‘‘ K&IM
Digital services and products: is there a systemic buying problem?
M
any KIM professionals don’t have buying responsibilities so don’t pay attention to their employers’
procurement in the digital area. Dion Lindsay, KM trainer and consultant and Stephen Phillips, Head of Global Business Information Services at Morgan Stanley, explain why that should change. Dion describes this dearth of buying experience among Knowledge and Information professionals as a “systemic” problem and dedicates some of his training schedule to exploring what they miss if they aren’t involved – and how they can fi x the problem.
Stephen Phillips is a KIM professional who is involved in the buying process at Morgan Stanley. He has similar concerns about the lack of buying involvement among KIM professionals but suggests that employers risk missed opportunities by not engaging KIM professionals in their procurement process. “K&IM professionals should assert themselves into this process, good procurement of digital services requires knowledge of the technology and the content used to populate these platforms. Often the focus is on the technology, but organisations are realising that the con- tent makes or breaks a product.”
Many organisations have begun digital transformation strategies to realise the benefi ts off ered by emerging technol- ogies. The success of these strategies depends on driving changing culture and behaviour at scale. Again, K&IM professionals have an opportunity to play a key role: “tenured KIM professionals have an intimate understanding of the business, which enables them to advise on the needs of the users as well as pro- viding insights into what will, or will not work based on the behavioural changes required to ensure successful adoption.”
The problem
As a KM trainer Dion knows a wide spectrum of professionals from many employers. “My impression is that buying digital products for running in house or on the cloud, is constrained by organisation-wide IT policies. Many organisations can be shy of buying outside the IT infrastructure they are committed to, for fear perhaps of the extra support arrangements or of techni- cal incompatibilities. I run an Advanced Knowledge Management workshop which has a segment on the develop- ments in AI and big data systems which increasingly feature in the KM landscape. The segment is not primarily to help attendees (senior knowledge managers mostly) decide what to buy, but to use
Rob Mackinlay (@cilip_reporter2,
rob.mackinlay@
cilip.org.uk) is Senior Reporter, Information Professional.
what’s becoming available in the market place as an indication of how KM is changing. Until they get that point, they tend to tell me there’s no value for them in learning about this, because they have no purchasing power in this area.” Because products and the organisations that buy them are changing rapidly in the digital age, it’s hard for KIM profes- sionals to know what they are missing out on. Dion says that information pro- fessionals need to stay in the loop. It also fi ts with Stephen’s view that knowledge tools need to meet and understand user needs. Dion says: “Digital Knowledge Management is slowly becoming more mainstream, with products taking ad- vantage of AI or Data Science to provide qualitatively new perspectives. There is
Many organisations have begun digital transformation strategies to realise the benefi ts off ered by emerging technologies.
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