denotes premium content | Feb 7 2012 
News
posted 31 Aug 2004
Objective to focus on board-level involvement in KM
As part of the countdown to KM Europe 2004, taking place in Amsterdam from the 8-10 November, ei talks to some of the key vendors that will be exhibiting. This month, Gary Fisher of Objective tells Harry Wilson about the company’s focus for the event.
For many years, organisations have tolerated decisions being made based on either outdated or incorrect information. Such poor decisions can be time consuming, costly and, in some circumstances, threatening to the organisation’s survival.
The challenge for businesses today is to provide a single and consistent environment whereby every piece of vital information is captured, managed and easily retrieved regardless of its format, location or source. Furthermore, both the individual and the organisation must be confident of the information’s accuracy and integrity.
At KM Europe 2004, Gary Fisher, CEO of Objective, will explain the opportunities facing organisations today through the convergence of enterprise content management, knowledge management and associated technologies.
Fisher acknowledges the convergence of the three areas will provide a framework not only for productivity and efficiency gains, but for the metrics of business processes and practices. But to achieve these ends, Fisher plans to focus on the theme of addressing knowledge management at the board level of organisations.
“If you are not dealing with the technology and culture of knowledge management at this level, you are unlikely to be in business in ten years,” he said.
The three converging environments provide for the easy capture of both physical and electronic information regardless of the information type or its origin together with its rapid retrieval via a simple and intuitive means. Appropriate technology will not only manage and retrieve content through instruction and request but will proactively disseminate information through subscription, publication and collaboration.
Upon this single foundation lies the opportunity for organisations to employ process-automation technology to streamline business processes and improve overall efficiency and control.
“While workflow has been a popular way for many years to achieve these goals, organisations have discovered, often at great expense, that process improvement must adhere to the principles of compliance and risk management inherent within sound information and content-management principles,” said Fisher.
To exploit these opportunities, he plans to emphasise the requirements for flexibility in the solution to meet changing organisational needs. Fisher will also touch on user participation in meeting the challenges inherent in the change process.
Fisher is excited about the business opportunities an event like KM Europe presents for Objective.
“We currently have little presence in Europe outside of the UK and we want to expand our business into this region,” he said. “We have some customers in Scandinavia and therefore a logical focus for us would be Northern Europe. This makes an exhibition in Amsterdam a logical choice.”
