IT and insights - adversaries or best friends?

IT is often seem as the panacea for all information ailments. However, it cannot replace the analysis and market sensing (Day, 1994), which happens through people in an organisation.

IT holds remarkable potential for gathering information. But in my experience it often leads to information overload because the cost of acquiring information has been dropping rapidly. This means that market information for a time has paradoxically stopped being as strategic as it used to be. An organisation need no longer think as hard about what information it needs and what it needs it for. It just collects as much as it can. Hopefully, we will se a move towards a different trend. IT can help there too -synthesizing and condensing information.

In terms of helping create insights, I see great opportunities in network IT, which enable discussions and spreading of information across an organisation. It puts people back into the loop. Basically, people need to meet and talk, that is when the magic happens. The sparks that form insights, the patterns, ideas and breakthroughs an IT system can never provide. So are insights and IT best friends forever? You can have market insights without IT, but the information beneath the insight is more easily spread and gathered using smart IT.