Around this time of year, enterprise technology plans and budgets are being reviewed in earnest within C-suites. Based on our deep and broad expertise, we know that these discussions sometimes launch into reasons for dissatisfaction with a particular technology offering from a knowledge management, learning, or collaboration tool vendor. This is perhaps related to expectations about usability or key functionality not being met. Often, however, this can be attributable to the sizzle getting our attention more than the steak in the evaluation and selection process. Other times the dissatisfaction relates to business outcomes not being achieved after what is deemed enough time to allow the technology to permeate the inner workings of the organization. Of course, this lack of value realization can be a case of “square peg, round hole”, although the lack of fit is not always apparent. This is because we typically attach positive outcomes to technology category leaders without mapping and testing product capabilities offered in relation to desired outcomes in the most systematic and comprehensive manner.
Take the outcome of improved organizational agility for example. For a thumbnail definition, let’s use: The ability to be out in front of both business risks and business opportunities by being extremely effective at two things: (1) Harnessing “cognitive assets” (the knowledge in people’s heads and the collective intellectual capital among a group of people that contribute to an improved competitive position of the organization they represent), and (2) Leveraging innovative technology that creates value by channeling those assets to where they will have the greatest, measurable impact.
Sure, having the right competencies and skills across the workforce and deploying them judiciously is a major part of organizational agility; but frankly, this is easier than harnessing cognitive assets. Historically, these drivers of business performance have either been invisible or too scattered and disconnected to apply to a particular business issue or topic in a direct and efficient manner. Moreover, they play a minor role in the workforce of the future which is predominantly younger employees (Millennials and Gen Z) who demand a new learning paradigm. They work (wherever and whenever that may be) expecting to leverage the most cutting-edge technology to support interaction with their networks to gain actionable knowledge fast to make the best decisions possible backed up with evidence.
To this last point, traditional enterprise technology tools were not designed for this purpose. Leading Learning Management, Social Collaboration, Knowledge Management and Performance Support platforms all intersect with the use case of “harnessing and applying what is in people’s heads”, but arguably both the “harnessing” and the “applying” parts of the equation are more serendipitous than organically occurring, enabled and facilitated by the technology. An employee might have a great idea or insight into solving a problem or capitalizing on a market opportunity but a bit of good fortune is needed to ensure that idea or insight found its way to complementary or synergistic ideas and insights for maximum business benefit. Case in point, I might have a great idea related to the customer success function that warrants high-priority attention and consideration, and maybe collaboration with others who have similar ideas. What do I do with my idea? Tell my manager? Post it to a social collaboration or knowledge management tool? Will it start to have legs and convert to something actionable, and if so, how long might that take and will the inefficient path it takes to actionability be a distraction?
Introducing Pandexio
Pandexio is an emerging knowledge sharing platform purposefully designed to fuel insight-driven collaboration to radically improve business performance and outcomes in a new world measured by its level of cognitive assets and their contribution to achieving and sustaining competitive advantage. With one click, Pandexio converts raw, unfiltered content to actionable insights empowering all employees to:
- Search digital insights instead of documents
- Collaborate around insights
- Share evidence-based insights
Organizations leverage Pandexio to focus their workforce at the top of the pyramid where information, learning and cognitive assets matter:
Pandexio describes several cases in point. Here are three examples:
First, the Chief Operating Officer at a global pharmaceutical installed Pandexio to ensure researchers made the best possible decisions about their vaccine development strategy. By leveraging Pandexio to manage research meeting pre-reads, the organization decreased meeting time by 30 to 50% and improved decision agility.
Next, a senior business leader responsible for recruitment outsourcing at a major healthcare provider relies on Pandexio to decide exactly what staff positions to outsource. As representatives built and shared their cognitive assets they are on track to increase sales by 10%.
Finally, the COO at a large IT services provider uses Pandexio with his program management teams to eliminate the “attachment bombing” and URLs pasted within emails. By replacing low-impact information spreading with high-value actionable insights, the cognitive asset flow increases among project members and SMEs thus decreasing elapsed project time and cost while increasing project quality.
Conclusion
If you believe you need an agile organization to be successful in today’s extremely competitive and rapidly changing business environment, then you need to chat with Pandexio. They will show you how you too can experience their innovative solution specifically designed for accelerating the productivity of the workforce of the future all while increasing organizational agility.
Let Us Know What You Thought about this Post.
Put your Comment Below.