From Frank Buytendijk’s blog, and Andries Bottema:
“BI is deploying information as a factor of production.”
In other words, BI makes information the fifth factor of production, next to labor, capital, materials, and facilities.
Quite simply: Yes! Information is the last great underdeveloped asset in today’s organizations. And unlike other assets, it can be used by multiple people and processes, and it’s also a natural by-product of production. These two characteristics lead to the “network effects” or “increasing returns” of better information.
I immediately wondered if such an apposite description had been used before, and turned to Google. The general opinion seems to be that the “new factor of production” is “intellectual capital”, an umbrella term that includes information, but also “knowledge, collaboration, process-engagement, and time quality”.
So maybe the definition should be “BI is deploying intellectual capital as a factor of production”? Not quite as snappy, but it might be a better fit for BI 2.0 — BI that is not only about “information”, but also about knowledge management and collaboration?
In any case, “BI is deploying information as a factor of production” strikes me as an excellent way for IT and BI organizations to explain the importance of their role to the organization, and I’m sure I’ll use it in a presentation soon — thanks Frank and Andries!
Finally, while looking at the articles, I dimly remembered a presentation by Dave Kellogg that had mentioned factors of production, and thanks to the wonders of the Windows Search Deskbar, I was able to find it buried deep in my PC. It was called “Future Shock: Crisis or Opportunity”, presented in 1998, and it included the slide below, with information as the “bottom line”…
