Knowledge Strategy: Aligning Knowledge
Programs to Business Strategy.
Peter H. Jones, Ph.D., Origin Technology in Business.
How does Business Strategy drive Knowledge
Management?
Knowledge management (KM) has received extensive business
press over the last two years, and offers substantial promise for long-tern
gains in competitiveness and organizational effectiveness. Due to both hype and
interest, the field has expanded greatly, making it difficult to understand
what’s KM, what’s worthwhile, and understanding how it might benefit
organizations and their overall business. Soon after the initial articles and
books emerged, technology vendors charged in with a bewildering array of
solutions, playing into predispositions to purchase a technology “fix” to
short-term problems. Gartner Group (Wilderman, 1999) shows that few clear
directions and best practices have emerged in KM consulting as well, and
many consultants “are simply retooling project management methodologies to
include a KM path. This is not sufficient because KM binds technology and
culture, and requires KM-specific competencies.” Knowledge strategy requires you
first understand the business need, as technology is expensive and bad choices
hurt productivity and often eliminate second chances for deploying a better
program.
We can distinguish knowledge strategy as aligning
organizational knowledge to a defined business strategy. This approach therefore
considers knowledge management as processes that optimize creation,
sharing, and market leverage of knowledge assets and core capabilities. Many KM
approaches focus on collaborative groupware tools for knowledge sharing and
teamwork, and knowledge portals to organize vast amounts of information and
filter the right content and access to corporate knowledge. However,
technology-focused KM solutions have been exposed as offering little more than
the ongoing implementation of groupware and document management. As revealed by
research such as Orlikowski (1994) Star and Bowker (1994), and Nardi and O’Day
(1999), technology programs that ignore the need for significant cultural change
result in systems that merely reinforce the status quo. True knowledge sharing
must start with the organization, with systems reflecting the new organizational
requirements.
Though the phrases seem similar, there is an explicit and
important differentiation that must be understood by all stakeholders, as
indicated by the following "litmus test."Does the program explicitly support
business strategy at an organizational level?”
If so, you’re developing a Knowledge Strategy process.
Knowledge strategy focuses on knowledge resource development to support business
strategy.
If not, you are developing a Knowledge Management process.
This might include focusing on current knowledge gaps as opposed to
future requirements, local process improvement and not organizational, or
departmental resources and not the entire constituency of stakeholders.
The literature and practice both reveal two focuses for
knowledge management that enable effective organizational leverage of knowledge
resources. One focus is strategic, the other is community-based. Although these
different directions both promise significant value for product innovation,
revenue growth, and operational effectiveness, they do so following very
different approaches. Very simply, knowledge strategy shows value through
essentially a top-down approach, while knowledge communities require enabling
bottom-up approaches. Paradoxically, very few knowledge management initiatives
are championed from the very top or from the communities themselves. Instead,
their value is often understood from the middle levels of the enterprise,
identified by some KM theorists as a “Middle-Up-Down” approach.
However, knowledge strategy starts with the notion
that an organization’s business strategy should guide their planning for
knowledge management. Northeastern University’s Michael Zack answers the
question of “how should an organization determine which efforts are appropriate,
or which knowledge should be managed and developed?” The development of the
knowledge strategy approach draws from this, suggesting “the most important
context for guiding knowledge management is the firm’s strategy,” and this link,
“while often talked about, has been widely ignored in practice.” On the surface,
such a link may seem obvious to business thinkers. However knowledge management
remains complex, as it addresses strategic, organizational, cultural, and
technology issues simultaneously. Understanding the links between business
strategy and knowledge is by no means direct. Consider the complexity of
strategy, with its issues of marketplace uncertainty, market share, profit
growth, customer retention, alliancing, and competition. Then consider knowledge
issues, such as individual and community knowledge resources, organizational
learning, unique and embedded routines and practices, intellectual property and
intangible capital, and incentives and benefits for knowledge sharing. How
should decision makers link their investments in knowledge and organizational
change with strategic goals made by executives in a completely dissociated
context?
The Dynamics of Knowledge Strategy.
Knowledge strategy designs an organization’s future based on
using knowledge effectively. Many situations call for this approach, but
certainly most when facing customer and marketplace uncertainty, increasing
product complexity, shifts in competitors and technology, and radical product
lifecycles. For firms forced to innovate, diversify product families, or
improve time-to-market cycles, an integrated knowledge strategy coordinates
decisions and rallies change. Many traditional firms understand themselves now
as knowledge-intensive – knowledge is not just for the high-tech, but the
lifeblood of competition and cooperation. With the easy entry and investment of
new Internet competitors, established firms now face intense pressure to address
their own knowledge strategy or face share erosion. Unique knowledge processes (including
innovation, design, leveraging research) and brand value (trust, customer
loyalty, and identification) are among the only non-replicable assets in a
growing number of business sectors.
Although Gartner Group shows knowledge management as
typically focused on common areas of process improvement, productivity, and cost
reduction, the areas of innovation and market leverage have much higher
returns over the long run. According to Zack (1999), product and service
innovation leads the list, followed by production and organizational
improvements. Product innovation keeps the top-line alive, while internal
process innovations erase costs against the bottom-line. These two broad
strategic directions foster interactions between business goals and knowledge
conductivity, dynamics not always coordinated or aligned effectively. If we look
at a typical model of business strategy, three broad directions are commonly
identified: Market growth or value, Operational effectiveness, and Customer
intimacy. Market growth or overall value through services drives product
innovation; Effectiveness drives internal knowledge sharing and management, to
leverage use of knowledge to avoid costly reinvention and churn. And customer
intimacy drives changes across the organization, requiring innovating for
customers, leveraging customer knowledge, and driving revenues through customer
retention.
Consider the interactions and possible decisions manifested
by the directions of both business and knowledge strategy. If business strategy
is to be used as guidance for knowledge initiatives, then which strategic goals
are best supported by knowledge? What knowledge resources are best driven by
business goals? An illustration of these relationships shows in Figure 1, where
both strategies are mapped to these three strategic areas.
Figure 1. Business and knowledge strategy drivers.
As indicated in Figure 1, the drivers for the two strategic
directions differ. Some of the linkages between business and knowledge may not
seem clear from this analysis. Furthermore, when substantial investment must be
considered, and new programs require time and learning of the organization, how
do decision makers know which “alignments” to make first? Are there dependencies
between programs in knowledge strategy, where one activity generates or
leverages another?
Also notice, especially in knowledge strategy, a nearly total
avoidance of information technology. Knowledge strategy follows business
strategy, and technology follows both strategies. Technology investments might
be planned as part of strategy, but are processes that follow the cultural and
practice changes proposed to the organizations.
Resource view of strategy and knowledge.
Stepping back into theory briefly, let’s look at the
foundations of these proposed approaches to strategy. Before the rise of
knowledge management, schools of strategic planning adapted Porter’s (1980) Five
Forces model of strategy, based on a model of strategic positioning within an
entire industry. Firms were considered to engage strategy based on five
positions within their markets, based substantially on a stable field of
competition. Teece (1984) was among the early critics of this view, holding to a
model of strategy based on the economic theory of value based on inherent
resources of the firm, of which knowledge can be considered among the most
significant. Teece as well as Spender (1994), Nelson and Winter (1982), Kogut
and Zander (1996), Grant (1996), and Zack (1999) lead the business research
literature in resource-based strategy, deriving variations of theories stemming
from the work of Penrose (1959) and the notion of Penrose rents.
Essentially Edith Penrose’s notion stated that a firm’s only
competitive advantage rests in its superior adaptation to business conditions by
effectively coordinating its internal resources. Most of these resources were
considered intangibles, such as competencies, employee knowledge, unique
organizational routines, and ability to learn. Penrose rents (rents being the
power to extract revenues from a market) were based on the notion that a firm’s
unique knowledge-based capabilities were economically unfeasible to replicate,
so that growth was based on coordination of resources to develop and maintain
advantages based on superior use of knowledge and competency.
Although it took nearly 30 years for Penrose’s theory to
establish itself, it stands as the basis for resource strategy theories that
followed. Among economic theories of the firm, not only has Penrose stood the
test of time, but has gained validity. The dominant firms in every sector of
business show a market value far exceeding that of booked assets, which in
simplest terms is considered a measure of added value from internal intangible
resources.
Spender and Nelson and Winter (1982) proposed that the firm’s
strategic knowledge capabilities are further developed in collective practice,
“embedded in the form of routines and operating procedures, allowed for the
possibility that the collective had knowledge which is unknown to any of its
members.” Spender identifies how both explicit and implicit knowledge show up
socially and individually, focusing on the competitive value of social
collective knowledge. Collective knowledge in organizational routines can be
viewed as emerging from coordination among resources, a highly context-specific
property of the firm’s practices. The more knowledge is contextually embedded in
practice, the less it can be appropriated by competitors or even individuals
that leave the firm.
For example, Microsoft has developed unique practices in its
forms of software engineering that have been described and copied by competitors.
However, the coordination of resources between product lines, staff roles, and
deep knowledge of product code, the operating system code, and their internal
processes cannot be replicated by other firms. To the extent that their product
lines remain dominant in the marketplace, Microsoft’s knowledge-based collective
operations establish a powerful beachhead against competition. Both efficient
and innovative, their processes keep their product lines advanced and ahead of
competitors to a great extent.
However, embedded knowledge in collective practice shows a
downside in the form of ultra-stability. Firms with less than dominant positions
are not served by establishing processes that cannot be effectively changed. For
one, new knowledge-based practices may enable a competitive advantage, and until
this edge is found, the firm should continue to innovate its practices. It
doesn’t help to embed outdated or ineffective processes, regardless of their
basis in unique knowledge.
Zack (1999) identified core, advanced, and innovative
knowledge as the three levels of knowledge development related to building
knowledge strategy. Core knowledge is commonly shared by all members of an
industry, and offers no competitive value. It is the “price to play,” such as
web-based companies’ understanding of Internet technology. Advanced knowledge
can be differentiated, and therefore provides some competitive advantage. With
the same advanced knowledge as competitors, a firm can position and coordinate
that knowledge in different ways, creating value for its customers. Advanced and
usable user interfaces in web products offer an advantage based on advanced
knowledge, but still remains knowledge open to the overall market. Innovative
knowledge allows a firm to lead its industry by significantly differentiating
from its competitors. Firms such as Cisco Systems and Qualcomm developed early
core technologies in their product areas, established de facto standards as
patented, licensed intellectual property, and created internal processes for
building on these standards. Until a significant disruption occurs in TCP/IP
networking and CDMA wireless technologies, these firms will remain dominant in
their areas.
However, even advanced knowledge ages, and becomes less
viable in its given context. In technology industries, innovative knowledge must
be refreshed on a almost constant basis. Embedding knowledge in organizational
routines is made more challenging when the critical knowledge changes rapidly.
Both knowledge content and processes must change in relation to each other, a
coordination of resources requiring support from a knowledge-sharing culture and
collaborative technology. These capabilities remain in a dynamic state almost
constantly, a complex challenge for organizations, individuals, and work
practices. Teece, Pisano, and Schuen (1997) extended the notion of knowledge
resources into dynamic capabilities, the proposition that dynamic and
adaptive knowledge remains the most competitive knowledge. According to Teece
(1998), “this is the ability to sense and then to seize new opportunities, and
to reconfigure and protect knowledge assets, competencies, and complementary
assets and technologies to achieve sustainable competitive advantage.” Dynamic
capabilities map to dynamic strategy, an approach to business strategy that
allows responsive adaptation to market change. Without developing dynamic
capabilities as part of an organizational strategy, a dynamic strategy approach
would be likely to fail in most firms. The ability to shift the organization
when market dynamics change appears highly dependent on the firm’s ability to
dynamically adapt its knowledge to emerging situations, and to learn
collectively.
Competitive advantage of dynamic
organizational learning.
If dynamic capabilities give the firm its ability to compete
in changing markets, how do we develop dynamic capabilities? Some factors show
as rapid learning, making mistakes sooner than your competition, adapting to the
marketplace direction, and revising plans based on market feedback. Therefore,
dynamic learning may fundamentally be the most critical factor to
knowledge strategy.
How well do we learn as organizations, and how does our
learning facilitate competitiveness and contribute to business strategy? These
are key questions of our knowledge strategy, addressing our ability to transform
as required to meet novel or emerging business opportunities and challenges.
According to Zack (1999), “the ability of an organization to learn, accumulate
knowledge from its experiences, and reapply that knowledge is itself a skill or
competence that - beyond the core competencies directly related to delivering
its product or service - may provide strategic advantage.”
An organization’s learning cycle can be assessed against two
dimensions of strategy and competition. With respect to strategy, we
evaluate the speed and depth at which people in the organization develop
capabilities required by business strategy. To meet or exceed desired goals,
organizations must bring new or improved capabilities to market as strategy
dictates, or as customers require. With respect to competitive learning
rate, firms must consider whether they can develop depth from learning required
capabilities and technologies faster than their competition.
These two learning motivators enable a third factor, the
capability for breakthrough innovation. Faster learning plus increased
depth and breadth of knowledge sharing significantly increases the types and
opportunities for innovation of services and technologies. For technology and
professional services organizations, these tools are essential to creating high
value and innovative competencies and services.
Teece, Pisano, and Schuen (1997) also discussed learning in
organizations as the dynamic capability offering the most significant
competitive advantage of all organizational processes.
“Learning is a process by which repetition and
experimentation enable tasks to be performed better and quicker. It also enables
new production opportunities to be identified. … Learning involves
organizational as well as individual skills. While individual skills are of
relevance, their value depends upon their employment in particular
organizational settings. Learning processes are intrinsically social and
collective, and occur not only through the imitation and emulation of
individuals, … but also because of joint contributions to the understanding of
complex problems.”
A rapid learning rate brings increasing returns, as faster
learning explores the ground of new technologies earlier, makes and recovers
from mistakes earlier, and therefore gains expertise earlier in the market cycle.
Rapid learning organizations will secure first-in customers, and retain the
ability to hold customers over a longer period. Competitive advantage derives
from the rapid integration of core and advanced knowledge with internal
processes, and from accruing insights faster than competitors.
Much of what we learn in developing competency is also
available to competitors. Many sources for competitive learning - research,
training, technologies, best practices, and personal knowledge – can be bought,
shared, and assimilated throughout an industry. The key for competitiveness is
integrating learning faster, and thereby understanding its value and learning
from making mistakes sooner.
Developing a Knowledge Strategy.
Given the competitive advantage of developing a firm’s
knowledge resources, how should strategy be developed? What have research and
practice shown as best practices for creating a knowledge strategy?
Zack (1999) identified an approach for developing knowledge
strategy based on research and practice. His “14 steps” offer a comprehensive
approach to analyzing strategic gaps in the organization and aligning knowledge
management to business strategy. Zack’s model reveals a flow of basic activities,
and does not define techniques for strategic analysis and development. The steps
each ask a fundamental question, such as “How do you want to play the game?” and
“What’s your external knowledge gap?”
Following this model allows application of well-known methods
of strategy development, such as SWOT (strengths-weaknesses-opportunities-threats)
analysis and scenario planning. We discuss Origin’s experience with this process,
and describe some of our learning while adapting the SWOT and scenario
approaches to knowledge strategy.
The first activity in knowledge strategy is understanding the
current business strategy, then affirming or progressing that strategy as the
basis for organizational analyses. By using identical processes for current
strategy as in knowledge strategy, we were able to distinguish the differences
between business goals and knowledge-based strategy. To understand the
organization’s gaps with internal strategy and with external competitors, an
assessment and gap analysis process was undertaken. When moving from
organizational resource assessment to knowledge strategy, the gaps identified
specific areas requiring attention and improvement in the organization. Since
these gaps were already based on strategy, they could all be considered critical
– nonetheless, prioritization of the gaps enabled focus on the most important
knowledge gaps.
The knowledge strategy process used aligned business strategy
to four dimensions of knowledge resources, organizational practices, culture,
and collaborative technology. Collaborative technology (an Intranet knowledge
portal) was were planned and deployed, but only after determining the overall
value of knowledge assets to the business, so that each investment makes a
defined contribution. Otherwise, knowledge management tools applied to tactical
issues or the wrong problem could suboptimize an entire business process, or
waste effort solving misvalued problems.
Knowledge Strategy Methods.
The traditional SWOT framework has been recognized by Zack
and others as a place to start in developing knowledge strategy. In our internal
research, a knowledge-based SWOT analysis was conducted in an early phase of
knowledge strategy work. Our research also conducted scenario workshops based on
a Team Design approach (Jones, 1998) to develop an alternative framework for
strategy, and provide the depth of detail offered by scenario analysis. Using
these two methods for both business strategy and knowledge strategy development
enabled comparison of findings and relevancy between the two approaches.
The knowledge-based SWOT analysis built upon the two
dimensions of Business and Knowledge, adding the value of identifying different
strategic strengths and weaknesses based on knowledge development as well as
business needs. The analysis also considered the effects of external contingency
(conditions of the business and competitive environment) as well as internal
factors (organizational, management, overall business strategy). This approach
enabled a rapid analysis of the relationships between business goals and
knowledge management. The knowledge related SWOT issues provided a significant
indication of current knowledge management issues within the organization
(KM issues are not necessarily related to the business strategy of the
enterprise, but often with the current situation). Resulting from these analyses,
KM issues were surfaced, allowing the team to address some of them immediately.
The specific SWOT analyses are not shown in this paper, as they continue to hold
strategic value to the organization.
We found that a large number of weaknesses were easily
identified by the team. The business SWOT analysis was quite balanced, with the
team identifying about 20 Strengths and Weaknesses, and 16 each of Opportunities
and Threats. However, the Knowledge SWOT was very lopsided. Knowledge Strengths
numbered only 7, with Weaknesses counting 20. The Opportunities were more
balanced with Threats, with each at about 12. The strategy team easily counted a
large number of knowledge weaknesses, demonstrating an awareness of critical
knowledge requirements. We concluded our organizational vocabulary for
identifying knowledge strengths may not have been well developed at that time,
so the strengths may have been underspecified. The ease in identifying knowledge
weaknesses, however, led to consideration the SWOT approach was useful in
assessing organizational needs in developing knowledge strategy.
SWOT evaluation of the knowledge issues and weaknesses showed
some typical knowledge-related business problems. We noted how our current
culture did not effectively reward knowledge sharing, and few realistic
incentives were made to encourage sharing, creation, and reuse of key knowledge
resources. Also, we found managers had difficulty determining the skill sets and
the desired learning programs for staff. An independent effort was initiated to
resolve these issues as a knowledge management solutions.
The SWOT analysis established a foundation from which to draw
priorities and develop further strategy. The Origin research continued with
scenario planning and other methods, extending the strategy process using a
series of half-day workshops with cross-functional participation from across the
consulting organization. The crucial outcome, regardless of method, was in
developing a consensus model for organizational alignment and validation, as
well as creating a vision for future action.
Aligning Resources to Strategy.
A strategy analysis based on SWOT or scenario methods is only
a first step. As with any broad-based organizational initiative, complexity
grows when identifying priorities for intervention and carrying out actual
projects. To manage complexity and resources on the research and analysis
efforts, we adopted a four-phased approach for developing the knowledge strategy
and moving projects forward.
Envisioning Business Strategy identified and developed a
business strategy, and linked initial knowledge needs to the strategy. This
phase used strategy workshops, SWOT analyses, and scenario planning sessions to
develop the initial strategy.
Knowledge Valuation analyzed the current state of the
organization, diagnosing strategic gaps, evaluating the learning rate, and
assessed cultural issues. This phase delivered an organizational assessment and
gap analysis.
Creating Knowledge Strategy analyzed impacts and
developed strategies for addressing gaps and redesigning processes. Strategic
gaps were prioritized, and action plan developed, and knowledge resources and
practices were aligned to the strategy.
Knowledge Pathbuilding established plans and designs for
building a knowledge architecture to support full organizational participation.
This phase coordinated plans, people, and information resources to integrate the
knowledge strategy into organizations, systems, product lines, and business
processes.
Findings from these other phases show the initial knowledge
SWOT and scenario analyses remained an effective guide for alignment throughout
the research process and for organizational action.
The purpose of Phase 2, Knowledge Valuation, was to
understand the current state-of-knowledge access and awareness in the
organization. This phase focused on organizational knowledge resources,
infrastructure, practices, and culture. We analyzed the current status of staff
capability, shared organizational knowledge, cultural issues, and the ability to
leverage knowledge. To map out the state of knowledge, 12 in-depth management
interviews were conducted, followed by a web-based survey of all regional
members of the focus organization.
A gap analysis was conducted on the results of this set of
data, comparing the resulting qualitative data to the business strategy, and
making assessments against competition. The baseline model from Phase 1,
developed from SWOT and embodied in scenarios, revealed several key areas of
strategy in professional services addressed by the analysis, as follows.
Services and Technologies shift – need flexible mix of
consulting approaches.
e-Business trends continue – must build the brand in this
area.
Knowledge management – must prepare for both organizational
services and technology.
Enterprise integration – beyond warehousing, to information
portals across the enterprise.
More national overall – wider range of consulting
opportunities.
Geographical shifts: integrating more international practices.
This strategy overview summarizes some of the areas Phase 2 evaluated to
derive gaps and priorities. As external and internal conditions change, the
strategic framework must be adaptable to support planning and decisions. Data
analysis and gap analysis were organized into the four knowledge management
dimensions recognized in the knowledge strategy approach:
Infrastructure and Collaborative Technology.
This affects the ability to share knowledge and communicate, and supports the
participation of managers and consultants in the organization. The findings
showed a mix of available access within a common infrastructure, pointing to a
possible need to deploy knowledge portal technology to enable universal
knowledge access.
Knowledge Resources.
Knowledge resources involves competencies, capabilities, and structured, and
unstructured information. Extending the definition, it also covers personal
knowledge, unique skills, customer relationships, intellectual property, and
other forms of intellectual capital. The findings showed Origin with a stable
base of core competencies understood in common by customers and consultants.
Organizational Practices.
Organizational practices include work routines, standard service delivery
processes, and other organizational functions necessary to manage professional
services. If knowledge resources can be thought of as content, organizational
practices can be seen as processes that manage and use that content.
Communications and other core practices were found well-developed, with
opportunities for stronger cross-functional integration across service lines and
other broad-based practices.
Culture and Learning.
Culture and learning evaluated the organizational environment as opposed
to specific processes. This analysis revealed excellent support for training and
skill development, and support for a significant diversity of competencies. The
organizational climate was positive in both survey and interview responses,
supporting an unusually low turnover rate as a professional services
organization.
Phase Three, Creating Knowledge Strategy, built upon
these findings and developed a complete knowledge strategy for use in action and
project planning. The knowledge strategy was based on the initial work described
in Phase 1- since a common presentation model had been adopted and socialized in
Phase 1, this model was revised with the new findings and priorities, and this
model was used as the roadmap for knowledge strategy.
Finally, Phase Four, Knowledge Pathbuilding, remains
in progress, and will continue to evolve as programs and projects roll out based
on the planning in this phase. New practices for knowledge sharing are being
integrated within the design for a knowledge portal system that will connect up
to 2000 consultants and managers in the first year. A revising of focus on
technical and consulting competencies remains ongoing, throughout the global
organization. The strategic focus of the larger global practices will also
affect the regional practices, but allowing for regional strengths in serving
specific large clients to remain focused. Organizational practices supporting
these changes have been planned, and as always noted in research and practice,
become a long term effort requiring organizational innovations to be guided by
core values and the local cultures within the company.
Conclusions.
Basing your KM approach on organizational strategy affords
the opportunity to target high priority and highest value payoff areas. It
starts by focusing on processes on which future development and knowledge assets
most depend, and evolves to scale these priorities. This focus ensures when KM
systems are “finally” deployed, the business strategy is reinforced just
through daily usage, a benefit never realized with most IT. But the key is
to start in the first place – no “silver bullet” technologies on the horizon can
solve the human and process issues faced and creatively solved by organizational
knowledge development.
The action research project discussed in this paper
streamlined many practices recommended in the research literature, and some
planned practices were never developed within the scope of the project. For
example, the Knowledge Valuation phase did not cover all of Zack’s
analyses recommended for current competitive knowledge evaluation. The research
found specific difficulty, in both time and processes, effectively analyzing:
Competitor knowledge advantages
Learning cycles and rate of dynamic learning
Competitor learning cycles.
In investigating these areas, we learned the state-of-the-art
remains unpublished. Where do we turn to understand methods for evaluating the
dynamic learning capabilities of competitors in professional services? We also
were unable to find current accepted or effective processes for evaluating
our learning rate, let alone those of competitors. We developed a
theoretical model for evaluating learning cycles, but this was not fully
researched and populated with data. Also, given our time limitations, we did not
explore competitors as thoroughly as we have for client-based knowledge strategy
projects.
Overall, the area of knowledge strategy remains largely
driven by practice. Each knowledge strategy project focuses on unique, differing
organizations within unique business environments. Every organizational culture
is unique, and management styles differ within large firms with strategies that
span multiple divisions. The level of strategic intervention – enterprise,
divisional, or departmental – drives the knowledge strategy development. Each
organizational level demands somewhat different methods, differing rates of
deployment, and differing levels of priority and impact. For example, a
departmental knowledge strategy will be greatly dependent on overall business
strategy, and has almost no leeway in driving strategic recommendations across
the organization. An enterprise level initiative, on the other hand, may require
much longer timeframes for evaluation and deployment, requiring multiple
revisions of business strategy during the based-based evaluations.
Finally, knowledge strategies differ by industry. While our
reported approach focused on professional services, other engagements have
focused on Internet startup firms, large chemical firms, consumer products, and
petrochemical firms. A flexible knowledge strategy model must be backed with
considerable industry knowledge to develop appropriate methods and conduct the
evaluations and strategic design sessions necessary to prepare the strategy and
action plans.
References and Bibliography.
Grant, R.M. (1996). Prospering in dynamically competitive
environments: Organizational capability as knowledge integration.
Organization Science, 7, 4, 375-387.
Jones, P.H. (1998). Handbook of Team Design. New York:
McGraw-Hill.
Kogut, B. and Zander, U. (1996). What firms do: Coordination,
identity and learning. Organization Science, 7, 502-518.
Nardi, B.A. and O’Day, V.L. (1999). Information ecologies:
Using technology with heart. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Nelson, R. and Winter, S. (1982). An evolutionary theory
of economic change. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Orlikowski, W.J. and Gash, D.C. (1994). Technological frames:
making sense of information technology in organizations. ACM Transactions on
Information Systems,12 (2), 174-207.
Penrose, E.T. (1959). The theory of the growth of the firm.
New York: Wiley and Sons.
Porter, M.E. (1980). Competitive strategy: Techniques for
analyzing industries and competitors. New York: Free Press.
Roos, J. and Victor, B. (1999). Towards a new model of
strategy-making as serious play. European Management Journal, 17, 4,
348-355.
Spender, J.-C. (1994). Organizational knowledge, collective
practice, and Penrose rents. International Business Review, 3 (4),
353-367.
Star, S.L. and Bowker, G.C. (1994). Knowledge and
infrastructure in international information management: Problems of
classification and coding. In L. Bud, (Ed.), Information Acumen: The
Understanding and Use of Knowledge in Modern Business. London: Routledge.
Teece, D.J. (1998). Capturing value from knowledge assets:
The new economy, markets for know-how, and intangible assets. California
Management Review, 40, 3, 55-79.
Teece, D.J., Pisano, G., and Schuen, A. (1997). Dynamic
capabilities and strategic management. Strategic Management Journal, 18
(7), 509-533.
Teece, D.J. (1984). Economic Analysis and Strategic
Management. California Management Review, 26, 3.
Tierney, T. (1999). What’s your strategy for managing
knowledge? Harvard Business Review, March-April.
Wilderman, J. (1999). Knowledge management: Moving from
academic concepts to fundamental business practices. Stamford, CN: Gartner
Group.
Zack, M.H. (1999). Developing a knowledge strategy.
California Management Review, 41 (3).
Zollo, M. and Winter, S. (1999). From organizational
routines to dynamic capabilities. Working paper 99-07, The Wharton School.
Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania.
|
|
Коротко
о системе Е-МАСТЕР |
Е-МАСТЕР®
— система управления корпоративной информацией.
Е-МАСТЕР®
включает в себя возможности систем класса ECM (Enterprise
Content Management).
Система обеспечивает:
- Совместное создание и согласование документов
- Каждый документ может быть обсужден как при
помощи прикрепленного к нему мини-форума, так
и в главном форуме
- Разработанный документ может быть направлен
на согласование по указанному маршруту
- Хранение документов любых форматов
- Хранение и передача документов в зашифрованном
виде
- Встроенные системы восстановления после сбоев
и резервного копирования
- Поиск документов
- Возможность поиска по ключевым словам и другим
атрибутам документов (автор, дата создания…)
- Возможность поиска с помощью навигации по
рубрикам
- Управляемый доступ к документам
- Возможность установки доступа к документам
для различных категорий пользователей
- Возможность введения ограничений на работу
с документами
- Функциональный интерфейс пользователя
- Веб-интерфейс, позволяющий просматривать
карточки и скачивать файлы из системы хранения
документов
- Удаленный доступ или работа пользователя
из любой точки мира (при условии подключения
к Интернету).
|
|
Система FLAMORY™ |
FLAMORY™ — уникальный программный продукт, позволяющий сохранять историю действий пользователя на компьютере, таких, например, как работа в приложениях Windows, посещения сайтов и д.р.
Сохраненные последовательности действий, далее, можно просмотреть, сохранить в файл и передать коллегам. FLAMORY позволяет аккумулировать и делиться знаниями.
Работая с FLAMORY, обмен опытом, обучение новых сотрудников, обсуждения технологий, становятся, как никогда ранее, простой и удобной, в практических аспектах, задачей.
FLAMORY™ разрабатывается при участии специалистов KMSOFT.
Скачать бета-версию можно по этой ссылке.
|
|