Knowledge as Resource

Before the turn of the century, management experts Hamel and Prahalad predicted that in the future, the most important wealth of companies will be their core competencies. In that scenario, Hamel and Prahalad defined core competencies as the collective skills of employees in the company. They made the fearless forecast that companies with a deeper pool of core competencies will have the real competitive advantage.

Less than 10 years since this scenario was painted, the foresight has become hindsight. What was predicted has happened. Technology has been so democratized that any company may acquire the ability to produce any product that is as excellent as any other, and distribute these products as fast as any other company.

What differentiate excellent companies are their core competencies – the collective skills of their employees -- and how these companies use these skills.

Core competency can be limitless. It is so because it is based on knowledge which is an unlimited resource. Knowledge is boundless and has no limitations. Knowledge resides in every person without exception. Every person has the power to become a repository and enabler of this knowledge.

At about the same time, Paul Kennedy predicted the resurgence of the power of population. He defined power of population as the capacity of the human mind to find new ways of doing things, to invent new devices, to organize production in improved forms, to quicken the pace of moving goods and ideas from one place to another, to stimulate fresh approaches to old problems.

A global survey among executives to determine the greatest marketplace challenges show that executives are now recognizing the power of population. CEOs in North America and Europe list “shortage of key skills” as one of the marketplace challenges in the coming years.

On the other hand, Asian CEOs feel that they have an abundance of skills/talent. Asian countries (except Japan) are net exporters of talents and labor. Japan evaluated their IT staff requirements and came to the conclusion that they will fall short of the required IT workers by 50,000. It is a serious shortage that they have launched a campaign to certify IT workers in the Philippines, Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia and India.

Given the right conditions and motivation to acquire, and even nurture, knowledge, the more individuals there are the more knowledge there will be. The more knowledge there is the more core competencies. The more core competencies, the more powerful a society becomes. Under such condition, countries with the bigger population and that provide avenues for people to acquire knowledge and translate them into core competencies, will become the most powerful.

(For comments, write to abfontanilla@yahoo.com or nick.fontanilla@gmail.com)