Andrew Brooks

Information and the art of decision making in the 'New World'

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We can no longer learn faster than the rate of change.

There is a growing ‘gap’ between the speed our environment changes and the speed at which individuals, teams, organisations, governments (etc.) can learn and adapt to change.

When you have not recognised the ‘world’ (and it’s rules) have changed, what used to work, stops working and extinction becomes inevitable.

For some organisations, people and animals including the dodo, this will be a familiar story.

(For those who want to avoid this - I suggest you go learn about the New World from Dr Eddie Obeng)

What gets measured (and rewarded), gets managed (and delivered).

Whilst this has always been the case, the effect on today’s organisation in our ‘New World’, is significantly amplified.

With the speed of change, comes greater fear. And with that fear comes ‘fight and flight’ or survival behaviour – Our ancestors lived by it and so should do us right?

Within corporate life today, our natural instinct to survive means that (most) decision making is done to protect the individuals situation (their ability to pay the school fees, have the bigger house/car, pay the mortgage, fund the pension, achieve that big bonus, etc.), not based on what is necessarily right for the organisation.

This is possibly easier to manage in the company managed by the owner and/or founder, but in today’s LTD/PLC is today is seemingly impossible.

The ‘Intelligent Enterprise’ proposition

The Intelligent Enterprise ‘acts on the facts’, not ‘gut feel’ or instincts and fights to expose and kill ‘personal short-term survival games’.

The ‘Intelligent Enterprise’ (a philosophy and proposition which Capgemini have built a large capability around) recognises the ‘world has changed’ and that ‘old world’ mantras such as ‘Information (hording) is King’ need to become ‘Information (for the organisation) is King’.

The Intelligent Enterprise knows that the better it manages it’s data assets and it’s information producing capabilities, AND the better it manages the conflicts between organisational and personal decision making, the better the organisation’s ability to learn, apply the learning (adapt and change), and survive in the ‘New World'.

The Intelligent Enterprise is indeed different. What makes it different is that informed decision making is at the heart of everything it does. The Intelligent Enterprise has to ‘Act on Fact’, it demands it, and is engrained in to everything it does. It therefore has a culture of information...

This is important stuff... HBOS is no longer a bank, Vodafone is no longer a mobile phone company, and Tesco’s is no longer a supermarket where you buy cheese. The Intelligent Enterprise recognises that it is now an Information Management company. The better they use the information about their customers, products, processes, staff, competitors, etc. the more effective and efficient they become.

From an ‘eco system’ point of view, companies are ‘Information Systems’ – And the intelligent ones get it…

Information Age – delivered!

Unfortunately there are no easy recipes to follow, there is no tool to buy, and there will be much (old world baggage and people/politics) in the way to thwart you.

Putting aside the huge technical challenges including, data quality, managing the full end-to-end data lifecycle from data capture through to analysing the information > decision > effectiveness of that decision process, the emerging Intelligent Enterprise represents a personal threat to many within the organisation.

The more the facts become available, are accurate, complete, consistent, and trusted, (the Single Version of the Truth), the hiding places of the ‘old world’ brigade begin to disappear - their personal games and inadequacies become exposed.

Once this happens, the promises of the Information Age can and will become a reality.

So what are you waiting for?