Another Headline from the Land of D’oh: Knowledge Management New Source of Competitive Advantage

A recent SCMR blog post reviewed The New Edge in Knowledge by Carla O’Dell and Cindy Hubert of AQPC that describes the Knowledge Management (KM) concept and provides some real-world examples of leading companies that have mastered KM. The post, like the authors of the book, states that the right knowledge enables the right decisions that improves organizational performance. Well, duh!

Knowledge has been improving performance for thousand of years in all sorts of organizations — corporate, religious, government, and military. As Sun Tzu wrote, so it is said that if you know your enemies and know yourself, you can win a hundred battles without a single loss. Churchill said that battles are won by slaughter and maneuver. The greater the general, the more he contributes in maneuver, the less he demands in slaughter. And Hannibal said I will either find a way, or make one. Thousands of years, and thousands of miles, apart, and all of these great military leaders understood the importance of knowledge, and managing that knowledge, to achieve success.

Knowledge is arguably one of the two greatest sources of competitive advantage (with the other being innovation). But this is nothing new. So don’t get lost in the hype.