The more data is refined and tested, the more accurate the knowledge it produces. In a long gone historical time scholars used to travel across the world to the great library of Alexandria, simply to study. Now vast amounts of data and information are available without travel. This resource is available to business as well as science, yet business managers still make the same fundamental mistakes over and over again.

Belief in the Desire Rather than the Fact

Principal amongst these is the failure to take account of the full facts before making decisions. Knowledge is available for study in far greater quantity in this modern computer age so there is no excuse for lack of research.

The Age of Knowledge Dissemination

The momentum of business computerisation accelerated as development of the Internet allowed for the introduction of end-to-end electronic trading, banking and information dissemination.

The ever increasing use of computers and the corresponding reduction in traditional methods of trading has led inevitably to huge quantities of data being generated and stored electronically. Originally this situation presented business with its own set of issues. Linking computers or data storage devices together was a complex process and usually required a business to employ outsourced expertise and considerable amounts of time. The problems arising from transfer of data from one system to another or with duplicating data for backup purposes is exacerbated by the fact that many applications lock data into storage formats usually inaccessible to other applications.