Measuring the information age business

There are seven important characteristics of information age businesses which differ in a major way from traditional industrial age businesses. We should expect that managing this new type of business will require different management information, knowledge and skills. But what metrics precisely should an information age business manager watch and how should they be used? Two such metrics, structural effectiveness and knowledge productivity are proposed and discussed. In the information age business, effectiveness, a balance between doing things right (effciency) and doing the right things, is needed, The structural effectiveness metrirs called .complexity dynamicism and intergration reduce to quanitifiable terns the degree to which the structure of the business's work processes encourage or inhibit effective business operations. Knowleage must be treated as an independent driver of the information age business, in addition to the labor, capital and raw materials which drove industrial age businesses. Managers (and owners) must have a way of measuring how well the knowladge assets of a business are being utilized. The knowledge productivity metric measure this utilization in a way analogous to how managements nurturing of capital assets is measured (i.e. return on capital).