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Using Technology to Enhance Competitiveness and Leverage Intellectual Capital

Robert SawhneyManaging Director, SRC Associates Ltd (Hong Kong)

CCH Singapore17th Aug 2011

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Objectives

• Understand the role of knowledge and technology in enhancing competitiveness

• Identify the link between a knowledge orientation and performance

• Touch on social media and its role in leveraging IC and enhancing performance

• Learn about the structured and free access approach to knowledge

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Knowledge orientation vs KM

• "If only HP knew what it knows it would make three times more profit tomorrow"

(Lew Platt, ex CEO Hewlett Packard)• "The capabilities by which communities within an

organisation capture the knowledge that is critical to them, constantly improve it and make it available in the most effective manner to those who need it, so that they can exploit it creatively to add value as a normal part of their work"

(GlaxoSmithKline)

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Cont’d

• Hence, firms with a strong knowledge orientation are said to have a distinctive capability in KM

• These are organizational routines oriented towards the management of knowledge

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Roughly what we are trying to do

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Case Study: Deloitte

• Use of social media and technology for enhancing collaboration and knowledge sharing began to accelerate in 2008

• This started with Yammer (https://www.yammer.com/about/product) where over 3000 staff use the service for collaborating

• Has led to new services and innovation, contribution of A$20m to bottom line

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Cont’d• Has also increased staff retention due to feeling of community• Also set up a YouTube channel in 2008• The firm also has a Innovation Academy which is a managed platform

that fosters idea generation, learning and collaboration. The idea being to use social media to drive innovation and revenue

• This led to the staff inspired Leadership Academy, a subscription based multi million dollar business for Deloitte

• Tap into tacit knowledge, make it explicit, modify it and use it for client value

• The firm started using twitter (@Green_Dot) in 2009 and claims to generated a number of new clients by distributing its thought leadership

• In essence, the firm trusted its staff to use social media and it paid off!

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Something to chew on!

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nn3NqvStekY&feature=related

• Single, double and triple loop learning

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Structured vs free access appraoch

• Technology is a vital enabler of collaboration and knowledge sharing but firms need a strategy for knowledge work

• Free access - Their need for access to IT sources—ranging from the Internet to various online databases and social media to work tools such as e-mail, spreadsheets, presentation tools, and more complex business intelligence analytics—is presumed to be equally eclectic and unpredictable

• Good if people can control but research shows that knowledge workers spend 25% of their time looking for information but only 16% of content within a firm is located in places which are accessible to the worker

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Cont’d

• Structured provision - Structured-provision technologies first appeared in the early 1990s and have improved considerably of late. They often have a range of functions. The most important is workflow technology that controls how knowledge workers get information and job tasks (i.e case management systems)

• Can result in large increases in productivity for certain tasks but can also lessen autonomy and hence create resistance among professionals. Also require extensive system and process design

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Examples • Freshfields (global law firm) – in 2007, firm decided old intranet was too

cumbersome, out of date and needed changing• Instead of spending large amounts of money on an IT driven upgrade, decided to

use a confluence wiki • Used a small group of early adopters to roll out incrementally • The working group was also multi-disciplinary, consisting of the project manager,

developers, usability and information architecture experts, who met with representatives from different practice groups, offices and central support functions to clarify their information structure needs for the new intranet. The project manager was then able to create an action plan based on the actual rather than perceived needs of the various stakeholder groups

• Developed over 6o wikis for different practices and by 2008, when approval was needed for full roll out, many of the decision makers had already used it and were fully in support

• The wiki is now the preferred knowledge sharing platform in the firm

E&Y

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Processes• Create policies and procedures• Identify knowledge leaders,

resources and roles• Develop and deploy knowledge

processes to acquire, filter, develop, maintain, update and deploy necessary content

Content• Identify strategic knowledge

needs and sources• Develop classification scheme

that meets Business needs• Reorganise existing content• Establish connectivity to external

content• Establish shared services for

knowledge where needed

Technology Infrastructure• Establish basic connectivity• Establish robust content management

capability• Establish community enablement• Establish project enablement• Establish shared infrastructure for

search/navigation, collaboration, content management, content delivery

StrategyStrategy

• Identify critical factors / decisions that will drive business results

• Establish business case• Develop executive sponsorship

Strategy

• Identify critical factors / decisions that will drive business results

• Establish business case• Develop executive sponsorship

People / Organisation• Define measurements &

incentives• Define knowledge competencies

& behaviours• Develop knowledge processes

for education / training• Deploy communities / networks

that meet strategic needs• Anticipate and manage changes

in work habits and behaviours• Establish shared services

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Cont’d • Developed the Centre for Business Knowledge which became critical to the

firms strategy in the early 90s • As part of its ongoing client centricity, the firm decided to incorporate Factiva

into its knowledge systems in 2001• E&Y’s knowledge infrastructure pivots on Kweb with over 1700 databases and

1.5m documents• Ernst & Young has integrated external content from Factiva into the KWeb, so

employees can search both Ernst & Young’s intellectual capital and external content, and also subscribe to email news feeds (Factiva Track Folders) on their clients and topics of interest from within their web-based, knowledge navigation tools - Community HomeSpaces (CHS). A CHS provides a central point for communities to access their most important tools, resources and information

• Firm has over 25 different KM tools• In 2005, satisfaction with the usability of Kweb declined

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Cont’d

• Firm decided to evaluate review and re-design1. Process:2. Expert review3. Field studies4. Re-design5. Usability testing6. Iteration7. On going monitoring

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Knowledge, marketing and performance

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Final Framework

• Values• Management

Leadership

• Learning• Strategy • Client Value• Innovation

Knowledge and market

orientation

• Financial• Non financial

Performance

Which clients?Which industries?Which services?

What value?

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Thank You• If you want any of the full references for work cited or have any questions,

please feel free to contact me:• bob@srchk.com, www.srchk.com• Blog: www.marketingasia.typepad.com• Twitter: http://twitter.com/robertsawhney • LinkedIn – Robert Sawhney• My books: