Nothing is as it used to be. Companies used to be able to run their business stably for decades. On well-trodden tracks, in familiar business relationships and with employees who remained loyal to the company from training to retirement. Stability was the prevailing dogma, not permeability. Things are different in intelligent companies.

Intelligent Companies Need Controlled Permeability

The world looks very different today: Disruptive technologies such as artificial intelligence, blockchain and electromobility are radically changing entire markets. Business leaders must be prepared to constantly review and question their own course. Whereas companies used to know their two or three competitors and settled into a peaceful coexistence, nowadays new competitors are springing up like mushrooms. From directions where no one would have expected them. In order to keep up, companies need to become intelligent – through a new form of permeability.

What Does Permeability Mean in Intelligent Companies?

It has become impossible for individuals to maintain an overview on their own. Decisions in the company can no longer be made solely on the basis of an employee’s own knowledge, not even solely on the basis of the information available in the company. Ideally, it is always necessary to think outside the box and look at the big picture. This increased pressure to innovate and compete means that companies need a completely new form of agility. In other words, companies need a new form of permeability for everything that affects the company from the outside – changing customer needs, technological developments or regulatory requirements.

And this doesn’t just apply to the management level: as a customer service advisor, I should ideally also be informed about what promotions a competitor is currently running – as I can react more appropriately to a customer inquiry in case of doubt. In the age of the Internet, the constantly informed consumer otherwise threatens to leave the customer advisor behind and the latter to lose his customer.

Optimally Mastering Opportunities and Risks with Cognitive Intelligence

This view of a company – as a hub in a digitally networked world – harbors both opportunities and risks. And there are solutions for both. What they all have in common is that the ability to contextualize information offers decisive added value. The following diagram provides an initial overview of how information flows between inside and outside. If there is a lack of permeability, the necessary customer and market understanding is missing. If there is too much openness, IT systems are all too easily the victims of cybercrime and important IP threatens to leak out of the company. If we look at it like a permeable membrane in the sense of an osmotic connection between customer and company, the membrane needs special capabilities. It must transport positive influences from the outside to the inside and, in the opposite direction, only allow the types of information that are desired to pass through to the outside.