Long before text books on business administration made their appearance, national intelligence organisations like India's Intelligence Bureau were practising principles of output enhancement such as making the operations cost- effective, valuing time as a resource and seeking information that helped speedy decision-making, among others. Today's buzzword in business is the ‘smart’ handling of all interactions, processes and emerging rivals. By definition ‘smartness’ lies in increasing the productivity per unit of investment of resources- money, manpower or time. Technology clubbed with the right human intervention is of course, the new instrument of injecting ‘smartness’ in business and personal life and securing a competitive advantage. Apart from technology what can enhance productivity, however, is the timely access to data, exercise of Imagination to read trends that others had not noted and creation of an organisational environ in which every member worked to one's optimal potential. Each of these determinants of output needs to be analysed in depth.

First, the pace at which business is conducted today makes it important that decision-making was swift and information that could make a difference between a ‘decision’ and a ‘guess’ came in time. Accessing and analysing information available in public domain about the external factors affecting an enterprise and data analytics to help internal parameters like ensuring stability of supply chain for instance, had become crucial for cutting off delays that marred productivity. Further, information of Intelligence value that gave an exclusive insight into what lay ahead by way of an opportunity or an impediment, facilitated faster growth and made for greater output thereby yielding competitive gains. In the age of information knowledge-based decisions alone can sustain improvement in productivity - the best example of this in business history being the acceleration of production of quality cars achieved by Toyota on the basis of inflow of information from the workers at the assembly line. The rise of data analytics firms to help clients in enhancing their output is a fact that speaks for itself. The infamous role of Cambridge Analytica in influencing the outcome of democratic elections in India and outside does in a way prove the point that greater gains -or votes in this case -could be had through a ‘smarter’ profiling of voters notwithstanding the possibility that there might be violation of ethics in the process.

Second, when Albert Einstein famously propounded that 'Imagination is more important than knowledge' he was commending the ability of an analyst to go beyond the facts made available to him to foresee what belonged to the future. This is similar to the game of Jig Saw in which a brighter child is able to solve the puzzle with lesser number of pieces having been able to see if it was an elephant or an eagle -earlier than other competitors would. Today a computer can forecast what lies ahead perhaps faster than the human brain -on the same data. The point, however, is that anything that helps produce more in the same time is a productivity enhancer and 'imagination' is one such instrument. Also, Imagination adds to the clarity with which organisational missions are set and it is not difficult to understand that this clarity about the goal becomes as important as the pace of activity created for achieving it. Further, in the Information Age an employee regardless of rank is considered a 'knowledge worker' - with built in Imagination-since he brings to bear on his engagement a thinking brain and not merely a pair of hands. The individual is a production centre on his own and that is the logic by which organisations have taken to new concepts of human resource development. The idea of re-skilling the personnel for instance, is a productivity enhancer. Moreover, even the concept of a team has changed in the sense that diversity in it is taken to be a source of strength rather than of weakness. The team leader keeps decision- making to himself but benefits from the pool of ideas generated by the diverse team.

Finally, since all business is human activity the levels of productivity ultimately are set by the contribution made to the organisational output by individual members. Organisational ethics, work place environ and the sense of loyalty that a member had towards his organisation, principally determined the individual's performance and output. Leading corporates have an oversight on the ethics of the organisation right from the top, create the right grid for interpersonal relations notwithstanding the reality of hierarchy and take measures to instill corporate loyalty. They even try to see that employees did not have 'work-life' balance issues so that they were not distracted from giving full attention to the job at hand. Perhaps the most contemporary thought in today's corporate management is to regard security not as a cost but as a part of profit centre. The value of security lies in the cost that its failure would inflict on the enterprise and is therefore related to the security risk assessment that the security survey ordered by the management would make. In the new thinking on productivity, it is also acknowledged that a secure work place would give an employee the peace of mind that in turn would help him or her to further concentrate on the job and thus produce more in the same time. Security is hence established as a productivity enhancer.

To supplement what has been stated above, a set of three more add-ons need to be recounted in the context of productivity enhancement. One is that all time stealers should be consciously eliminated. Time is lost when there is a gap between information and decision making, between decision and its communication and between the communicated decision and its implementation. Secondly, it should be realised that there is a loss of resource whenever there was delay in carrying out a course correction that had become due. And finally, it is important that the work culture created an environ where everybody worked with urgency even when there was no emergency.

In short, profitability is today a comprehensive concept going beyond the balance sheet of income and expenditure. It highlights the importance of the feeling of shared good that must prevail amongst the investors, stake holders and employees. Successful leaders and managers flag the issue of productivity enhancement in their strategic thinking and day -to -day working.

(The writer is former director of Intelligence Bureau)