Bipin Junnarkar helped develop this concept while working in knowledge management at Monsanto Co. in St. Louis. He feels all companies can benefit from a life cycle approach to intellectual assets and innovation. He urges companies to develop a portfolio approach to their development of products and services based on this knowledge advantage. Executed correctly, Junnarkar argues, management of what he calls the knowledge cycle should improve speed to market, lower risk and better exploit intellectual resources. His model also provides a visual framework to manage a company's internal portfolio of IT investments.
Bold innovation starts with little information and little understanding.
A high level of both information and understanding about an idea makes it a commodity. Ironically, the tremendous increase in the use of information technology in business has encouraged a misplaced reliance on what large quantities of information can do, Junnarkar says. Thus IT executives try to play where there is a lot of information, but the idea behind the tool is new and untested. The problem is that mountains of data do not necessarily make for insight. Computers need mostly complete information to make partial sense.