知识管理成功的8个C

知识管理成功的8个C
2003-9-8 14:44:22    Madanmohan Rao/KMCenter 

InfoTech (IT) companies feature very prominently in the list of winners of awards like the annual Most Admired Knowledge Enterprises (MAKE) awards -- such as Intel, HP, IBM and Microsoft. The more successful IT companies of the world owe their success in part to highly effective and efficient knowledge management (KM) practices and cultures.

A useful framework for describing the key ingredients of KM success is the "8 Cs" framework (parameters which begin with the letter C): connectivity, content, community, culture, capacity, cooperation, commerce, and capital. In other words, successful KM practices can be facilitated by adequate employee access to KM tools, user-friendly work-oriented content, communities of practice, a culture of knowledge, learning capacity, a spirit of cooperation, commercial and other incentives, and carefully measured capital investments and returns.

Let us see how this framework can be used to analyse the successful KM practices of the following IT companies: EDS, EMC, Fujitsu Consulting, Hughes Software Systems, i2, IBM, I-Flex, Infosys, Inktomi, J. D. Edwards, MITRE, Novell, Open Text, Oracle, SAS, Sun Philippines and Xerox. (Full-length case studies are featured in Leading with Knowledge: KM Practices in Global InfoTech Companies.

1. Connectivity

All these IT companies have robust connectivity for employees to the Intranet and thereby to standardised KM tools, knowledge repositories, and communities of practice. KM at Fujitsu Consulting got off to a bumpy start partly because of lack of standardisation of connectivity and KM platform. Many companies have also identified wireless connectivity as the next level of knowledge mobilisation to workers like sales staff. Open Text has launched Livelink Wireless which is already being used by its sales staff on the road. Information mobilisation and real-time expert contact via PDAs and SMS are high priorities at SunPhil (Filipino subscribers are the heaviest users of SMS worldwide).

2. Content

The featured IT companies have all evolved sophisticated strategies to manage content. These include EDS's Techlore technical knowledge repository, EMC's Knowledgebase for tech support, Fujitsu Consulting's ProjectFinder, i2's Knowledge Base and Project Workbench, knowledge asset editors at Infosys, and i-flex's Project Closure Documents (PCD). SAS has formally-designated knowledge support officers who assist busy employees in creating, editing and translating knowledge assets. Improper planning at an earlier stage led to rampant database proliferation and knowledge clutter at Fujitsu Consulting, which was subsequently rectified. Digital content-management platforms have completely transformed the merged entity SunPhil, which had an archaic paper-based environment prior to merger.

3. Community

All profiled IT companies have sophisticated top-down and bottom-up strategies for large numbers of communities of practice, such as EDS's 114 communities of practice, Fujitsu Consulting's "The Knowledge Underground," MITRE's Technical Exchange Meetings (TEMs) and XpertNet, Oracle's 'Professional Communities,' and Open Text's Competitive Intelligence Forum and Customer Dashboard. IBM uses an approach called the "HealthCheck" to determine the maturity of its CoPs.

4. Culture

A culture of knowledge-centricity and innovation right from the top levels of management was present in all featured companies. EDS has a Knowledge Management Office and an innovation engine portal for employees to submit innovative ideas, EMC aims to have KM culture ultimately nurtured via peer pressure, i2 preserves its start-up oriented culture of learning fast, IBM conducts extensive research on KM and formulates concepts like the Cognizant Enterprise Maturity Model, i-Flex has the QPati quiz program and K-Webcast conferences with experts, Infosys uses mottos like "Learn Once, Use Anywhere," Oracle has a network of change agents, Novell has promoted a culture of synergy during its acquisition of companies like Cambridge Technology Partners and SilverStream, and MITRE aligns KM systems with three corporate values: "people in partnership," "excellence that counts," and "outcomes in the public interest". Quiver (acquired by Inktomi) had to deal with cultural obstacles like the "engineering versus the rest" attitude and "sell and forget" mindset; its merger with a larger company also required cultural adjustment to harness KM. Fujitsu Consulting went through a period of "cultural confusion" in the early days, which even led to a period of "dis-enlightenment" with KM until the program was put back on track. In a QAI survey of KM in 100 software companies, 3 out of 10 projects on knowledge management were found to fail because of insufficient support from a change management roll out plan.

5. Capacity

Building capacity for knowledge-centric behaviours received strong support from all featured IT companies: for instance, EMC has formal training programs, Hughes Software Systems hosts KM workshops and a day-long knowledge-sharing event, and i-flex invests heavily in software process certification for its employees. QAI India recommends the use of external consultants for capacity building in KM. Inktomi provides its knowledge workers with training on cost-performance activity, Unified Modeling techniques, statistical charting processes, and job rotation opportunities to understand knowledge impacts on performance measures and productivity gains.

6. Cooperation

The more forward-looking IT companies promote a strong culture of internal cooperation between employees and business units, and external cooperation with industry consortia and universities. For instance, EDS conducts collaborative research with a top US business school, HSS taps into external sources of knowledge such as industry consortia and collaborative research with universities, IBM conducts extensive research in client-focused consortiums such as the IBM Institute of Knowledge-based Organizations, MITRE's Knowledge Partners initiative includes contributions from highly qualified MITRE retirees, Open Text has a Knowledge Management Advisory Board with representatives from about 20 of its top customers, Oracle plans to extend KM beyond the enterprise via the Oracle Technology Network and Oracle Partner Network, and Xerox is active in sponsorship of KM forums and participation in consortia on learning, knowledge and productivity such as APQC. In an inspiring move, SunPhil is even taking the KM message to the national level through its active support of the Knowledge Management Association of the Philippines (KMAP).

7. Commerce

Many of the featured IT companies have a mix of commercial and non-commercial incentives to "price" and reward knowledge contributions. Infosys has devised Knowledge Currency Units (KCUs) whereby employees can award points to knowledge assets posted by their colleagues, and can also earn points when their own posted knowledge assets are utilised or ranked by their colleagues; these can be encashed into gifts at a local e-tailer. MITRE has a $5,000 president's KM Achievement award (presented by the CEO), ten Corporate KM Recognition awards of $1,000 each (presented by the CIO), and an award for the best paper that makes an external contribution to KM theory/practice. EDS has an EDS Fellows Program for top performers in the company and the annual EDS Innovation Forum for top innovative thinkers from across the globe; awards are given to the patent of the year, innovator of the year, and community of the year. IBM has a corporate-wide award called Knowledge Advantage and individual business units give their own KM awards.

8. Capital

Substantial investments were made in the KM systems of the featured companies, and strict metrics adopted to assess RoI. Xerox's Eureka is credited with solving over 350,000 problems annually that otherwise would have been recreated by other customer service engineers (CSEs) wasting both parts and labor as they try to find a solution -- parts and labor savings are in excess of $15 million annually, with increased customer satisfaction and faster learning cycles for the CSEs. At EDS, KM metrics are driven by the Intellectual Capital Balance Sheet. EMC's KM practice today has helped improve worldwide sharing of solutions and shorten learning curves. Fujitsu Consulting has delivered a measurable improvement in gross margin via KM tools like ProjectFinder. i2 has used knowledge-centric strategies to position new products to new clients in shorter time. IBM uses systemic metrics to ensure that KM practices help corporate business objectives like innovation, responsiveness, efficiency and competency. Infosys' KM portal KnowledgeShop helps the company improve teamwork, refine software, re-use code, and meet growth expectations. At MITRE, tangible benefits of KM have been realised in reduced operating costs, improved staff productivity, and cost avoidance.

In sum, paying close attention to all the parameters of the 8Cs framework has helped the profiled IT companies develop successful KM practices. The most successful IT companies also have KM practices that have been successively benchmarked as among the best in the world.