Knowledge Management of Walt Disney - Example

Executive summary Knowledge management entails the different strategies, methods, practices and ways that have been laid by a particular organization to represent, create, identify and distribute as well as adopt to the experiences and insights observed in the business on the process of its running. Walt Disney is one of the best known entertainment media companies in the whole world. Like any other company, a knowledge management plan is very important. This research paper contains an analysis of the current situation in Walt Disney’s knowledge management. It also contains the recommendation of the issues discovered during the analysis as well as the sustainability procedure. Table of Contents 1.0 Introduction 3 1.1 Advantages of knowledge management 4 2.0 Analysis and synthesis of the current situation in Disney Company 5 2.1 Overview of Disney Company 5 2.2 Current situation 6 3.0 Recommended Knowledge management strategy 8 3.1 Implementation 11 3.2 Sustainability of the strategies implemented 12 3.3 Performance indicators 13 4.0 Conclusion 13 5.0 References 14 1.0 Introduction In today’s economic status, any business that has to greatly thrive must have a great deal of knowledge management. The process of knowledge management entails the different strategies, methods, practices and ways that have been laid by a particular organization to represent, create, identify and distribute as well as adopt to the experiences and insights observed in the business on the process of its running (Langhorne, 2003). Theses insights enable the business management to come up with the way forward as far as the improvement of the business operations is concerned. It has been discovered that many of the business fundamental are changing at a very great and alarming rate. There is a significant change in the intangibles as well as the tangibles assets which are the core areas all these businesses are deriving their competitive power. One of the greatest requirements for any business to stand in the competition platform is the issue of innovation. Any business that is not carrying out innovation in all of its areas of operations is as good as dead. This is because the technologies and the consumer’s needs are frequently changing meaning that knowledge is a very critical factor as far as the production is concerned. The main aim of this particular paper is to show the current strategies of the knowledge management of Walt Disney Company as well as the ways in which there can be an improvement. There are a number of things that actually leads to the best management of a company as well as evaluation of its progress. Many are the times changes occur especially in the external environment of the business world which are even unpredicted (Kimiz, 2005). And can easily interfere with the running of the business. This is where knowledge management becomes very important because such issues can easily be arrested before they interfere with the business productivity. 1.1 Advantages of knowledge management Knowledge management in any kind of business is very important because it is one of the ways through which any business can attain business excellence. There are number of factors that still lead to a slow knowledge sharing and management in the organizations. They include increase in the turbulence level, growth in the globalization, dispersion geographically and finally the localized movement. There is need for increase in the area of business knowledge sharing. This means that there is need for involving the employees in the process of knowledge sharing through involving them in meeting sharing the objectives of the business (Mintzberg, 1991). Knowledge sharing at each level f the organization is the best tool to enable the business work better. Apart from the businesses focusing on competition with their rivals, it is also very important for it to think beyond the existence problems and try to improve the company’s ways of operations by ensuring that the employees are getting the knowledge they need especially on what is happening in the market at that particular point. This is where the issue of knowledge management comes in (Gottschalk, 2005). There are a number of advantages of sharing knowledge in an organization which are as follows. It leads to improved level of creativity at a personal level hence leading to the creation of a room for innovation It leads the organization to a point of realizing economy of scale and so lowering the production costs. It ensures the company maintains consistency in terms of the quality of its services and products. It also enables the organization or the business repeating the mistakes it had committed. Improves responsiveness in terms of competition Improves the business’s process of decision making 2.0 Analysis and synthesis of the current situation in Disney Company Organization Name Organization Type The Walt Disney Company Entertainment company 2.1 Overview of Disney Company Disney is a company that was formed in the year 1923. It was begun by two young men who are actually brother namely Disney Roy and Disney Walt (Walt, 2008). It is a company that has shown growth in terms its objectives as an entertainment company as well as in its profitability. It is a very well established company in the whole world as far as the issue of animation is concerned. It started with simple animations but today it accommodated international production of live films. It has actually grown so much to a point of becoming the largest film studio in the whole of Hollywood. It is a company that has a capacity of around 120,000 employees. It has been reported to be on the top list of the companies that are earning the greatest revenue in the whole world. Records show that it revenue is estimated to be about 37billion by the end of the year 2008. It has a total number of department that amount to the revenue earners of the company namely resorts and parks, media networks, consumer products and studio entertainment. It has a number of competitors like the sonny pictures, dream works and Warner bros. one of the greatest strengths that Disney productions has is the quality of the work that it produces. This explains why its work has greatly captured the attention of the world and especially the northern part of America. It is one of the business organizations that have sincerely embraced the process of knowledge management. This is why many people in the whole world have been able to capture the existing technologies they use and embrace them hence making their production their favorites. The responses from their customers have been of great help in the improvement of the serves offered by the company. This is because due to its well laid down strategy of knowledge management it has been able to make amendments and corrections where need be to suit the needs of their products consumers (Sveiby, 2001). The company is one a mission to be the best leading producer globally of the information as well as entertainment. It goes beyond that and tries to produce the bets and most creative profitable and innovative entertainment that is fit for all the ages viewing. It specializes in all form of productions ranging from the commercial to the domestic level. The following are some of the products that it produces production of traditional films, cable TV and other programmers of entertainment both for domestic and consumer purposes. The company has had its moments where things were not going well but basically due the level of economy. It is earlier translating its work in English and Spanish but lately due to the consumers feedback much has been improved because there is production in Chinese and Indian languages. 2.2 Current situation The following are the issue that has been discovered on the process of knowledge management in the Walt Disney. Most of them are actually the challenges that are faced on the process of business management in terms of the transfer of knowledge internationally (Jashapara, 2004). New initiates have been under resistance. This is because of the fact that the company is composed of very talented and skilled professionals who feels that their work is very sufficient. They are very good in work but the problem is that each of them feels that their skills are sufficient hence spending much time in coming up with new innovations rather that getting to response to the customers needs. A strong culture of self containment, whereby due to some of the experts in the company believing in themselves too much, they are out of touch to the new innovations or rather the possibility of embracing new innovation. There is lack of enough trust with the communication system though there is a continuous process of knowledge sharing within the organization. However it has not been efficiently transmitted within the organization due to the fact that the employees do not have trust in each other. This means that there is gap that has to be filled up so that people can freely share their concepts, ideas and experiences all in the effort of making the production better. High rate of turnover, whereby many employees come in the organization and before there has been sufficient time for them to share the knowledge they have, they leave the company and join the competitors. There is poor motivation to share the existing knowledge due to improper incentive systems to encourage the employees to share their knowledge with other. Work pressure experienced by the most expert in the company who have so much work to do such that they do not get enough time to share the knowledge and skills that they have. This is because at some time they have a lot of questions to deal with hence interfering with their performances in the organization. This has ensured the professionals don’t have much time to share their knowledge. Much focus on the issues of IT whereas People are the main determinant when it comes to the success of the knowledge management. In the organization there is little focus on the people but much on the technology hence getting very little success in terms of knowledge management from people. Focus on the theories of production is greatly in use in the company. This does not mean that the employees having known them use them. This leads to much time wastage since they focus on the theory and not the practicality. 3.0 Recommended Knowledge management strategy Due to the problems that are facing the knowledge management process of the Walt Disney there is a great need for coming up with a strategy that will help solve the problems (Grant, 1991). I. Setting up a committee for the purpose of knowledge management. This is a group of people that will be there to review all the laid down issues and also carry out further research to affirm the truth of the matter. The following are the duties of the committees a. To give proper support as well as initiate learning, practice and communication b. To offer training to the employees on the issues of knowledge management as well as expose them to the experience of the same. c. To come up with a proper approach as the best tool for promoting knowledge management in the organization II. To come up with a strategy that transforms knowledge management into the context of business. This is whereby the committees or rather the people responsible draw a framework that will accommodate knowledge management in the form of the kind of the business the Walt Disney y is involved in, which is entertainment. it entails a. Creation of knowledge to the subordinate staff especially the new areas that are coming up so as to ensure the Disney company employees are up to date with the new technology. b. Assimilation or dissemination of the knowledge through connecting the consumers, the employees and the other stakeholders to get to share information, learn from it and then transfer the knowledge to each other. This can be through forums. c. Exploitation of the knowledge. This involves the maximum use of the knowledge gained in the process of making decision, solving problems, planning of scenarios and finally the creation of value of the products in the market. d. Review of knowledge. This is whereby the company must ensure all the processes towards knowledge management are business oriented so that the issue of profitability does not get forgotten. III. Sharing of knowledge, motivation and convergence of learning The knowledge locus and knowledge level are very important factors as far as effectiveness of knowledge management is concerned. There is a need for the structuring of knowledge management in such a way that it will encourage motivation of the workers to share their experiences for the purposes of convergence learning. IV. Alignment of the value adding and knowledge processes with all of the strategic objectives. There is a very important connection between the cycle of knowledge and the cycle of strategy. The strategy for Walt Disney Company is to be the best company in the whole world. This means that there is a need to measure the gap that currently exists between the efforts the company is putting to achieve it and the effort that the company must put (Earl, 2001). The gap that is realized must be transformed in terms of knowledge management. This means that new ways of introducing the knowledge in the form of a business strategy V. Reinforcing and rebuilding of the enablers This involves the following a. People and the culture. i. This involves the change of cultures of the top management not paying much attention to the subordinate staff. There should be a creation of such a chance for the managers to get to listen to the lower level of the employees. It is the high time the junior employees get a forum to get to talk about what they think could improve the production of the Walt Disney Company in terms of knowledge management. ii. The process of knowledge management must also be translated into the process of performance appraisal. This is not necessarily in the form of finances. It can be in the form if training and education for the employees so as to encourage the process of knowledge sharing as well as the innovative skills they all have. iii. A common sense in terms of community sharing must be greatly encouraged. This means that there should be a creation of conducive environment for the employees to persuade other to work towards the management of knowledge. iv. Enforcement of trust amongst the employees. Trust enables the people to be able to freely share among themselves whatever knowledge they have. This ensures that there is a strong relationship that has been created among the employers to be able to share the skills and knowledge with each other freely without feeling they are sharing it with a competitor. This is with reference to the fact that some employees in the company may have the latest skill on the operation of the new technology hence teaching the other people who are also employees in the company. b. Process i. Knowledge management must be decentralized for it to be maintainable. This means that people must be appointed to deal with every portion of knowledge. This is because if the maintenance of the knowledge management is centralized it will have much impact like it will be if decentralized. This process not only promotes the strategy but also the process of sustainability. ii. Involvement of middle management. To ensure the projects involving the management of knowledge, there is a great need for involving the middle management. This is because the middle management is the best catalyst since it can directly connect to the lowest level of employers as well as the highest rank of management. They are very able to get to the operation managers who are very responsible of the maintenance of the knowledge management projects in the Walt Disney Company. c. Technology i. Promotion of knowledge dissemination. This whereby all the IT tools besides their other jobs, should focus on initiatives concerning sharing of knowledge. This is in terms of dissemination of the knowledge. The technologies can also be in a way that they connect the employees together to get to share knowledge. This can be in terms of using a technology that required more than one employee to operate so that all of which must be having different skills so as to ensure they share the knowledge with each other. ii. Flexibility of the IT infrastructure. This is whereby all the new technology that is being introduced must be able to match with the infrastructure that is in existence. This will make it easy for the operator of the technology to easily adapt to them without much extra training. 3.1 Implementation This is the most important part for every organization as far as projects are concerned. This is because without it all is useless. It is a process that represents taking action as per the strategies that are set aside. The following are the steps to be taken to get to the point of knowledge management. All the strategies can not be implemented at once simply because there could be an interruption in the activities of the Walt Disney world. To avoid any slow down and inconveniences to the customers, there is a need for the company to implement the strategies in phases (Hamel & Prahalad, 1994). Short term(0-3 months) Medium term(3-6 months) Long term (6-12 months) Setting up a committee for the purpose of knowledge management Alignment of the value adding and knowledge processes with all of the strategic objectives Prioritization and Learning of the objectives and motivation To come up with a strategy that transforms knowledge management into the context of business Analysis of the gap Reinforcement and building of enablers Updating the IT Continuous monitoring to ensure the strategies is working 3.2 Sustainability of the strategies implemented Implementation alone is not enough. This is because even though a project has been developed and implemented it does not mean that it will meet the expectations to which it was created for. This is where the issue of sustainability comes. Sustainability means the process of maintain the project to ensure it will be effective for as long as possible (Nonaka & Takeuchi, 1995). It involves a number of things Training – the employees of Walt Disney Company will be trained on a number of things. They will be trained on how to handle the new technologies and the ways in which the technologies are to improve the issue of knowledge management. They will also be trained on the importance of Training the employees especially the management level is to enable them to easily create a link with the lower lever employees so as to be able to share knowledge with them. This will ensure that even the subordinate staff will have a chance to share their opinions especially during the production of films which is very important. Some of theses subordinate employees are very helpful because they are able to mingle with the consumers and get information that is very helpful in trying to cater for the needs of the customers (Earl, 2001). Evaluation and monitoring is another very important way of sustaining the projects. This is whereby the committee members will be required to carry out an evaluation after every three months to check the effectiveness of the strategies that have been implemented in every department in the company. This will enable the Walt Disney Company to come up with a better ways to cover up the gaps that may emerge during the implementation process as well as come up with ways of improving the strategies. 3.3 Performance indicators The following are the suggested indicators of evaluating the success of the strategies in the Walt Disney Company (Cummings, 2005). Recording the defects messages or reports coming in the company Time reduction in terms of handling the corrective reports that used to come from the consumers before the strategy was put up The amount of all the new innovative technologies and designs that the project applies within the year The feedback coming from the employees as well as the consumers of the products of the Walt Disney Company all over the world. 4.0 Conclusion It is very event that in today’s economic status, any business that has to greatly thrive must have a good plan of knowledge management. Walt Disney though being a big company has a few defaults in its management plan which means that regular review and updating of the plan is very important. Also a very good and well implemented strategy of knowledge management is very important in improvement of not only the production of the company but also creating a better relationship among the employees based of trust and also it enables will enable Walt Disney to achieve its mission. However, the issue of implementation in terms of phases, following up the indicators and also ensuring the sustainability will be very essential as far as the success of the project is concerned (Nonaka & Takeuchi, 1995). 5.0 References Cummings, N.J. 2005. Work Groups, Structural Diversity, and Knowledge Sharing in a Global Organization. Management Science, vol. 50, no. 3, p. 352 – 364. Disney. 2010. Home. Available at http://disney.go.com/index Earl, M. 2001. Knowledge management strategies: Toward taxonomy. Journal of Management Information Systems, vol. 18, no. 1, pp. 215-233. Gottschalk, P. 2005. Strategic knowledge management technology. United States: Idea Group Publishing Grant, R.M. 1991. The resource-based theory of competitive advantage: implications for strategy formulation. California Management Review, vol. 33, no. 3, pp. 114 – 135. Hamel, G. and Prahalad, C.K. 1994. Competing for the future. Harvard: Harvard Business School Press. Jashapara, A. 2004. Knowledge Management: An Integrated Approach. London: Pearson Education Limited, p. 12. Kimiz, D. 2005. Knowledge Management in Theory and Practice. New York: Prentice Hall Publishers. Langhorne, C. 2003. Bon Knowledge Management and IT: theory, practice, and promise. Available at http://www.tgc.com/dsstar/03/1216/107141.html [Accessed 23 November 2010] Mintzberg, H. 1991. The effective organization: forces and forms. Sloan Management Review, (winter edition), 54 – 67. Nonaka, I. & Takeuchi, H. 1995. The Knowledge-Creating Company. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Sveiby, K. (2001). The "invisible" balance sheet. Available at http://www.sveiby.com/articles/InvisibleBalance.html [accessed 22 November 2010] Read More