Business School Press, 1997, $27.50, ISBN: 0-87584-585-1
In the Age of Infoglut, it's not enough for corporate IS to impose a powerful, high-bandwidth architecture for data delivery. If knowledge workers are already overloaded, additional bandwidth will only make the problem worse. What enterprises really require -- and so
often lack -- is an integrated strategy of information management. Thomas Davenport proposes this type of holistic approach in his latest book,
Information Ecology: Mastering the Information and Knowledge Environment
.
Refreshingly, Davenport devotes only a single chapter to software/hardware architectures. He points out that information technology (IT) spending in the U.S. alone has approached 3 trillion dollars over the last decade, but "information -- or at least the effective use of it -- has not improved at the same rate as technology spending." Clearly, we need a better way for
human
networks to process the information already available.
Dynamics such as politics and human behavior often get short shrift in other works on information management, but Davenport emphasizes the role of corporate culture. He exposes the various political structures that disseminate a corporation's most vital data, but he does not necessarily promote one hierarchy over another. Any of the models -- fr
om a highly centralized "monarchy" to a less centralized "federalism" -- could work successfully for a particular organization. The important point is "matching your organization to the political structure that best suits it," instead of avoiding the difficult issue altogether.
Davenport also evaluates tactics for reengineering the information environment, for selecting an information staff, and for formulating an integrated information strategy. The case studies are well researched and relevant.
More so than ever before, information is power in today's service economy. To remain competitive, an enterprise must manage its critical information efficiently and get the knowledge into the heads of the people who need it. But before you throw more technology at the problem, read
Information Ecology
. It will get you thinking constructively about the challenges ahead.
Clayton Christensen's
The Innovator's Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail
tracks corporations tha
t did have a firm grasp of critical market data. Corporations that listened closely to customers, systematically evaluated their competitive markets, and built a commonsense business strategy. Corporations that seemingly did everything right -- and failed. It is the dilemma of disruptive technologies.
Using the disk drive industry to illustrate his theories, Christensen shows how well the leaders in a particular disk drive market handled the implementation of
sustaining
technologies -- technologies that improve, incrementally or radically, the performance of established products -- while the same market leaders crumbled when faced with disruptive technologies. A disruptive technology may debut with performance that's inferior to the status quo but enables new markets and applications.
When Seagate Technology introduced a 5-1/4-inch disk drive in 1980, leaders in the 8-inch-drive market did not adopt the smaller format, because it could not deliver performance enhancements to their existing
minicomputer customers. They did not see the coming of the desktop computer market, a market that demanded the form factor and ruggedness of the 5-1/4-inch technology. Vendors of 5-1/4-inch drives captured the nascent desktop market and, when the format reached the performance and capacity requirements to move upstream, they took over the minicomputer market as well. Of the four leading vendors of 8-inch drives, only one survived as a player in the 5-1/4-inch market. These companies were not mismanaged. They invested in market research and listened to customers -- the wrong thing to do in the context of disruptive technology.
This example is certainly no anomaly. Christensen cites case after case of leading firms responding successfully to sustaining technologies while failing miserably when faced with disruptive ones. And while the life cycle of products in the disk drive industry ("the closest things to fruit flies that the business world will ever see") make for a convenient gauge of the phenomenon,
disruptive technologies affect any firm, from disk drive vendors to motorcycle makers to catalog retailers, that grapples with new product technologies.
So how does a company respond to disruptive technology? Christensen offers some solid suggestions. When developing a disruptive technology, don't assume a specific market for it. You can't evaluate a market that has not yet emerged. Also, small companies (market entrants or spin-offs of large organizations) seem best for deploying disruptive technologies. The company must be nimble enough to respond quickly to a developing market.
Not only are small companies more flexible, but emerging markets can't satisfy the growth needs of big corporations. Consider Apple and its introduction of the Newton. For Apple, sales of the Newton could not satisfy its voracious appetite for growth. Sales were considered a flop. For a start-up, though, the 140,000 units sold in 1993 and 1994 would have constituted a successful launch, perhaps garnering an influx of in
vestor support. Interestingly, Apple appeared ready to create a spin-off for the Newton technology until Steve Jobs recently pulled the company back into Apple.
The Innovator's Dilemma
teaches us when not to listen to our customers, but instead how to pursue a nonexistent market that promises lower profit margins and greater risk.
Stanford Diehl is a frequent contributor to BYTE magazine and a former director of the BYTE Lab.
Book Reviews: Avoid the Technology Trap and Prosper
