New Concepts for The Management of Information Resources
Walter R. Kendall, C. Richard Scott, Charles J. Capps · Journal of Business Strategies · 1970
Successful mangers of the future are likely to be well~informed opportunists who use information strategically and have the flexibility to respond to opportunities.The success of these managers will be determined by their ability to combine the right information with the right opportunities.Information strategy is increasing in importance and will assist firms in building a competitive edge.Information has always been at the heart of organizations.While always vital, the increasing availability of various types of information has led to its growing organizational importance.Only within the last few years has the availability of information become such that managers have been able to obtain it at the time and place when they need it.Although much information has to be sifted to identify key information which is timely and complete, those managers that have it and know how to use it achieve a form of leverage over competing firms which do not possess similar information.Utilizing that latest and best information for aggressive management is prudent, if not imperative, in view of today's realities.Given the importance of information, it is critical for an organization not to lag behind competitors in the development and utilization of information resources.Often, it takes years of lead time to develop an efficient information resource.For a lagging competitor, the race is likely over about the time this critical distinction sets in.The importance of organizational information is not going to lessen over time.As more firms think competitively, their attitudes toward information must change.They must come to think of information as a strategic asset -an asset that becomes the enabler of their business plans.The economic gap between those which do and do not possess and employ information resources effectively will likely widen appreciably in the 1990s and beyond.Only those managers who best understand this impact and direct their organizational resources in such a way as to best utilize information as a productive asset are likely to survive in an increasingly competitive global environment.