A unifying theory

A unifying theory? Sadly not in Physics, I am not half intelligent enough for that. What it is, is an elaboration of what Mathijs hinted at in his piece on A new Philosophy. A unifying vision on the Marketing/Customer Knowledge/Scenario planning, ‘classical’ KM and the Learning organization.

Because we are in an environment where change is continuous, with new competitors constantly appearing, where new technology (e.g. mobile) is making new possibilities a reality almost daily, organizations have to continuously re-invent themselves. At the same time they have to be super-competitive and looking out for the ‘next big thing’. So, any organization that wishes to survive must be simultaneously effective in all three dimensions of innovation and change:

1. Understand
   Is about the monitoring, development and recombination of products/services, to meet ever changing needs.
2. Renew
   Over time, new products and services are constantly demanded by the market and new solutions must be invented.
3. Exploit
   Is about rapidly responding to market opportunities, for which we must use top resources to be a first mover.

The dimension of Understand relates to people’s sensitivity to trends, scenario- and ‘what-if’ planning, an organization’s Market forecasting and to elements of CRM and Business (Competitive) Intelligence. Understanding is of no value if there is no attempt to translate this understanding into new products and services.

The dimension of Renewal is about translating our expectations on future demands into new products, services, capabilities and so on. This is essentially the capability development and the Learning Organization part of collaborative networks. It also stresses the point that a Collaborative network is selling knowledge and can always re-train its people to ‘deliver the new knowledge’.

The Exploit dimension covers what might be called ‘classical’ KM - e.g. Re-use, sharing, best practice, communities of practice and so on where we are trying to maximize the return on the knowledge assets we already have. If an organization focuses on renewal but does not fully exploit new opportunities while ‘the window is open’ it will never create the funds for future investments. It is not enough anymore to Exploit, with shorter and shorter product life cycles, the advantage of being first mover will soon disappear.

The key point we are trying to make is what Collaborative networks, when seen in totality, are driving. Collaborative networks of diverse specialists around a strategic topic are ideally suited to understand, renew and then; drive the exploitation. That is what successful innovation is about; the future growth, prosperity, relevance and survival of an organization - any organization!