Managing Communications, Knowledge and Information Essay - 1

Managing Communications, Knowledge and Information - Essay Example The knowledge sharing benefits offered by the use of ICTs have encouraged local companies to explore global markets. It has also helped multi-national companies to enter new markets worldwide. The paper analyses the information, knowledge and communication needs of Tesco to achieve its objective. The identified objective for this case is ‘To provide help and support to those who are in need through Tesco’s charity trust’. Tesco was founded in 1919 by Jack Cohen. In 1929, the company opened its first store in Burnt Oak. After 75 years of experience, Tesco is the third largest retailing company in the world (Tesco, 2011). In 1988, the company started the charity of the year partnership through which it supports a different charity every year. In 2009, Tesco entered into a partnership with the British Red Cross. Recent research studies have shown that by 2021, nearly half a million people would be living with undiagnosed dementia. Tesco along with the Alzheimerâ€⠄¢s society and Alzheimer Scotland have planned to raise ?5million to create awareness of the disease. The main objective is to help raise diagnosis levels from 40% by 2014 (Press Releases, 2010). In the aftermath of the massive earthquake and tsunami in Japan, Tesco has come forward to help the victims of the calamity by garnering support through their sales, employees and customers. Tesco has donated ?50,000 through a disaster relief partnership with British Red Cross. The company has encouraged customers to donate their club card vouchers for this cause. Identifying data and information requirements A business requires different types of data from different sources. These include structured/unstructured data, data from different sources (internal and external) and different quality of data (Ranjan, 2009). Internal data is data gathered from internal sources within the company from employees. External data is information and knowledge collected from external stakeholders, such as vendors, suppliers, customers and shareholders. Data obtained from external sources cannot be directly used in decision making. It needs to be further analyzed for developing appropriate knowledge for use within the business processes. For example, data collected from customers by employees needs to be further analyzed and then used by the executive team in decision making (Ranjan, 2009). In the present information age, companies require access to information, knowledge, people and expertise in order to make informed decisions. As a result, organizations invest a lot of capital, time and effort in ensuring they have the right information to communicate, at the right time to the right person. Tesco’s objective relates to recognizing the need for charity funding and defining strategies to ensure that the funding needs of specific causes like the Japanese earthquake and tsunami are met. Since the strategies are based on identifying the funding needs and accessing funds from diff erent sources, Tesco needs to focus on collecting data on charity requirements that can benefit from such funds. The specific data and information required can be identified as below: Charity causes that require funding – in this case the devastation created by the recent Japanese tsunami and earthquake has been identified for collecting funds from company stakeholders and donating it to the Japanese relief