Joe Dreyer | BI Consultant | PBT Group | mail me |
By now, decision-makers have realised the importance of data in driving businesses towards a digitally-based future. It is therefore surprising that the concept of the knowledge economy has largely been ignored. And yet, this will be the foundation on which modern organisations will be built.
The knowledge economy is a system of consumption and production that is based on intellectual capital. It is a company’s ability to capitalise on scientific discoveries and applied research.
While this might sound too esoteric for the traditional business, the truth is that every organisation is already part of the knowledge economy. It comes down to the fact that if decision-makers are unable to act on information, then the data it is based on is useless.
Agility abounds
Today, most companies are using the agile methodology. This is based on getting business value as quickly as possible through short sprint cycles driven by IT teams.
Essentially, these actions are where the knowledge economy comes in. It is about purposefully acting on trusted knowledge and making sense of what people are doing. So, while the engineering (or technology) element is important when it comes to the understanding of data, the human component remains the most important.
After all, it is people who use technology, who invent, reinvent, and adopt disruptive solutions to make things better. Business is faced with two intertwined forces – labour (people doing everything) and capital (artefacts that have the capacity to act, based on non-human energy).
The latter is gaining ground daily, pushing human labour out of the knowledge economy. A profile of the major inflection points in the evolution of knowledge will show what, when, and where all the different knowledge inflections happened.
Managing knowledge
Organisations must start realising the importance of effective knowledge management. If they do not have the right information, then they cannot make the right decisions.
The bureaucratic organisational structure of the past, where people have specific job roles, will be replaced by a flat line where management relies on technology (data) experts to fulfil their strategic vision for the company.
Knowledge management is essential to make everything work. Companies need this to make decisions and act upon them. Again, this is where the role of people in the knowledge economy are critically important. It is all about the personal experience that comes from the knowledge of people inside the company.
Despite advances in artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML), they will not take over. People need to reskill and adapt to a different way of working.
However, knowledge must still be applied ethically and honestly. It is not only about self-gain. Through the absorption of useful knowledge, and the purposeful application thereof – any issue can be solved.
