Information and technology driven marketing strategy

The principle behind marketing and management with few workers and information technology

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The rise of the “knowledge worker” had been theorized by Peter Drucker back in the 1950s. He described how fewer workers would be doing physical labor, and more would be applying their minds. In 1984, John Nesbitt coined a theory stating that the future would be driven largely by information: companies that managed information well could obtain an advantage, however he said that profitability of the “information float” (information that the company had and others desired) would all but disappear as inexpensive computers made information more accessible.

The sociological consequences of information technology have been examined by Daniel Bell (1985), while Gloria Schuck and Shoshana Zuboff looked at psychological factors. Zuboff, in her five year study of eight pioneering corporations made the important distinction between “automating technologies” and “information technologies”.

In 1990, Peter Senge, collaborating with Arie de Geus at Dutch Shell, borrowed de Geus' notion of the learning organization, expanded it, and popularized it. The underlying theory is that a company's gathering, analyzing, and information using abilities are a necessary requirement for business success in the information age. (See organizational learning.) In order to do this, Senge claimed that an organization would need to be structured such that:

•           People capacity to learn and be productive can be continuously expand.

•           Nurturing New patterns of thinking.

•           Encouraging collective aspirations.

•           Encouraged people to see the “whole picture” together.

Senge identified five disciplines of a learning organization. They are:

•           Personal responsibility, self reliance, and mastery — We believe that we are the masters of our own destiny. We make decisions carrying the responsibility of the consequences. We take the initiative to learn the required skills to get it done when a problem needs to be fixed, or an opportunity exploited.

•           Mental models — Exploring our personal mental models is required to understand the subtle effect they have on our behavior.

•           Shared vision — Discussing and communicating the vision of where we want to be in the future to everybody. It provides guidance and energy for the journey ahead.

•           Team learning — Learning should be collaborative. This involves a shift from “a spirit of advocacy to a spirit of enquiry”.

•           Systems thinking — We have a global look rather than the locals. This is what Senge calls the “Fifth discipline”. It is the glue that integrates the other four into a coherent strategy. For an alternative approach to the “learning organization”

Thomas A. Stewart, for example described the investment an organization makes in knowledge using the term intellectual capital. It is composed of human capital (the knowledge inside the heads of employees), customer capital (the knowledge inside the heads of customers that decide to buy from you), and structural capital (the knowledge that resides in the company itself.

 

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