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Recent events have shown us that intelligence about the world at large can be, to put it politely, malleable. If the people responsible for operations provide and shape their own intelligence, they will tend to produce information and analysis that fit their preconceptions. The same is true for corporate intelligence. Especially as companies and industries mature, they may face decisions that their operating executives find difficult to confront. These companies--indeed, all companies--need a chief knowledge officer, someone who provides honest, unbiased intelligence about the world around a company and where the company stands in that world.

In our increasingly knowledge-based economy, every company will eventually have such an officer, and those that get there first will have a competitive edge. Just what this person will do is still being invented and will differ from industry to industry. The CKO's duties may be as varied as recommending whether a company should buy, sell, or make its technologies, or determining where technology is going and where new competitors may arise. But there is no better example of the need for a chief knowledge officer than the necessity for some companies to manage decline skillfully.

Death is a part of business life. Fruitful markets will one day go fallow. Unfortunately, very few enterprises have figured out how to navigate the downside of a sales curve and wring profits out of fading products. Guiding a company to a graceful exit is far from the only role of a CKO. But it's a task that epitomizes the need for such an officer: It requires a clear-eyed assessment of where a company stands in its life cycle, and it means facing unpleasant realities that less dispassionate executives may be unable to deal with.

Consider Polaroid. This icon of photographic innovation was toppled by the emergence of digital photography and one-hour developing. Polaroid saw it coming and made an all-out attempt to go digital. But it never stood a chance in this new digital world. All of its know-how was rooted in chemistry. Unfortunately, Polaroid made a mess of its own demise. The company's core business, instant photography, was declining only slowly. If it hadn't attempted to fight the inevitable, it could have steered itself to a very soft landing, providing a decent return to its shareholders and a lot more security to its employees. Polaroid needed a chief knowledge officer--someone who could ensure that its core asset had a profitable death.

What is the biggest business blunder in the past half-century? That's easy: Steve Jobs's decision not to license the Macintosh operating system, which cost Apple $559 billion (going by peak market values). Apple had, and probably still has, a better OS than Microsoft's. Instead of leading a $23 billion also-ran, Jobs could have been Bill Gates, with a company worth $582 billion. But Jobs failed to foresee the Mac OS's decline and to take appropriate action: Give in to the inevitable and license the thing.

You can't really blame him. Those who invent something are always the last to part with it. Fortunately for Microsoft, Gates did not invent the original DOS operating system, but bought it. What is bought is easily sold (or, in the case of Windows, leased). It's up to the knowledge chief to cast a cold eye on the future, gather unbiased intelligence on emerging threats and opportunities, and make the tough recommendations to buy, hold, or sell.