Strategy and Change

Building an online knowledge network will have long-range impacts on the

organization at several levels:

At the level of human resource management, it will impact job descriptions

and incentive structures.

At the practice level, it will require new training, job evaluation, scheduling,

and day-to-day task-management processes.

And at the cultural level, it may profoundly influence the way the company

is organized and branded.

Purposeful online conversation affects the company’s relationship with the

marketplace and with the online public. If the company prepares well, these

changes will work to the company’s advantage. The risks of taking no action to

improve the flow of knowledge and information within the organization and

with its customers are becoming too serious to ignore.

Change is a constant, but change today is more certain, swift, and unpredictable

than ever before. The most direct way for an organization to keep up with external change is to use internal change to its advantage. It must increase its intercommunication by putting out as many feelers as possible to bring a collective view of the constantly shifting situation into the organization.

Reporting the Surprises

A current and comprehensive perspective of the marketplace has become a

strategic necessity, but the means for gaining and maintaining such a perspective

challenges old management models. The decentralized, self-organizing

social communication structures required to efficiently gather and circulate the

knowledge that individuals learn and develop don’t fit gracefully under the hierarchical,

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centrally controlled structures that still rule most organizations.

Most organizations are looking for ways to make their wholes smarter. They

are changing their information strategies to keep up with the velocity of the Net

and to keep up with, or preferably overtake, their competitors. A growing percentage

of businesses now practice some form of e-commerce—whether it be

selling over the Web, communicating with customers online, or managing business

relationships with supply chain partners through compatible software—

and that, too, is having an unavoidable effect on their strategic thinking.

Yogesh Malhotra is a recognized expert in the ...

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