The Knowledge Advantage

The Knowledge Advantage is a very interesting survey of the value of Knowledge to business, prepared by Jeff Green, CKO of Ernst and Young, in 2014. You can find it here. 

Jubiläum Advantage by Wolfgang on Flickr

The report was based on an international survey of 303 business decision-makers spread evenly across China, Germany, India, the UK and the US and covers five sectors: Automotive, Oil and gas, Pharmaceutical and health care, Banking and financial services, and Consumer products. All respondents were board-level executives (chairman/CEO, COO, CIO-level executives), directors with functional responsibility areas and heads of department.

Some of the messages within this report are very interesting, and I summarise them for you.

•  81% of the executives surveyed ranked Knowledge as the most important driver for success, above products (78%) and short-term financial targets (73%).

• Knowledge trumped areas traditionally seen as headline drivers of success, such as low business costs (40%) and maintaining a good product and service pipeline (39%).

• 49% said their future success stems from capturing and using their people’s experiences. 

•  43% say knowledge will boost product quality and market mastery — both drivers of customer and client satisfaction.

• German leaders value knowledge (93%) far more than product (75%). 

• UK executives also see knowledge (82%) as the main agent of success. 

• In the US, business people give a similar weighting to knowledge (72%), product (80%) and financial (79%) factors.

• In India, knowledge (84%) is highly regarded as a deliverer of success, but it is slightly behind product (88%). 

• Leaders in China sees knowledge (62%) as far less important than product (82%). 

• Knowledge is seen as the top driver of success in pharmaceutical and health care (85%), banking and financial services (83%), and oil and gas (78%)

• Consumer products executives see product (93%) as key, yet the need for product innovation could explain why knowledge is not far behind (83%). 

• Only automotive feels success is driven in roughly equal measure by product (78%), knowledge (74%) and financial (79%) factors.

The results here are very interesting. In the mature markets, especially in Europe, Knowledge is widely recognised by company leaders as a key driver success for some of the major industrial sectors.

Our task, as Knowledge Managers, is to help those leaders get the most value from that knowledge.