Leadership and Business Wisdom.

Information has to be organized to challenge a company's strategy. It has to test the company's assumptions about its theory of its business. This in cludes testing the company's assumptions about its environment-society and its structure, the market, the customer, and technology. And information on the environment, where the major threats and opportunities are likely to arise, has become increasingly urgent. Then there are assumptions about the specific mission of the company. Third, there are assumptions about an organization's core competencies needed to accomplish its mission. Software may be designed to provide this information tailored to a specific group such as hospitals, universities, or casualty insurance companies. Companies can...