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January 29, 2006
Business Intelligence versus Business Knowledge: Who Cares?
How often is it said that "information is the lifeblood of the business!"...?
No one dwells on whether it is a true statement or not. Everyone dwells on how to process information so that the business is neither toxic nor anemic.
It's a telling fact that the initial assumption is always the same: information must be processed. It simply means that either the info isn't "good enough" when it first arrives, or that there is no point in having it unless it is going to immediately be transformed somehow into something else (namely, a decision or a directive).
Ironically, it is processing itself that makes using information so complicated. The evidence? Pick, from the following, only the one item that most clearly represents the primary reason why your company can keep its operations attuned to the business goals:
- Performance Management
- Business Intelligence
- Knowledge Management
- Content Management
- On Line Analytic Processing
- Database Management
Now, explain your choice by explaining how you ruled out the others.
That should be enough to make a couple of aspirin and the following picture worthwhile.
The key points of the picture, both explicit and implicit, are variously familiar or unsuspected.
One aspect reminds us about Garbage In/Garbage Out:
- Data and Knowledge are both "inputs" that can be taken prima facie and virtually from anywhere.
- Intelligence and Insight are business goals of information processing
Here's another interesting aspect to chew on. From the point of view of a business process:
- Supplied information (left side: data, intelligence) is not the same as Applied information (right side: knowledge, insight)
- Intelligence is not directly "parallel" to Knowledge and cannot substitute for it. Being intelligent is not the same as being knowledgeable.
- Likewise, although "information may be power", having Data in no way assures an advantageous (Insightful) use of it.
And additional annotation offers this:
- The most obvious connection between data and intelligence is Cognition
- The most obvious connection between intelligence and knowledge is Learning
- The most obvious connection between knowledge and insight is Experience
In those relationships, we can see another situation in which, as with so many aspects of goal-seeking, the difference between a cause and a prerequisite can be quite profound. On the one hand, getting one of these areas up to snuff won't make the other areas happen. On the other hand, working on one of these things without regard to the others is probably not very "smart".
To ultimately gain maximum advantage through information, we'll need our firm to become an intelligent enterprise that is also a learning organization constantly testing and improving its perspective.
Posted by Malcolm Ryder at January 29, 2006 2:43 PM
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