Email a collegue.| Headline: | Information overload affects 66% of managers |
| Description: | Technology often hinders rather than helps executive decision-making by providing solutions that are either too difficult to use or that fail to deliver the information managers need most, according to an Economist Intelligence Unit survey.
"Information is everywhere, but knowledge is hard to come by," was a key conclusion of the EIU report, Know how: Managing knowledge for competitive advantage. Two-thirds of the 122 firms interviewed for the survey complained that IT systems generated huge volumes of data, but left managers struggling to turn this into information they can act on. Either there was too much information for managers to handle, or a lot of it was not accurate or reliable, the researchers found. More than half the respondents (55%) said information was not adequately prioritised. The most important steps to improving the speed and quality of decision-making lay in consolidating information and providing consistent performance indicators. Information overload is stimulating demand for new knowledge management strategies. Nearly two-thirds of executives in the survey said knowledge management and business intelligence tools such as executive dashboards with real time performance indicators would be the most important technology underpinning their company’s goals over the next three years. For most respondents, having information that they can quickly interpret and analyse was much more important than having information on the move. One of the key areas for innovative knowledge management is customer relationship management. Rather than focusing on automating customer processes, attention is shifting to analysing customer behaviour. Companies such as Tesco and Wanadoo, for example, have used customer analytics to increase customer loyalty and expand their market shares. To sum up the report's basic message, technology can help unlock knowledge, but corporate culture is more important. "Understanding who knows what, and how people use different types of information as part of their work, is just as important a part of good knowledge management as having the latest business intelligence technology, the authors conclude. |
| Date: | 23.07.2005 |
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