wherever possible: for example, via list purchase, modelling and so on.
By these means, the organization attempts to construct individual mar- keting plans for each customer, with a view to retaining its customers or, preferably, taking more money off them in the face of competition.
This effectively means proactively engaging with the customer and being able to respond in a knowledgeable way when the customer has contacted the organization. Clearly, with all this codified customer behaviour on a database, it is possible to do clever analysis – but see Chapter 6 for the inherent weaknesses in this.
In this world, where customer information is taken seriously, it is to easy (but misguided) to imagine that information about customers comprises part of the knowledge of the company, and therefore cus- tomer relationship management systems and knowledge management systems are sometimes spoken of in the same breath. This can be par- ticularly the case when the customers are primarily other businesses (Adams, 2000).
DEVELOPING AN INFORMATION CLIMATE
it can be difficult for individuals to get their heads around it in the time they are prepared to give to it. So the pool of tacit knowledge does not become explicit, and there is a real danger that the myriad projects make the situation more confused, not less.
It is, however, possible for information to progressively become enriched as project feeds on project, but this depends upon the compa- ny’s attitude to it. If an organization believes that it really wants to be people focused (which most seem to say these days) then the organiza- tion’s consumer and market information requirements (or the various not-for-profit equivalents) need to be managed as a coherent whole (Nonka, and Takeeuchi, 1995). This should be the real job of an in-house market or social research group.
Unfortunately there are moves against this. For example, the in- house market research function can easily reduce to being an expert buying group, which, given the quality of the research industry in general, would not seem to be necessary or to add value (see Chapter 4). In addition, there is a trend to fragment such in-house research groups across the various functions or brand groups, where they become ‘closer to their customers’ and can provide a more integra- ted view of the market. This can be a positive move, but can also lead to problems when the different brand groups are working in the same markets. This is because, in these circumstances, it is possible for different conceptions of the market to develop within the same organization. This may not matter too much at the brand level, but makes establishing a coherent market strategy for the entire company very difficult.
The management of the tacit market and people information of an organization is about having shared assumptions at the highest level.
The properties of a coherent information climate that result when this happens are quite clear (Callingham, 1991). Conversations about the system can be held at a more sophisticated level without the basic assumptions being challenged, and therefore are more profound. It is possible for an individual to hold heretical views, as these are more easily managed in an environment that has confidence in its informa- tion climate, and these types of non-conforming views are a source of regeneration and development of the whole information climate. The ability of individuals to collaborate is bettered through this alignment of knowledge, and ideas are more easily surfaced, fostered and devel- oped. Furthermore, the decision that one person or group makes is
intelligible to another, and the decision-making processes move more smoothly. Good quality information climates do not need to be holis- tically logically consistent, and so do not become a straitjacket to thinking, but rather a liberation of it.
All this is idealistic, of course, but there is some evidence that it can occur in large organizations, and definite evidence that it exists in small ones.
CONCLUSION
Although the assets of an organization are quite clear in financial terms, the extrapolation of this idea into other domains seems to have been fruitful. The current situation is that there is a strong belief that knowledge is the ultimate asset of an organization, and that this knowl- edge divides into three broad types: concrete explicit knowledge; the knowledge that could become explicit if it were to be sought out; and a more diffuse conceptual knowledge. The management of knowledge is therefore increasingly being recognized as very important. There seem to be two opposing approaches to it: effectively one that believes that computing-led systems are sufficient, and the other that thinks they may be necessary but are not in themselves sufficient, requiring addi- tional work at the cultural level to liberate the mechanical system’s potential. Unfortunately, cultural management is difficult, and made harder by the increasing mobility of labour arising as a result of eco- nomic opportunity and a wish by staff not to become limited to an organization that either may not exist in the future or may not want to employ them then.
Market research feeds the knowledge base of an organization, whether it is a commercial one or one that is not for profit, and there- fore feeds the essential asset of the organization; at its best it greatly contributes to its information climate. Because of the leakage of knowl- edge that is associated with staff turnover (voluntary or enforced), market research if anything will become more important in the future, not less.
The nature of the knowledge that best fits the operational process- driven requirements of most organizations is explicit knowledge, and as will be shown later in the book, this tends to favour the use of quantitative research (see Chapters 6 and 7). Quantitative information
is also the type of information that fits most easily into the mechani- cal knowledge management systems that are spreading through large commercial organizations. Unfortunately, it is increasingly evident that the decisions that large organizations have to make are too complex to be reduced to simple mechanical models. This creates a tension in the way organizations are currently run and managed (and the temperament of the human resource that makes them up), as they seem to increasingly to need to draw on the softer, more conceptual type of tacit information. This can only be provided and conceived in terms of qualitative research ideas and an integrated approach to information interpretation, the management of which is still in the formative stages.
Organizations are dynamic entities that are positively attempting to impact on the outside world. The decisions of a big organization are made in the millions every day by employees at all levels of the hier- archy. Most decisions are simply rule-bound or heuristic decisions, the rules of which are effectively integrated into the knowledge of the com- pany; others are new decisions, generally because the rule does not exist (and these are often tactical in nature); still others, though rarer, are strategic decisions. The ease of decision making in an organization relates, in part, to its size, the level of politics that takes place and the coherency and comprehensiveness of the information climate. All may be influenced by the way the organization is structured. This chapter looks at the way companies go about making decisions and the role that market research has, or could have, in them.
KEY POINTS
■ Organizations make most of their daily decisions by rote, using simple rules based on experience or common practice.