Information has to be organized to challenge a company’s strategy. It has to test the company’s assumptions about its theory of its business. This includes testing the company’s assumptions about its environment—society and its structure, the market, the customer, and technology. And information on the environment, where the major threats and opportunities are likely to arise, has become increasingly urgent. Then there are assumptions about the specific mission of the company. Third, there are assumptions about an organization’s core competencies needed to accomplish its mission. Software may be designed to provide this information tailored to a specific group such as hospitals, universities, or casualty insurance companies.

Companies can produce some of the information they need themselves, such as information about customers and noncustomers. But even big companies will have to hire outside experts to help them acquire and organize the information they need. The sources are simply too diverse. Most of what the enterprise needs to know about the environment is available only from outside sources—from all kinds of data banks and data services, from journals in many languages, from trade associations, from government publications, from World Bank reports, from scientific papers, or from specialized studies.

ACTION POINT: Do you have the information you need to challenge your company’s strategy and assumptions?

Management Challenges for the 21st Century
From Data to Information Literacy (Corpedia Online Program)