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ACME – Case Study
Information Systems
presented to the Graduate School of Business of the
University of Stellenbosch
in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of
Master of Business Administration
by
FLORIAN BÖHLANDT
Subject: Information Systems Management Lecturer: Prof. Louis Fourie Date: 24 August 2006
ACME – Case Study Report for Information Systems Management
STUDENT NUMBER : 14959747
SURNAME: Boehlandt
TELEPHONE NUMBER: 073 419 6664
SUBJECT: Information Systems Management
NUMBER OF PAGES 25 (INCLUDING THIS PAGE)
LECTURER: Prof. Louis Fourie
COURSE: MBA FULL-TIME 2006
DUE DATE : 28/08/2006
Confidentiality : none
CERTIFICATION
I certify the content of the assignment to be my own and original work and that all sources have been
accurately reported and acknowledged, and that this document has not previously been submitted in its
entirety or in part at any educational establishment.
Florian Böhlandt
VIR KANTOORGEBRUIK / FOR OFFICE
USE
DATUM ONTVANG:
DATE RECEIVED :
Table of Contents
1. Introduction ..................................................................................................... 1
2. Knowledge Management approaches ............................................................. 3 2.1 Network Models ........................................................................................ 5
2.2 Cognitive Models ....................................................................................... 5
2.3 Community Models ................................................................................... 5
2.4 Philosophical models ................................................................................. 6
2.5 Knowledge management Techniques ......................................................... 6
2.5.1 Groupware systems ............................................................................ 6
2.5.2 Content oriented systems .................................................................... 7
2.5.3 Artificial intelligence based systems ................................................... 7
3. Business Structure of ACME .......................................................................... 8 3.1 General information ................................................................................... 8
3.2 Infrastructure and Knowledge Management ............................................... 9
3.2.1 Knowledge Management strategy ....................................................... 9
3.2.2 Persons/ Business units in charge ....................................................... 9
3.2.3 Current corporate structure’s effect on Knowledge Management ........ 9
4. ACME’s Current Knowledge Management System .................................... 10 4.1 Existing Knowledge Management ............................................................ 10
4.1.1 Management Information Systems ................................................... 10
4.1.2 Corporate Competitive Intelligence .................................................. 10
4.1.3 Data Warehousing ............................................................................ 11
4.1.4 Business Intelligence ........................................................................ 11
4.1.5 WEB Technology ............................................................................. 11
4.1.6 Document Management.................................................................... 12
4.1.7 Instant Messaging ............................................................................ 12
4.1.8 Collaborative Team Spaces .............................................................. 12
4.1.9 E-Mail .............................................................................................. 12
5. Assessment and Recommendations ............................................................... 13
5.1 Applications ............................................................................................. 13
5.2 Processes ................................................................................................. 14
5.3 Roles and Responsibilities ....................................................................... 14
5.4 Management Tools .................................................................................. 15
5.5 Electronic Communication ....................................................................... 16
5.6 Best Practice ............................................................................................ 16
5.7 Centralised customer database.................................................................. 17
5.8 Connect Employee Performance Plans to the proper use of KM systems .. 17
5.9 KM awareness ......................................................................................... 17
6. Conclusion ...................................................................................................... 18
References .............................................................................................................. 19
Appendix A. .............................................................................................................. i
Appendix B. ............................................................................................................. ii
1
Knowledge Management
1. Introduction
Knowledge comes from learning, the learning results the internalisation of information,
data, and experience. Knowledge can be found in two forms tacit and explicit. Tacit
Knowledge is of a personal nature, knowledge which is resident within the mind,
behaviour and perceptions of individual. Explicit Knowledge is of a more formal nature,
it has been recorded; it may be systematic knowledge in the form of scientific formulae,
procedures, rules, organisational archives, principles, etc. Explicit knowledge and can be
accessed, transmitted, or saved electronically or physically in the form of a hard copy.
(Stuhlman, 2006)
When companies or organisations use knowledge in the performance of their functions or
operations they may be classified as knowledge companies. Knowledge companies or
knowledge organisations generally have one thing in common--they employ knowledge
workers. These are usually highly educated professionals whose work consists of
converting information into knowledge. (Sveiby, 1997:19) It is argued by Stewart that
you would be hard-pressed to find a single industry, company or organisation of any
kind, that has not become more information-intensive. This he defines as “being
dependent on knowledge as a source of what attracts customers and clients and on
information technology as a means of running the place.” (1988: 18) Skyrme supports
this view by stating that “information and knowledge are pervading all sectors of industry
as well as creating new industries based around them” (2001: 12)
We may therefore assume that knowledge is an inherent part of most companies or
organisations in society today. According to Myers for such knowledge to provide a
competitive advantage to the company it must be independent from any given individual.
(1996: 2). He continues that it is only possible to identify and manage organisational
knowledge only to the extent it has been captured by an organisation’s systems,
processes, products, rules, and culture. Knowledge management is the collective term
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used to describe this identification and management of knowledge within a company or
organisation.
Figure 1: Hype Cycle for the High-Performance Workplace, 2005 Source: Gartner (July 2005)
The term Gartner (2005: 4) uses to describe the work environments of organisation which
effectively facilitates the uses of knowledge management is high-performance
workplaces (HPWs). According to Gartner “HPW augment the capabilities of their
skilled staffs for activities such as exploring data, developing innovative processes or
products, and working with suppliers to respond to requests for proposals. This support
helps workers locate the right people, find the right content, support the right
communication channels and focus on maximising the creativity and contribution of other
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workers”. Gartner continues that HPW have diverse needs which necessitates the
integration of a broad range of technologies, including business intelligence,
collaboration support, business process management, content and knowledge
management, communications, e-learning, productivity tools, and the physical workplace
and related infrastructure.
From the Hype Cycle for the High-Performance Workplace as depicted in Figure 1, it can
be seen that KM has reached maturity indicating wide spread acceptance by the business
community.
The purpose of this document is in the first instance to explore the different approaches to
knowledge management and evaluate different tools available to implement these
approaches in South Africa. In the second instance it is to investigate the use of
Knowledge Management within the context of a South African company, ACME. Finally
recommendations will be made as to future possibilities available to ACME.
To gain insight into the use of Knowledge Management at ACME an interview was
arranged with Marié Arnoldi on Tuesday the 15th of August at 14h00.
([email protected] ; Tel: +27 21 947 1357) Marié is the head of Group Web
Strategy and Governance, ACME Group Marketing & Communications. Prior to or
meeting, on Marié’s request, our definition and understanding of Knowledge
management was sent to her so that she may have a better understanding of our
requirements. A copy of the e-mail which was sent to her in this regard is included in
Appendix A. Further the list of questions which we were to use as the basis for our
interview was submitted to her via e-mailed prior to our meeting; this list of questions can
be found in Appendix B. All members of the group where present at the meeting which
was held at ACME’s Head Office in Bellville.
2. Knowledge Management approaches
There are different approaches of how to manage knowledge. First of all one can differ
between first and second generation of knowledge management. First generation deals
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with sharing existing knowledge like most document management systems do. Second
generation knowledge management, in contradistinction to the first generation, is more
about knowledge generation. Second generation knowledge management systems try to
take existing knowledge through a cycle of feedback and refinement. Knowledge that has
been stored in the system will stay updated and increase incrementally. An example for
this kind of knowledge management systems would be the online encyclopaedia
Wikipedia, where somebody starts to write down his knowledge of a topic and everybody
that reads this information is free to add some of his knowledge or to correct mistakes.
First and second generation knowledge management can be further segmented into
subcategories. Most of today’s models are founded on the model developed by Nonaka
and Takeuchi (1995). Their model describes the forming of knowledge as a continuous
transformation from tacit to explicit knowledge and the other way around. Hence, internal
tacit knowledge is externalised by a KM system, so that it can be stored and therefore
becomes explicit knowledge. Explicit knowledge can be shared by others, who use it to
enhance their own understanding and knowledge. Thus, earned knowledge becomes tacit
knowledge again, which again should be externalised. The following figure describes the
Knowledge Management Lifecycle.
Figure 2: The SECI model Source: Nonaka & Takeuchi (1995)
Depicted below is a summery of Grey’s (2003) interpretation of Kakabads’s four
different models: network models, community models, cognitive models, and
philosophical models.
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Figure 3: Quantum KM model
Source: Grey (2003)
2.1 Network Models
Network orientated knowledge management systems concentrate on horizontal sharing,
transfer, acquisition and relations. Knowledge often resides in social networks of actors,
which are connected by boundary spanners. The awareness of how external factors
influence the group is a key driver of these networks. The awareness of how external
drivers interact with each other in order to create knowledge capital is essential to
maintaining the existence of these networks. The actors popularly use internet tools or
telephone as communication channels.
2.2 Cognitive Models
Knowledge is a crucial asset of knowledge based organisations and has to be captured,
stored, represented, measured, disseminated and represented very carefully. Value adding
to this knowledge occurs through cyclic use of this stored knowledge. The main focus of
these systems is on the reuse, standardisation and replication of stored knowledge. The
main threat of these systems it the removal of outdated knowledge, as well as finding a
balance between exploration and exploitation. Some keywords of cognitive knowledge
management systems are “best practices”, “avoiding pitfalls” and “lessons learned”.
2.3 Community Models
Community Models have recognised that there is a very strong relationship between self-
organisation, continuous learning and informal exchanges for knowledge stewardship.
The knowledge spreads throughout these communities and is contained within the way
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participating people think and interpret it. These people share the same language and
share repetitive working solutions via storytelling.
2.4 Philosophical models
The philosophical model is based on deep questioning and an interactive Socratic dialog
within a strategic context. It requires the continual inquiry into, and questioning of the
behaviour of competitors, markets and internal processes. This method does not
necessarily require a lot of technology. Its main focus is rather on the personalisation than
on codification of the knowledge. The key drivers of this method are deep reflection,
open communication, creativity and the justification of beliefs.
2.5 Knowledge management Techniques
2.5.1 Groupware systems
Groupware systems can be described as systems that help people to interact within
organisations. According to Wikipedia (2006), one can discriminate three different types
of interaction: conversations, transactions, and collaborations. For each of them there are
different types of tools, which can make the interaction easier.
Conversation tools
Tools that make conversation and thus knowledge transfer easier are for example e-mail
systems, instant messengers, faxing, voice mailing or web publishing. These tools help to
exchange knowledge effectively and efficiently. The main disadvantage of this kind of
tools is that the knowledge transferred over these channels is seldom stored in data
repositories, making it cumbersome to retrieve.
Conferencing tools
These kinds of tools are used to share knowledge in a different, more interactive way.
Some conferencing tools that can be given as examples are tools like application sharing
tools, data conferencing tools, voice or video conferencing tools, discussion boards and
chat rooms. The same disadvantages which apply to conversation tools, pertain to most of
the conferencing tools as well. However, some of them, like discussion boards, are quite
well suited for future information retrieval.
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Collaborative tools
Examples for collaborative tools are electronic calendars, project management systems or
workflow systems. All these tools help to organise and synchronise the work of people
within an organisation.
2.5.2 Content oriented systems
All systems that are focussed on the storage and retrieval of content can be summarised
as content-orientated systems. These systems can be organised in different groups.
Document management systems
Document management systems deal with various forms of documents. Therefore they
normally consist of different components. These components are capturing, indexing,
storage, retrieval, distribution, security, collaboration, versioning, metadata and
integration.
Content management systems
Content management systems are closely related to document management systems, but
they are more focused on the lifecycle of digitalised information, which normally consists
of six phases: create, update, publish, translate, archive and retire.
Portal systems
Portal systems allow users centralised and personalised access to all information and
services of an organisation. A limitation of portal systems could be that they are
constrained to selected groups or individuals by means of authorisation.
2.5.3 Artificial intelligence based systems
Artificial intelligence is a part of computer science that deals with intelligent behaviour of
computer programs or machines, so they can plan in advance or even learn from
mistakes. Systems that are based on this technology are expert systems, intelligent agents,
or text mining systems.
Expert systems
Expert systems can help by using reasoning capabilities to reach a conclusion. Dissimilar
to humans, an expert system is able to process very huge amounts of information and
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provide conclusions based on them. When it comes to KM, expert systems can help to
store and retrieve knowledge within a company.
Intelligent agents
Contrary to expert systems, intelligent agents attempt to act autonomously and can learn
from and improve their interaction with the environment. Intelligent agents can be used to
monitor company figures, report critical changes and observe prices for raw materials.
Agents search data warehouses for correlations between data.
3. Business Structure of ACME
3.1 General information
ACME is a leading financial services group in South Africa. By the end of 2005 the
company employed around 9500 employees and had R353 billion of assets under
management and administration. The head office of ACME is in Bellville in the Western
Cape. The company is listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) since 1998.
ACME is divided in four business clusters and the corporate head office.
The four business clusters are as follows:
• Life insurance
o ACME Personal Finance
o ACME Employee Benefits
• Investment
o ACME Investment Management
o ACME Capital Markets
• Short-term insurance (Santam)
• Independent financial services
The following business strategy is a quotation from ACME’s website:
Our vision – to be the leader in wealth creation – supports the definition of ACME as a
group of businesses focussed on building, preserving and growing wealth for our clients.
ACME will continue to focus on four key pillars of its strategy in 2006. They are
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• the optimisation of the Group's capital structure
• pursuit of growth opportunities
• continued tightening of its grip on cost structures and
• The transformation of ACME's human resources capital and business philosophy
in building a world-class financial services organisation
3.2 Infrastructure and Knowledge Management
3.2.1 Knowledge Management strategy
ACME’s Information Technology strategy is driven from group level. At this group level,
there are four people responsible for setting and maintaining strategic objectives. ACME
has an Enterprise Information Strategy, which it has customised from the Gartner
Group’s generalised Information Strategy layout.
3.2.2 Persons/ Business units in charge
At present, no individual or team of individuals are responsible for setting strategic
Knowledge Management strategy or objectives apart from the Enterprise Information
System. Additionally, at corporate level, no individual is responsible for driving
Knowledge Management throughout the organisation per se.
3.2.3 Current corporate structure’s effect on Knowledge Management
ACME is based on a federated business structure. Decisions for IT systems and the
implementation of those are usually driven by Group IT. Nevertheless, decisions
concerning one particular system have to be shared throughout the company; hence,
every business cluster has to agree on the decision.
As the contribution of the clusters towards group income is very diverse, the power to
support or deny a decision is not equally distributed. The biggest cluster, Life Insurance
with ACME Personal Finance has a lot of power to support or deny a decision. In order to
come to a conclusion, the support of ACME Personal Finance is necessary. That creates
10
the problem of differences between decisions from Corporate Finance and ACME
Personal Finance.
4. ACME’s Current Knowledge Management System
4.1 Existing Knowledge Management
Implementation of Knowledge Management systems have historically been driven by
operational requirements; justified by business cases motivated by operational divisions.
On an ad-hock basis these systems have been purchased or developed, and implemented
to suite the specific requirements within the different operational divisions.
The result of the above strategy of systems development is that, on an operational level,
managers have access to function specific, explicit information. The information
provided by the systems has generally been of a nature designed to assists managers in
the execution of their management tasks. Apart from Management Information Systems
discussed below there is however, on a strategic level, a void with regard to ready access
to knowledge via Knowledge Based Systems. An exception to this is the Corporate
Competitive Intelligence System.
Following is a description of some of the key elements of the different applications which
combine to form the basis for Knowledge Management within ACME.
4.1.1 Management Information Systems
Management Information Systems have mostly been the result of IT Initiatives.
Unfortunately the different Management Information Systems within ACME are not
aligned. Notwithstanding these systems have sufficient functionality and integrity to
support decision making at corporate level in specialised areas.
4.1.2 Corporate Competitive Intelligence
The Competitive Intelligence department is a relatively young department. It was
established about one year ago and has three people employed on a full time basis. The
department uses its Knowledge Management systems to integrate information on
competition in a unified manner. This information is distributed to relevant stakeholders
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in strategic positions throughout the organisation. The presentation of the information is
in the form of reporting which is regarded to be presented in an efficient and useful
format. This usability combined with a good interface and effective education and
training of users are cited as primary reasons for the system gaining acceptance
throughout the organisation. It is felt that the use of the system is now starting to show
benefits and assist management in decision making right up to strategic level.
4.1.3 Data Warehousing
ACME Personal Finance has implemented the most comprehensive Data Warehouse
within the group. Of importance is that all the data is resident within one logical system.
However, due to the historic nature of the population of the data is now in a state which
requires a considerable amount of cleaning. One of the objectives of the new
Infrastructure is to perform the cleansing of the data within the Data Warehouse.
Meta data in at present in its infancy stage, especially with regard to, for example,
tagging of data. This issue is also addressed within the new Infrastructure.
4.1.4 Business Intelligence
Business Intelligence is performed on a more ad-hock than structured basis. Frequently
the data queries from the operational divisions are customised by the IT department with
the aid of querying tools to provide specific information to specific problems.
Two areas of Business Intelligence have been identified as specific focus areas and will
be improved in the future; they include client centricity and efficient handling of capital.
This will assist to transform the company and culture.
4.1.5 Web Technology
The use of the Web technology includes a comprehensive Intranet for use of the
organisations internal staff and an Extra net for use of Intermediaries. Both the Intranet
and Extranet provide comprehensive content management, organising and facilitating
collaborative creation of documents and other content.
ACME’s Web Technology has incorporated user personalisation which allows the web
user to customise the content, layout and language of their own personal web portal.
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Search capabilities are included in the architecture but are limited to specific functional
areas, at present there is no enterprise wide search facilities. Meta data searching is not
supported in any meaningful manner.
4.1.6 Document Management
Currently a very robust Content Management system from IBM is being implemented.
According to IBM its enterprise content management software and solutions support
multiple information types - such as images, documents, e-mail, and e-records - and
provide the appropriate content, based on user intent and relevancy.
4.1.7 Instant Messaging
Instant messaging has been rolled out and is now successfully in place. It appears that the
functionality was acquired by default and the implementation was the initiative of the
Information Technology department. Users seem to have been caught by surprise by its
appearance, but are finding it useful and are starting to use it with more frequency. The
advantage of instant messaging is that no effort is required to locate colleagues,
especially in a dynamic work environment.
4.1.8 Collaborative Team Spaces
Collaborative team spaces are facilitated using Microsoft’s SharePoint Portal Services.
With this software teams of individuals are able co collaborate and share information in a
efficient and convenient manner. Unfortunately at ACME this software is poorly
managed with the result that it is not being used to its fullest potential.
4.1.9 E-Mail
As intuitive as it may seem ACME does not operate on one E-mail platform. ACME
Personal Finance division uses Lotus Notes, which accounts for about eighty percent of
users, and the rest of the organisation uses Microsoft’s Outlook. Much discussion and
effort is being done to migrate to one standard group wide E-mail platform, namely
Outlook. To illustrate the degree of complexity and user buy-in required an example was
given of a migration of users, within ACME Personal Finance, from Lotus Notes to
Outlook only to be reversed later and re-migrated back from Outlook to Lotus Notes.
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5. Assessment and Recommendations
We used Gartner’s Knowledge Management (KM) maturity model to assess ACME’s
current positioning within the knowledge management framework (Gartner 2006a).
Gartner identified three pillars of knowledge management as indicators of KM maturity:
Strategy and intent, infrastructure, and knowledge sources (making use of people skills).
The company demonstrates the willingness to improve its current knowledge
management strategy for its four distinct branches. However, ACME realises that the
implementation of a holistic and centralised KM is a long term goal. Thus, the company
focuses on knowledge management at the level of the individual business unit (contrary
to a corporate level approach). In practice, ACME needed to develop individual
knowledge management systems for each of its corporate branches (Corporate Head
Office, ACME personal finance, ACME investment management, independent financial
services [Innofin] and Short-term Insurance [Santam]). In addition, management has to
decide which KM functions can be centralised at the corporate level to avoid redundancy.
ACME’ current infrastructure can be evaluated according to four different determinants:
5.1 Applications
The following KM applications are deployed within ACME:
• Document Management System: documents are managed and stored at the
company level. There is no central data warehouse at the corporate level to
manage the storage and retrieval of documents. Similarly, although guidelines
exist to align data/documents formats used throughout the corporation, they have
not yet been fully implemented
• Business Intelligence: intelligence is collected from different sources and
processed at the corporate level. The information can be accessed from any
workstation in the corporate environment. In addition, business intelligence is
automatically categorised and subsequently distributed to experts within the
organisation
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• Internet Portals: Several internet portals exist that allow varying levels of entry to
corporate information. All four corporate units have separate internet and intranet
access portals. The four portals are not interconnected, but act as individual
entities. Consequently, enterprise wide search applications are difficult to
implement
• E-mail management: Two systems (Microsoft Outlook and Lotus Notes) are
currently installed at ACME. Hence, stored electronic mail cannot be easily
transferred from one system to another
All the necessary applications for successful KM are in place. However, most systems act
independently from one another and do not share a common platform at the head
corporate level.
5.2 Processes
Processes are defined at the company level. Thus, different KM processes exist at
different ACME branches. “Best practice” will usually be employed throughout the
organisation (example: business intelligence). Current processes support the company’s
decentralised network system strategy. The four ACME branches act as separate entities.
In consequence, unique KM processes are defined to support each of the branches’
strategy. The decentralised KM strategy of ACME results in a certain level of
redundancy. This issue has been addressed in the new information strategy.
5.3 Roles and Responsibilities
ACME does not have a knowledge management officer who would clearly define KM
responsibilities at the corporate level. However, information officers outline the
responsibilities and roles of employees at the company level. Employees are required to
comply with security and responsibility guidelines when using ACME’s information
resources.
A customer relationship manager is responsible for maintaining and improving customer
contacts. The manager operates from ACME’s head office and is in charge of defining
the company’s customer relationship management strategy.
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5.4 Management Tools
The company uses its business intelligence reports extensively for decision support.
Relevant information is automatically conveyed to the responsible managers, allowing
them to base their daily decisions on live market data. +
ACME’s main objective is to align its KM systems with the corporate strategy, whilst
allowing for some flexibility of the systems in each of its four branches. A new
information systems structure will help to achieve increased software integration, data
conformity, optimised storage and use of existing information, as well as a higher usage
rate of internet and intranet resources by employees.
At its current stage, ACME’s KM is at the third level of maturity (well defined KM
strategy). There is high awareness within the company of the benefits and importance of
KM. KM processes and shared infrastructure is continuously used throughout the
company. Some support is being centralised at the head corporate office.
Non-Existent Initial Repeatable Defined Managed Optimized
Level of KM Maturity
Scope of Three
Pillars
Continual Improvement
Sanlam
Figure 4: KM Maturity Model Source: Gartner 2006a
We make the following recommendations, with reference to Gartner (2006b), in order to
help ACME to successfully implement the new IS and KM strategy.
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5.5 Electronic Communication
The flow of information within ACME should be standardised. For that reason, we
support their intention to migrate from Lotus Notes to Microsoft Outlook as a common E-
mail platform. Firstly, Outlook is part of MS Office. Data can be easily transferred to and
from existing Office applications such as Excel and Access. Secondly, Outlook is the
more widely used platform throughout the company and hence with ACME’s customers.
Thus, communication within the company and with the company’s customers would be
facilitated, if just one system were in place. Thirdly, Outlook shares a similar user
interface as other MS office applications. In consequence, little employee training would
be required.
5.6 Best Practice
Using ACME’s existing Business Intelligence (BI) processes as a ‘best practice’ example
of how to implement KM within the organisation. Other KM applications could be
modified to match the successful implementation/integration of BI systems. More
importantly, existing BI systems can be used to assess what KM applications may be
centralised at the corporate head office. These applications include the planned
centralised document management system and a corporate internet/intranet portal that
allows authorised access to the four ACME branches.
In the medium term, the company should consider creating a full-time KM officer
position at corporate level. This would allow ACME to bundle its KM development
efforts and to reduce redundant workloads in the transition process. In addition, the KM
officer can formulate the company’s long-term strategy and plan for a fully centralised
implementation of KM.
An additional objective of the KM officer would be to coordinate and plan the actions of
similarly important functions on the company level, such as CRM and the collection of
market intelligence.
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5.7 Centralised customer database
All available customer information can be stored in predefined data formats in the central
head office databases. Information can then be accessed via the intranet from any
workstation within the corporation. This reduces the load of data storage on different
servers and allows different branches of ACME to cross-sell products to their clients.
Similarly, the company can make the transition from offering single services to providing
holistic financial solutions to its clients. Collaborative documents allow input from
several of ACME’s branches to create centralised information that is of relevance to all of
the company’s operations. Data centralisation must be seen as a long-term goal (can only
be achieved, after all of ACME’s branches are fully integrated).
At the same time, a centralised data warehouse should allow project managers to gain
access to past project records of other ACME branches, reducing project costs and
redundancy. Collaborative processes, including collaborative team work and workflows,
as well as the sharing of expert knowledge are further benefits of a centralised data
warehouse.
5.8 Connect Employee Performance Plans to the proper use of KM systems
In order to implement ACME’s new IS strategy, the appropriate use of KM systems
should be part of employee performance appraisals. In more detail, responsible use of
information sources and network resources, collaboration within the corporate network
and contribution of knowledge can be assessed through personal balanced scorecards.
Variable remuneration components can be tied to the successful implementation of KM
processes at the company, departmental and individual level.
Correspondingly, the exercise of operational excellence (e.g. BI processes) should be
included in performance appraisals.
5.9 KM awareness
Employee buy-in to ACME’s IS strategy can only be achieved through executive and
managerial support. The company’s head corporate office should be the leading driver in
strategy implementation. Best practices can be used at the corporate level as a guideline
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for ACME’s distinct branches of how to implement IS and KM systems. Key processes,
KM objectives and performance measures should be defined at the head office and
filtered through the organisation.
6. Conclusion
Knowledge Management requires a multi-disciplined and holistic approach in order to
add real value to an organization. Overall, ACME’s current approach to Knowledge
Management is informal. The company’s culture supports knowledge creation within
corporate clusters/silos. Management supports the group-wide sharing of knowledge.
However, information systems are not mature enough to facilitate the effective flow of
knowledge and communication. The company’s new information strategy supports a top-
down approach, whereby all new developments are developed according to determined
guidelines and specifications. Although the transition process may seem to be taking a
long time, this is not a process which should be rushed.
With ACME’s new information strategy and the recommendations we made in section 5,
the company will enhance its competitive advantage with reference to the use of
knowledge management.
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References
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Gartner. 2006b. Six Practices Can Increase Use of Your Knowledge Management
Program
. Gartner. 24 January 2006. [Online] Available http://gartner.com 25 August 2006.
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25 August 2006
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http://www.ACME.co.za/eng/aboutus/companyinformation/businessstrategy/business+str
ategy.htm 25 August 2006
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Appendix A.
Extract of e-mail communication with Marié Arnoldi explaining our interpretation of
knowledge management:
>>>
The following bit of text is cut out of the draft version of the introduction to our
assignment, I think it will give you a better idea as to where we are going with the
project.
..."We may therefore assume that knowledge is an inherent part of most
companies or organisations in society today. According to Myers for such
knowledge to provide a competitive advantage to the company it must be
independent from any given individual. (1996: 2). He continues that it is only
possible to identify and manage organisational knowledge only to the extent it has
been captured by an organisation’s systems, processes, products, rules, and
culture. Knowledge management is the collective term used to describe this
identification and management of knowledge within a company or organisation.
The purpose of this document is in the first instance to explore the different
approaches to knowledge management and evaluate different tools available to
implement these approaches in South Africa. In the second instance it is to
investigate the use of these approaches within the context of a South African
company, ACME"
I hope this gives you a better idea of how we define knowledge management.
<<<
ii
Appendix B.
ACME Questions
1. Briefly describe the present IS situation and ACME’s particular needs with regard
to IS. (In general terms)
2. To what extent does ACME use Knowledge Management, in general terms?
3. Which components/systems do you know of that are implemented?
4. How well do the systems function on an operational level?
5. What are the successes of the different systems?
6. Are there any glaring downsides?
7. Do you know of any major implementation problems experienced?
8. How well does Knowledge Management deliver on original objectives (strategic,
tactical & operational level)?
9. Does the systems support management in decision making?
10. How well does current Knowledge Management systems integrate with other
system?