The Pepsi Challenge: DIY information gathering or paying for the professional

Reports results of a study, undertaken by Strathclyde Graduate Business School, to investigate what happens when managers carry out their own information seeking and to determine whether the trend towards end user searching of business information, by company managers, threatens the role of information professionals. Companies in Scotland’s engineering sector were selected for the study and the Business School’s Business Information Service assumed the role of the information professional. Conditions for comparing the two sets of research results were based on a blind test challenge (similar to the Pepsi Challenge blind taste test). Three companies generated three genuine business enquiries, which were answered simultaneously by an information professional and by a manager in the company itself. The results were evaluated, preferred answers selected and in-depth interviews held with each company. Concludes that there are pros and cons for both the DIY approach and the use of an information professional and it is only by working together that best results are achieved. Information professionals must strive to convince company managements that they have skills which can be assets to modern companies.