With its 10,000 employees scattered all over the world, the World Bank faces a challenge — building a knowledge management program that works. Realizing that this system is vital in helping its clients fight poverty, the World Bank invested around 53 million dollars in its knowledge management initiative by upgrading its technological capabilities and launching its employee training program. Yet the process is not easy and the obstacles are numerous. One issue is developing soft and hard knowledge. Can they harmoniously co-exist after the rebirth process takes place?

What academics say
Jasimuddin (2008) conducted a study that covered several British companies and included 100,000 employees. The goal of the study was to determine which is better for organizations — soft knowledge or hard knowledge? Though some employees believed that staff expertise is indispensible for any knowledge sharing process, others argued that without technological infrastructure, knowledge management is unachievable. However, all employees agreed that soft and hard knowledge should be used according to the situation.

On the other hand examining the various factors that impact knowledge sharing through soft or hard systems can help the organization choose which one to capitalize on to reach its goals for a particular period. For instance, the human factor–with all its internal complexities, such as fear of humiliation, ambition, and greed, or the external complexities, such as culture and traditions–can dramatically affect one’s decision to participate in the knowledge sharing process through either system. Conversely, technology can facilitate knowledge transfer, but it can not monitor the quality of this knowledge or its credibility, according to Edwards, Shaw, and Collier (2005). Trying to “push” any technological tool that stores predetermined knowledge to employees can lead to failure of the whole process, according to Malhotra (2005).

The World Bank experience

Because it’s a multicultural organization, the World Bank had no option but to create a knowledge management system that promotes the use of both processes — the soft and the hard.

What the World Bank did (check out baselinemag.com for more information on how the World Bank developed its knowledge management system):
­ –Create an infrastructure that allows people in developing countries to make a videoconference with World Bank employees
­ –Translate documents and reports into different languages and make them available for its clients
­ –Train employees to use the newly installed technological tools
­ –Meet with employees to promote the knowledge management initiative
­ –Enhance its internet potential

Results

Suffice it to say that a doctor in Zaire can access the World Bank website or its affiliates, such as CDC, to take a look at the treatments available for Malaria or HIV and take the necessary measures to protect human life.

-Asia

-Carolyn

Kmcafe Podcast Transcription 1

What do you do when you’re standing in front of the shareholders of your $8.5 billion business… and they’re demanding to know why employee productivity is sinking like a stone? When you’re running PepsiCo’s Frito-Lay division, you look for a solution to that reduced productivity – and those wasted dollars – fast.

…But what do you do when the solution is called “knowledge management” (KM)… and you know nothing about that?

In 1999, when Frito-Lay first considered KM as a solution to its core productivity challenges, KM was still a relatively new concept in business. The Harvard Business Review had only recently published its review on knowledge management, and the Complete Idiot’s Guide to Knowledge Management (not necessarily a great work, but an indicator that “you’ve arrived”) was not yet published. Neither David Snowden nor Mark Koenig had yet published their seminal works on the three theories of change in KM. Suffice it to say, in 1999, the concept of KM was decidedly esoteric.

So, What Is KM?

Simply put, knowledge management is about knowing what you know… and making money from it. You can also understand KM as:

• A business strategy that enables new insights & experiences by identifying, creating, representing, organizing and distributing knowledge assets
• Practices of managing data/explicit knowledge and tacit knowledge, usually by means of a technology
• A synergy of information technologies and human innovation

Brint defines KM accordingly:

Knowledge management is a new branch of management for achieving breakthrough business performance through the synergy of people, processes, and technology. Its focus is on the management of change, uncertainty, and complexity.

Proponents of knowledge management argue that KM works best when it aligns with business strategies and that it can lead to such results as improved productivity, improved financial growth, cost reductions, and increased customer satisfaction (Ekionea & Swain, 2008). Over the course of the next several weeks, this blog will expand on that list of results – and offer counter-arguments from those who suggest that KM is not only poor for employee productivity in enterprises but that it “is dead”.

From Dollars Down the Drain to Improved Productivity: KM in Enterprises

Enterprises as large as Frito-Lay are often geographically dispersed, with different tech systems for different internal business units and, in turn, significant challenges sharing & managing knowledge effectively. Frito-Lay experienced such knowledge-related challenges as (Shien, 2001):

• Multiple salespeople contacting staff in various groups (e.g., corporate sales, marketing, operations) for the same data… again & again
• Support staff performing the same searches and sending out the same communications… again & again
• Inconsistent methods of capturing & formatting information among individuals
• Staff storing valuable knowledge on their desktops rather than in a central, accessible spaces
• “Silos” preventing sharing of knowledge and cross-team collaboration

The solution for Frito-Lay was a knowledge management portal housed on the corporate intranet, allowing personalized access for all employees & protection of intellectual property behind the corporate firewall. To offer the KM solution a better chance of success, the team at Frito-Lay and their consultancy set 3 goals for the portal:

1. To streamline knowledge across the business units
2. To understand, share & use customer-specific data
3. To facilitate & encourage team collaboration in spite of geography

The results of the portal speak for themselves: Sales nearly doubled for the sales team using the portal and accessing the stores of information they could use to persuade their clients to buy. Travel between the 10 different cities that members of the sales team called home was cut – leading to savings for the business. Employee retention improved, as did productivity. And surprising extra benefits, like fewer faxes, added up to further savings.

What We Can Take Away

The Frito-Lay KM initiative took place a decade ago – which nearly spans the entire timeline of enterprise KM. So there are definitely differences we can see between their KM approach and what might happen today. For example, a small team at Frito-Lay populated the portal with employee details, including their areas of expertise; today, with social networking and user-generated content, it’s likely that both leadership & employees would opt to encourage each employee to describe his/her own job duties & areas of expertise. Simply, the knowledge transfer process would (or so I idealistically believe) be more collaborative.

We can also see the shapings of a KM maturity process in the Frito-Lay case study. Frito-Lay started in what Hsieh (2009) would describe as a “knowledge chaotic” stage with no formal KM processes and moved rapidly to knowledge management, complete with formal, stable and practiced KM programs, to full knowledge management integration – where the culture changed so dramatically that, on seeing the results at Frito-Lay, all of PepsiCo adopted the knowledge portal (Shein, 2001).

~joanna

Read more about KM and the Frito-Lay case study…

Ekionea, J., & Swain, D. (2008, January). Developing and aligning a knowledge management strategy: Towards a taxonomy and a framework. International Journal of Knowledge Management, 4(1), 29-45. Retrieved September 23, 2009, from Library, Information Science & Technology Abstracts with Full Text database.

Hsieh, P. (2009, May). A knowledge navigator model (KNMR) to navigate the knowledge management implementation journey. Proceedings of World Academy of Science: Engineering & Technology, 41, 1202-1221. Retrieved September 25, 2009, from Academic Search Complete database.

Shein, E. (2001, May). Case study: Frito-Lay sales force sells more through information collaboration. CIO. Retrieved October 7, 2009 from http://www.cio.com/article/30167/Case_Study_Frito_Lay_Sales_Force_Sells_More_Through_Information_Collaboration.