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For businesses, the '80s were devoted to quality and the '90s to re-engineering. The year 2000, it seems, belongs to velocity. The speed ...

For businesses, the 8217;80s were devoted to quality and the 8217;90s to re-engineering. The year 2000, it seems, belongs to velocity. The speed at which you gather, manage and use information will decide whether you are a winner or a loser. And if it8217;s speed we are talking about, nothing can contribute more to it than information technology.

8220;Even though companies realised the strategic importance of IT way back in the 8217;80s, most of their investment has gone into putting together the basic building blocks, starting with the PCs, networking and the electronic messaging systems,8221; says T. S. Krishnan, Director, Enterprise Customer unit, Microsoft. Interestingly, though, a majority of the companies that had made 80 per cent investment in technology have not been able to reap even 20 per cent of the possible benefits. This, because having automated their basic operations, they had no way to seamlessly integrate all these peripherals into the core business. 8220;Functioning at isolated levels, this automation left a lot to be desired. There were enough tools for information collection. But analysing and disseminating this information was difficult due to lack of suitable tools,8221; adds Krishnan. In a nutshell, it could not bring speed to business operations as a whole.

And speed is what a modern-day organisation cannot compromise on, given the shrinking product cycles and the decreasing marketing time. Consolidating their IT investments is the only way to infuse speed and have an edge over the competitor. How does one do that? This was a big problem, until the answer emerged in 1997, when Bill Gates coined the term 8220;Digital Nervous System8221; DNS in the presentation given at the CEO summit in Meattle. DNS is the corporate, digital equivalent of the human nervous system. Taking this analogy a little further, so far companies had only automated their 8220;autonomic8221; 8212; administrative, financial and manufacturing 8212; processes, which are as essential to business as breathing. But, according to Gates, in Speed at the Rate of Thought: 8220;To function in the digital age, we have developed a new digital infrastructure. It is like the human nervous system. The biological nervous system triggers your reflexes so that you react quickly to danger or need. Companies need to have the samekind of nervous system.8221;

But, to assimilate DNS, it is imperative that you understand and acknowledge a few processes that are already happening or are round the corner. You have to believe that everyone will, gradually, use computers at work and at home; all will be connected to the World Wide Web; e-mail will become the universal mode of communication thus making all forms of communication digital, and finally, that communication shall break the wired boundaries and transcend all geographical limits. If you see all this coming, you understand the need for DNS. It8217;s time for you to make digital information flow pervasive in your organisation.

If digital is what your communication has to get, how do you gear up your company for the transition? A digital nervous system requires a combination of software and hardware, with the flow of information acting as the lifeblood. The key element of the whole concept is linking together knowledge management, business operations, and commerce through an 8220;easy flow of information8221; 8212; which is the essence of DNS see box. To understand how DNS can improve some of the mundane activities within the company, let8217;s take a look at the way meetings are conducted. Generally, all people do in meetings is share information. Ideally, the information sharing part should take place through e-mail, way before the meeting commences. In this way, employees can analyse data beforehand and come into a meeting prepared with recommendations and debate.

Also, it8217;s interesting to note how most companies put together information to be given to consultants irrespective of the fact that most employees do not have access to the same info. If the same is made available to employees through DNS, who knows they may come up with better solutions than the consultants!

The way forms move and are processed within the company is another area which can be streamlined through DNS. Says Jonathan Murray, General Manager, WW Enterprise Technical Marketing, Microsoft, 8220;Creation of a paperless office is a pre-requisite for DNS. This would mean switching to electronic forms and e-mail, good networking and easy-to-build Web pages. Many companies have started using imaging software to scan documents, generated both internally and externally, and putting them on to their PCs for everyone to share.8221; This is based on the logic that for accuracy, companies need to get their data into digital form at the point of origin. This also reduces re-entry.

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DNS can also prioritise information. As an emergency generates an immediate reflex in the human nervous system, so should bad news in a corporate. For this, bad news must travel fast. For quick and well-informed decision-making, therefore, info must travels in real time.

But that isn8217;t enough. In order to translate this timely info into good decisions, employees need smart tools in the form of analytical software, like spreadsheets, Pivot tables, data mining, CAD/CAM, at their desktops. These tools can integrate all the steps that deliver value to the customer, rather than treating the steps as a series of individual tasks. In a nutshell, it can be safely concluded that DNS is all about knowledge management. It is a process that starts with business objectives and processes and a recognition of the need to share information. It is nothing more than managing information flow, getting the right info to the people who need it so that timely decisions can be made. In not so many words, it is all about increasing institutional intelligence or corporate IQ. With companies like Infosys Technologies and Ranbaxy already busy putting their DNS in place, competition better watch out.