Information technology management practices and frameworks

¶ … Sharry, R Case

What Specific Benefit does KM Software add to a global organization?

"In today's fast-paced society, an entity's knowledge base is quickly becoming its only sustainable competitive advantage. As such, this resource must be protected, cultivated and shared among entity members." (Answers to Frequently Asked Questions About Knowledge Management, 1998) For the global corporation Proctor & Gamble, Knowledge Sharing Software has created a common knowledge base amongst the diversity of international employees working for this entity. The consumer-products giant turned to Knowledge-Sharing Software to transform "departmental experts into tangible information resources for the whole company." (Moore, 2001)

In other words, Proctor & Gamble believes strongly in soliciting opinions from all experts working for the company, and wished to make the sharing of such expert knowledge a valuable and constant resource for all employees. It saw, in the potential accessibility that KM Software could bring, a way of making more effective use of its intellectual capital and resources. But how could all employees access the maximum amount of useful expert opinions for a particular problem, given the wide berth of the company's outreach and the diversity of languages, cultures, and locations of Proctor & Gamble's many staff members? KM Software enabled the company to create an intranet portal and point of information exchange for an expert in advertising in the United States, for example, to discuss with a copywriter the advertisements for P& G. products manufactured in Thailand. This also enabled the expert P& G. employee to get a better understanding of the point-of-view of that person living and working in the nation, without leaving his or her computer. (Moore, 2001)

Technology is occasionally and mistakenly seen as a barrier between the technically literate and illiterate. But the usefulness of P& G's portal demonstrates otherwise. Moreover, this portal is used by many P& G. staff members who are not strictly IT or even 'technical staff' members. The portal has proved useful in the areas of R& D, engineering, and all facets purchasing, and marketing. Originally, the P& G. intranet portal was only successful in providing workers with browser-based access to published information such as documents, reports, and data from a variety of disparate sources, without specifically organizing or tailoring such knowledge to employee requests. The intranet was thus limited because it was not specified enough in terms of the information it could extract, nor could it solicit and create exchanges of one of the company's most valued resources: employee knowledge. (Moore, 2001)

KM software creates a 'living' and responsive database of knowledge that can take place across international borders. Now, with the portal, high-level conversations between employees can take place in a common locus, enabling new knowledge to be created by sharing what is already known and tested, a goal of KM. (Wood, 2001, "Taking Stock of What You Know.") The software gave P& G. employees a place to go to ask questions of experts in their fields. The experts of P& G. could share their knowledge with others who had common concerns. All users liked the ease with which they could locate experts and the fact that the system was integrated with email so questions or feedback could be sent immediately, unlike searching documents as before, or waiting to contact experts across time zones. (Moore, 2001)

P& G. experts felt like they could "make more of an impact," as technical experts typically had "close circles" to "share experiences and knowledge with; this broadens their ability to share what they know, and the people with questions have a place to go." Although it was difficult to convince employees initially that this would not be a distraction to their daily life and work, a heartfelt attempt was made to implement the portal. This willingness of the company management at P& G. was a key aspect of the portal's success in facilitating the exchange of knowledge, and it is necessary for any new technical integration into a company's communication systems and standard operating procedures of sharing information to succeed.

Creating and using knowledge-sharing mechanisms thus demands not only creativity from IT and experts, but also a commitment from chief executives to make KM work. (Wood, 2001, "Sharing the Intellectual Wealth.") P& G "spent a lot of time on marketing, conversations, and meetings to evangelize as to how the product could help workers," and the investment paid off. (Moore, 2001) "The tangible ROI results of the pilot deployment were enough to persuade management to invest in a larger rollout to all 18,000 Innovation Net users, which P& G. is in the process of completing." (Moore, 2001) In essence, the numbers did not lie, and the investment seemed certain to payoff. However, the biggest challenge was altering the company routing and "integrating the system into the day-to-day business process of workers, but once this was done communication improved because of the superiority of communicating the technology's importance by P& G." (Moore, 2001)

Now, P& G's "AskMe Enterprise" is fully integrated into the company's corporate intranets and portals to add qualified experts to add to every employee's pool of information resources, and so P& G's experts can target where any possible confusion may occur, and find new ideas of making the company run more smoothly from all staff members who make contributions to the forum. The system is user-friendly, and designed for specific departments to make the experts most necessary to the work being conducted the most accessible to the employees, as the different directory portals are "based on how much particular workers are involved in certain subjects." (Moore, 2001) The system "forms a directory listing of individuals noted as subject-matter experts who can be called upon to lend advice or collaboration for problem solving and product development." (Moore, 2001)

The specific benefits of this software, and all KM software to an international organization is that it connects employees across international barriers, yet is highly organized in terms of finding specific information and assistance for particular disciplines. It saves employee and executive time, yet eliminates confusion and encourages creativity, as an expert is only a click away. It creates a more cohesive organization, and a more accessible 'expert' base of knowledge for lower-level employees. It also allows employees to feel empowered, not micromanaged by experts, as they make their own contributions to the knowledge of the P& G. organization. Employees always have the option suggesting their own ideas through the portal as part of the question and answer process.