DATA, INFORMATION AND KNOWLEDGE

MEANING OF DATA, INFORMATION AND KNOWLEDGE

DATA

Data is a raw fact / transaction which occurs in the interest of the department and organization and it is very important to be recorded. Data items can be called as elements which can describe an object, things, and activities.

Example:- Mobile Phone is an object which is used to make or receive calls and in current scenario, this can be used to do computing. How anyone can differentiate a mobile device with others. For that data items can help to differentiate a device with other.

Data Items:- Mobile Device

• Brand--- Apple / Samsung /Sony etc
• Product Name- iphone6, S6, Z5 etc
• Type of Device- Smart Phone
• Network Supported- 2G-3G-4G
• Screen Size and Type- 4.7", 5.5",5'
• SoC- A8 / EXYNOS / QUALCOMM 810
• RAM-1GB/4GB/3GB

Different configuration differs a product with others and collection of these data items inform the types of product which is a collection of raw facts.

INFORMATION

Information refers the organised / transformed and processed version of data items which is organised in such a fashion so that it carries value and meaning to the recipient. Recipient can be anybody who is in a need of knowing the facts of a process, activities, performance and results. It is to be noted that information should be organised in a way so that when a recipient reads the information report from top to bottom, his/her information need can be satisfied and that can be only possible when data items should be collected and recorded intelligently.

Example:- If you understand the above example of data items, you will find configurations and hardware used in the device, differs one product with other and one brand with another brand. These hardware configurations decides the device performance which can be a very important factors to be chosen by the customers in the open market place. That means if a marketer organise these hardware configuration in a form of comparison report between two or more devices, wherein a customers can read these information and decide which one is best for his/her need, that is known as Information.

KNOWLEDGE

Knowledge obviously consist of numbers of data items in the form of information about any process, activities and performance which helps the reader to understand or accumulate the current facts that helps him/her to control the situation by applying experience.

Example:- If a customer knows the fact that CPU, RAM, GPU and memory of the phone plays a important role in the overall performance of a device than  referring the above example, customer can choose the phone where the above configuration is latest. In this example customer is having a knowledge of facts what kind of device configuration he is looking for, and when customer is trying to locate these information over advertisements / brand websites and Third party website which are just a information about products, and when desired information matches the need, then customer takes action to buy.

The above can also be understood with the help of another example, when a brand manager is responsible for the performance of the products and have to meet the sales targets which decides the overall performance of brand value, it can only be measured when the sales of each and every products to be recorded as an data items and a weekly / monthly/ quarterly / annual  reports on performance can be prepared after organizing the collected data items (raw facts) which has a information about the sales data / total sales / sales comparison etc. and when these reports is being referred by the brand manager, then he would gain knowledge about the actual performance of his brand.

On the basis of these information, since he has a knowledge of actual performance, he would apply his experience to boost or correct the performance.