Discover how AI can transform your company's data into a strategic knowledge base, unlocking a potential competitive advantage and accelerating organizational learning.

Can All Enterprise Data Become a Knowledge Base?

For a large majority of organizations, we have already migrated from a "local data on computers" and "on-premise servers" model to a cloud model.

As a result, the organization’s centralized data can then become a huge knowledge base on which personalized AI can be built.

Of course, there’s the transactional data captured. CRMs, ERPs, and other systems can generate various rich perspectives for the organization thanks to AI.

There are also all the other documents generated daily by users that can provide a rich base, provided they are valorized.

Leveraging Existing Knowledge

Fresh out of college, I was then an IT buyer at Bombardier Aerospace.

I recall the vision conveyed by ORACLE around 1995: to integrate the various enterprise systems into an immense database, where computers are merely access points and where centralized information can become a key factor in creating a unique advantage for the organization.

With AI, 30 years later, we are almost there.

This vision of information centralization, once a colossal technological and organizational challenge, is now within reach thanks to advancements in AI.

And all organizations have access to this potential.

I say "almost" because it is necessary to accomplish three actions to leverage it:

1. Centralize files and data.
2. Master agentic AI (autonomy and decision-making capabilities) and generative AI.
3. Leverage the value of information through data governance and quality.

At the beginning of my consulting career at Deloitte Consulting, I assisted the knowledge management team as a "knowledge manager" for the global supply chain management practice.

I had to identify, catalogue, and valorize documents, research, presentations, and mandates that represented the best practices and most significant results for our clients and our practice.

The work required to make this information available on our global knowledge base was colossal. A large number of practitioners and experts were part of the permanent team that had to ensure the meticulous collection and analysis of information.

It was a manual (and labour-intensive) process that ensured the quality of the database and made it accessible to all consultants in the global network.

Leveraging Knowledge With AI

Today, AI can not only facilitate and optimize this work, but it also makes this capability available to all organizations.

Of course, there is still the need to identify quality data and develop relevant prompts to continuously enhance the results.

Nevertheless, AI now offers the possibility of extracting, synthesizing, and leveraging all available information. It allows for questioning and reflection on issues based on the teams' experience. It can also put the organization's learnings into perspective in addition to what is documented outside the organization in record time (private data versus public data).

This is a very interesting new organizational capability!

As an organization, you now possess a unique wealth of information that can accelerate team learning and boost performance potential.

Next Steps For Your Organization

Have you recognized this potential?

If so, who is the team responsible for data governance and knowledge bases?

What processes are in place to integrate this wealth of information into your business practices?

Have a good week,

Eric L'Heureux

PS. We are in the process of migrating our English newsletter to Substack to better integrate it with the English version of our podcast. Stay tuned!

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