Knowledge initatives in business august 06 resit - Essay Example

“Over the past 15 years there has been a growing interest in international strategic alliances and how organizations learn from their partners and develop new competencies through their collaborative efforts.” (Simonin, 2004) Hewlett-Packard and Ernst & Young are two such companies at the leading edge of their industries, partly because their company culture values and promotes the development and application of knowledge within the company. We will look at and compare these two companies and see how their strategy works to promote a network of useful knowledge being creatively applied, and how this has affected the companies.

Hewlett-Packard and Ernst & Young are in two different industries, computer hardware and peripherals and business and financial consulting respectively, but they each leverage e-commerce solutions to promote and carry on business. They both employ very comprehensive websites, which are accessible and useful to the public to cultivate new business, serve current customers and spread knowledge about the company. These websites offer education, customer support and an infrastructure which facilitates both business to customer (B2C) and business to business (B2B) sales.

Let us first look at each company and how it operated, its corporate culture and the methods employed for knowledge management. Then we can compare these to see what they have in common and how they differ, with perhaps and understanding of the reason for similarities and differences and how they work for each company. Ernst & Young is anything but young. The current company is a result of several mergers since the inception of the UK company Harding and Pullein in 1849. When American Frederick Whinney and his sons became partners in 1859, the company was renamed Whinney, Smith & Whinney to reflect the change.

In 1903, Alwin and Theodore Ernst established Ernst in Cleveland, while Arthur Young and Company was formed in Chicago in 1906. So all original