suppliers, bringing in your production people to design a process for optimal parts supply. And you’d informed the distribution channels well in advance to prepare for special packaging. So it was no wonder that your sales manager won the account. Not only was your product greatly improved, but she had all the product information she needed to explain its real advantages to the client. And just as important, she could make a commitment—on-line with the production schedule—on the delivery week. And she could negotiate a favorable leasing rate, using financial models to ensure an adequate return.