This document discusses leveraging knowledge as a competitive advantage. It argues that knowledge is a hidden asset for organizations that is often unmeasured and underutilized. It provides strategies for capturing ongoing learning, sharing knowledge to add value, and leveraging knowledge as a methodology. This includes forming small, connected groups to share knowledge dynamically and rewarding those who add value or disagree. The challenges are to capture and enable dynamic sharing of knowledge through intelligent search and translating past lessons into future scenarios. Conventional wisdom can constrain leveraging knowledge effectively.

1. Knowledge Edge
Leveraging knowledge
as a competitive edge

2. “The competitive advantages
on which our success
depends, all rest, in the last
resort, on Knowledge.”
Ernest Woodruffe, Unilever AGM, London 1972

3. Why leverage?
 Because all our learning is in the past while all our
decisions are about the future
 Leverage depends both on what you know and
what you can do with what you know to make a
difference
Key question: Ask , ‘So What?’

4. Leveraging Knowledge
 Knowledge: According to us
 YOUR definition. Unique, exciting, clear value for client
 Knowledge: The hidden asset in the balance sheet
 What is the value of this unused asset? Unused as it is unmeasured,
unmonitored, unguarded.
 Leveraging knowledge: Our methodology
 A flow chart about the methodology – clearly showing WiiFY
 Why you need this and how it will benefit you
 Reinforce how you can add value that they can’t do on their own. YOUR
UVP. Why they need you.

5. Knowledge is…
 The hidden asset in the
balance sheet
 The asset we don’t have to
buy formally
 The asset that grows with
sharing and shrinks with
hoarding
 The asset that grows daily;
unknown to us
 The asset that can’t be
protected
 It’s value depends on how it is
used
 The asset that is our best
insurance
It’s not what you know but what you do that counts

6. Two Kinds of Assets
 Reported
 Finance
 Plant & Machinery
 Land
 Inventory
 Products
 Define Book value
 Unreported
 Human value
 Knowledge/learning
 Wisdom
 Customer understanding
 Goodwill
 Network
 Define Market value
90% of Organizational Assets are unreported

7. Reality check
 How well do you know your Customer?
 How much time do you spend with your customer?
 How much of that is when you are not selling?
 What do you do with what you learn from these
meetings?
 How do you leverage that learning?
Do you know what you learned this year?

8. Barriers & Gateways
1.
2.
3.
4.
1.
2.
3.
4.
What are your inhibitors and enablers for learning?

9. What will it cost to do this?
 What are you losing by not Leveraging Knowledge?
 How it will leverage benefit you (metrics to show benefit)?
 What are the steps you have to take to:
 Capture on-going learning
 Share it to add more value
 Leverage it?
What exactly must you do?

10. Data ≠ Knowledge
 Data is a collection of
 Discrete, objective observations, metrics
 Not: context, purpose, relevance, relation
 Information is data processed to give
 Meaning of what we observed
 How does it relate to context?
What is the story till now?

11. Knowledge ≠ Wisdom
 Knowledge uses information to learn
 Lessons from history? Teaching of the past
 Potential consequences & advantages
 Wisdom is the leverage
 That makes a difference: How & for whom
 What is the legacy we leave behind?
What is the story for the future?

12. Problem with ‘accuracy’
 Illusion of ‘accuracy’ can be created by
 Lack of comparison or contradiction
 Insistence on agreement & conformity
 Avoiding conflict & punishing disagreement
 In a dynamic environment accuracy has a very
short half-life
‘Accuracy’ must be tested constantly

13. Yesterday’s competitive
advantage is today’s
industry standard
Very important to ‘re-
invent the wheel’

14. Keys to leverage
1. Know what you know
 Small, highly connected groups
2. Keep it dynamic
 Ask, ‘So what?’
3. Reward & Cherish
 All those who add value
Value those who disagree

15. Challenges
 Capture knowledge
systematically
 Enable dynamic value
addition
 Enable intelligent search
 Translate past into future
 Generate scenarios
 Do all this in a timely
manner
Conventional wisdom is the biggest constraint

16. Robots are stupid
 ‘Earlier we used people as robots. But now we
realize that we need to use human intelligence.
Using robots was good but now we’re discovering
that using people is actually faster.’
 President, NEC, Japan
Focus on communication & collaboration

17. Even when all the experts agree on
something, they can still be wrong.
In times of change, learners inherit the earth.
While the learned find themselves beautifully
equipped to live in a world that no longer exists.
~ Eric Hoffer

18. To share thoughts
yawarbaig@gmail.com
www.yawarbaig.com