Information and Communication Technologies for Knowledge Management - Case Study Example

? Knowledge Management in modern organizations – the case of Speedo Ltd [Words: 2077] Table of contents Introduction 3 2. Speedo Ltd – Company Overview 4 2.1 Structure 4 2.2 Purpose and culture 4 2.3 Overall business strategy 5 3. Identification of existing knowledge management strategy 5 3.1 Explanation, including justification, of the tools and techniques needed to determine the knowledge management strategy 5 3.2 The results of the tools and techniques described above 6 4. A description of the knowledge management strategy for Speedo 7 5. A description of the knowledge management system proposed to support the KM strategy 8 6. Conclusion - An evaluation of how the suggested knowledge management strategy and system support the firm’s overall business strategy 10 References 11 Appendix 12 1. Introduction Securing the effectiveness of organizational strategies is one of the most critical challenges for managers in modern businesses. On the other hand, the elimination of threats in a firm’s environment is not feasible. This means that failures cannot be avoided but they should be rather used as indicators of organizational weaknesses that need to be addressed without delay. In practice, it has been proved that the effective management of knowledge within organizations can result to the limitation of failures, either in the short or the long term. The literature published in regard to this subject shows that the establishment of appropriately customized knowledge management systems can help organizations to control all aspects of their activities so that organizational goals are achieved. The practical implications of such project are explained in this paper by referring to Speedo Ltd, a firm operating in the British automotive industry. Since its establishment, in 1997, the organization had to face a series of critical operational problems. Through the years it was made clear that these problems were related to the firm’s inability to manage knowledge. A knowledge management strategy that could help the organization to improve its performance is suggested in this paper. This strategy can be successfully implemented with the support of a knowledge management system, also presented in this paper. It is revealed that the change on the firm’s existing knowledge management strategy could secure organizational growth, even if the benefits of the relevant project could appear with delay. It should be noted that the knowledge management strategy proposed for Speedo Ltd could be also used, with minor changes, in firms in other industries that face similar problems. 2. Speedo Ltd – Company Overview 2.1 Structure The head office of the organization is in South London. The firm’s branches across UK are estimated to 12, covering all regions of the country. All key decisions are developed in the head office where the strategic planning unit of the organization is located. Managers in branches have the power to make suggestions in regard to a series of operational issues but their potential to influence the firm’s critical projects is rather limited. The central database of the business has been implemented in the head office, where all critical organizational departments, such as the HR department, the PR department and the financial department of the business are based. Employees working in branches do not have full access to the database’s data; the firm’s IT network has been arranged in such way so that the information provided to the user/ employee is filtered as of its necessity for the task assigned to the particular user. This means that each employee/ user is authorized to access specific parts of the firm’s central database. This practice has helped to reduce failures in regard to the safety of the firm’s data. 2.2 Purpose and culture The firm focuses on the sale of news and used cars of different characteristics. The firm’s founder, John Peterson, has tried to promote communication and cooperation across the organization. The phrase ‘Trust and speed in communication’ reflects the value of communication as part of the organizational culture. The above phrase is currently used as the firm’s moto. The firm’s mission statement: ‘Growth is based on the respect of customers’ and employees’ needs as identified through effective communication’ further verifies the role of communication in organizational performance. 2.3 Overall business strategy The firm’s leader uses a rather democratic style of leadership. Employees in branches can participate in the decision-making process at branch level, stating their views in regard to various operational problems that the business has to face on a daily basis. In addition, employees are given the chance to take initiatives in completing the tasks assigned to them. Innovation is highly valued while team-working is actively supported. The sale techniques used by each of the firm branch may be differentiated, according to local market characteristics. The firm’s ethics and social responsibility policy is incorporated in its CSR framework. The overall business strategy is designed and monitored by the firm’s leader in cooperation with the strategic planning team which is consisted by the general director, the financial director and the HR director. The general director informs managers in branches in regard to the status and the progress of the firm’s strategy through meetings that are held monthly in the head office of the business. 3. Identification of existing knowledge management strategy 3.1 Explanation, including justification, of the tools and techniques needed to determine the knowledge management strategy Different approaches have been developed in the literature in regard to the identification and the evaluation of knowledge management strategies. In Speedo the following technique is preferred, as a means for identifying the firm’s existing knowledge management strategy: internal audit. In the context of knowledge management, internal audit should focus on the following activities: a) the review of the performance of the firm’s central database, especially in terms of the failure rate (Rao 2012), b) the control on the firm’s financial documents (Rao 2012), c) the review and the evaluation of feedback, where available, so that the performance of the firm’s IT systems, in terms of the transfer/ exchange of knowledge, can be effectively checked (Rao 2012). When developing internal audit, in order to evaluate the performance of the firm in terms of knowledge management, it would be possible for well known tools of analysis, such as the SWOT analysis or the Balanced Scorecard, to be used (Rao 2012). In the context of internal audit, there will be need to employ specific type of knowledge, especially explicit knowledge, such as ‘the firm’s license, its HR policies, customers’ demographics, competitive intelligence reports and so on’ (Daft 2009, p.313). Internal audit is considered as the most appropriate technique for determining the knowledge management strategy of Speedo mostly because of the following reason: the data and other type of information on which this technique is based is incorporated in documents (Schwartz 2006); alternating the content of the relevant documents can be quite difficult, even not feasible (Armstrong 2003), a fact that increases the credibility of internal audit, as a technique for checking the form and the effectiveness of an organization’s knowledge management system. 3.2 The results of the tools and techniques described above The use of internal audit, as combined with other tools in the context described in the previous section, has led to a series of critical assumptions in regard to the knowledge management strategy of Speedo: a) the exchange of information between employees is problematic since e-mail is the only tool for online communication between employees in different business units, b) no specific framework of rules exists in regard to the storing and processing the personal information of the firm’s customers; the access to the personal data of information is permitted to all the firm’s employees at the level that the specific type of information is considered as important for filling customers’ orders and for managing their requests/ complaints, c) customers cannot monitor their order up to its completion, d) the training of employees in regard to the use of online communication tools is quite limited; only 2-3 days of training is allowed to employees of most firms of the private sector, e) the access to critical information related to pending orders is allowed only in the branch where the order was made (Gottschalk 2005). 4. A description of the knowledge management strategy for Speedo The knowledge management strategy suggested for Speedo should promote the following two aims: ‘a) the organization of learning and b) the improvement of knowledge sharing’ (Maier 2004, p.546). This means that the specific strategy should not only focus on the transmission of explicit knowledge but also on the transmission of tacit knowledge. Organizations that aim to support learning, as a key organizational function, need to emphasize on both types of knowledge, especially the second one which is more related to the cognitive, i.e. learning, abilities of individuals (Gottschalk 2005). Taking into consideration the current status of knowledge management in Speedo, as described above, and the needs of the organization in regard to the management of knowledge, the following suggestions could be made: a) the knowledge management strategy of Speedo should promote the transformation of the organization into a learning organization, b) the specific strategy should also incorporate techniques for improving the sharing of knowledge across the organization and c) the suggested strategy would be based not on a technical approach, i.e. it should not rely only on technology, but it should rather base on the needs and potentials of individuals, as this issue is highlighted in the social process approach (Daft 2009, p.313). The above approach is also known as ‘people-to-documents approach’ (Daft 2009, p.313) and it reflects the retrieval of information using documents of various types that ‘can be stored and be accessed anytime’ (Daft 2009, p.313) according to the needs of the organization involved. Examples of such documents are: the firm’s reports in regard to a series of issues, employees’ feedback, customer feedback, the financial statements of the firm and so on (Daft and Marcic 2010). The particular strategy would be implemented using an appropriately customized knowledge management system, as the one suggested in the next section. 5. A description of the knowledge management system proposed to support the KM strategy As already noted above, the knowledge management system that would be most appropriate for the business should be able to serve the organization’s needs in terms of ‘organization of learning and in terms of knowledge sharing’ (Maier 2004, p.546). A knowledge management system similar to other systems that are used in practice should be rather preferred because of the following reason: such system would have been tested in advance so that no major risks are expected to appear (Marquis and Huston 2009). The suggested knowledge management system could have the following form: a) Primarily, an intranet should be developed for allowing the members of the firm to communicate and exchange views in regard to critical business problems (Schwartz 2006); in this way, any delay in communicating with colleagues across the organization would be eliminated; b) appropriate social networking tools would be incorporated in the system (Keyes 2012), allowing employees to support the marketing of their firm and to communicate more effectively; for example, a Semantic blog would be added in the system contributing in the elimination of boundaries in the sharing of information (Keyes 2012); c) the suggested knowledge management system should include features that would promote personalization, e.g. the potential to add the personal profiles of employees (Maier 2004); d) in addition, the suggested knowledge management strategy should focus on the improvement of the relationship between the organization and the customer (King 2009); this target could be achieved by incorporating certain practices for enhancing customer intimacy: a) incorporate features for allowing the retrieval of customer information; b) ensure that employees who handle customers’ requests and complaints are fully informed on customers’ needs, c) support the access of customers to information related to organizational performance (Kaplan and Norton 2001). According to Panda (2008) the knowledge management strategy that would be most appropriate for organization that highly depend on knowledge, such as the firm under examination, should adopt a People-organization strategy, i.e. a strategy focusing on the relationship between the organization and its employees (Panda 2008). 6. Conclusion - An evaluation of how the suggested knowledge management strategy and system support the firm’s overall business strategy In Speedo, the use of knowledge management, as part of the firm’s core strategy, has been rather limited. This fact is reflected to the high number of the firm’s failures when trying to exchange or to store information. The need for the update of the firm’s existing knowledge management strategy seems to be emergent. The suggested knowledge management strategy and system could help towards the improvement of communication across the organization. By using the system’s functions, as described above, employees in Speedo could communicate on real-time and access critical information in regard to pending orders, without having to use other documents for verification purposes. At the same time, the suggested strategy and system could help the organization to become more efficient, in the following terms: a) orders could be completed and submitted earlier; b) checks on orders’ status would be allowed helping the employees to communicate more effectively with customers; c) the competitiveness of the organization would be improved; by incorporating popular communication tools, the firm would manage to improve its market image, even in the long term. References Armstrong, M., 2003. A Handbook of Human Resource Management Practice. London: Kogan Page Publishers. Daft, R. and Marcic, D., 2010. Understanding Management. Belmont: Cengage Learning. Daft, R., 2009. Organization Theory and Design. Belmont: Cengage Learning. Gottschalk, P., 2005. Strategic knowledge management technology. London: Idea Group Inc (IGI). Kaplan, R. and Norton, D., 2001. The Strategy-Focused Organization: How Balanced Scorecard Companies Thrive in the New Business Environment. Boston: Harvard Business Keyes, J., 2012. Enterprise 2.0: Social Networking Tools to Transform Your Organization. Boca Raton: CRC Press. King, W., 2009. Knowledge Management and Organizational Learning. New York: Springer. Maier, R., 2004. Knowledge Management Systems: Information and Communication Technologies for Knowledge Management. New York: Springer. Marquis, B. and Huston, C., 2009. Leadership Roles and Management Functions in Nursing: Theory and Application. Sydney: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins. Panda, T., 2008. Knowledge Management. New Delhi: Excel Books India. Rao, M., 2012. Knowledge Management Tools and Techniques. London: Routledge. Schwartz, D., 2006. Encyclopedia of Knowledge Management. London: Idea Group Inc (IGI). Appendix Key findings of the research A profitable organization is not necessarily a learning organization The success of a knowledge management strategy is not guaranteed Employees often cannot respond to the needs of their firm’s knowledge management strategy unless they are appropriately trained In modern organizations the knowledge management strategy should be aligned with the overall business strategy The structure and the content of a knowledge management system can be differentiated across organizations The success of a knowledge management system is highly depended on the leader’s capabilities and perceptions A knowledge management system cannot be effective unless it is flexible The benefits/ drawbacks of a knowledge management system may appear with delay Read More