Competitive Intelligence: Bridging Organizational Boundaries

Information Management Journal, Mar/Apr 2004 by Myburgh, Sue

Records managers are perfectly positioned to ensure that the appropriate information is identified as key intelligence and is communicated proactively to the organization's decision-makers

Clearly, the functions and responsibilities of records management have changed, increased in scope, and diversified over the past two decades. This phenomenon is visible in changing job titles; in particular, the widespread use of the professional title of "records and information manager." While there may be debate over what information is and what the precise responsibilities of a records and information management (RIM) professional are, there is unanimous consensus on one issue: Businesses would fail and organizations collapse were it not for the work done by RIM professionals in organizing, managing, and protecting information concerning the business transactions of the enterprise.

The transition from records manager to records and information manager signals a paradigmatic change of vocation. This has come about because the work has changed from filing paper to handling sophisticated computerized RIM systems, interpreting laws, and applying international standards. RIM professionals no longer only protect records, but also encourage their effective use. There is a shift from RIM being seen as merely an overhead administrative expense to being understood as a strategic asset and business ally.

The Emphasis Shifts to Information

Largely because of the development and convergence of information and communication technologies (ICTs), there has been a considerable change in the way organizations are formed and in how they function. They now are described as networked, intelligent, virtual, and learning.

Changes in organizations and their operation have led to changes in the various disciplines that handle organizational information, including librarianship (managing published materials) and records and archives management (managing unpublished business documents, of both active and historical value). Knowledge management (managing what employees know) and competitive intelligence (identifying and using strategic information about competitors) are two new areas that have developed to support corporate information resource management.

These four areas - librarianship, records and archives management (RAM), knowledge management (KM), and competitive intelligence (CI) - can be paired. Both librarianship and recordkeeping have traditionally focused on managing documents. Identifying which documents to collect, organize, provide access to, and preserve has been the primary focus of such practitioners. In both cases, however, many of the more mundane aspects of managing documents can now be performed automatically by sophisticated computer systems, leaving the professionals free to focus on the content of the documents (the information they contain) and the users of such information. Librarians often call themselves "information managers," and records managers have - rightly - become RIM professionals or strategic information managers.

RIM professionals deal primarily with information that enables organizations to survive and thrive, so they deal with strategic information, which is found in a variety of sites. It is found in records - those documents that provide evidence of the organization's business transactions and that may originate either inside or outside the organization. However, strategic information is also located inside employees' heads - through their experience of working with colleagues, competitors, suppliers, and customers - this is the focus of KM. It is also located outside the organization and in the environment that comprises many sectors, including government, industry, and competitors. This is the domain explored by CI.

New Disciplinary Relationships

If RIM professionals are to facilitate the strategic use of information contained in the documents they manage, they need to have an awareness of KM and CI. KM is important to RIM practitioners, as it involves capturing corporate memory; CI is important, too, as it involves identifying strategic information and making it available to decision-makers.

RIM professionals have a central coordinating role in corporate information management and can ensure that intelligence is distributed to the key decision-makers in the organization. Additionally, RIM professionals can no longer focus only on what is happening inside their own organizations. They must be aware of what is happening in other organizations in their industries and in international standards, as well as beyond their professional and industrial boundaries. All these forces will affect the RIM professional sooner or later.

While RIM professionals maybe aware that much information of strategic value originates from outside the organization's boundaries, CI provides them with the skills and techniques that identify the strategic intelligence in external information, interpret it, and make it useful to the enterprise. RIM professionals are no longer bound to the physicality of records but increasingly must be concerned with their content - information.