Knowledge Management - Jamesford Management Consultants Ltd

Background & Assignment

Our client - a Financial Services company - asked us if we thought their business would benefit from a knowledge management programme. They'd heard a lot about the concept and were unsure whether it was just another management fad or whether it would benefit their organisation.

Key Project Activities

We began by creating an organisational definition of knowledge management, namely "the definition, collection and management of company processes in order to create a corporate memory which is universally shared to ensure best practice prevails and valuable experience isn't lost."

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We then identified those areas where knowledge was business critical:-

• Or could be used to create a better process i.e. improve customer service or streamline operational processes
• Or could be used to reduce costs
• Or could be used to improve the customer value proposition

And quantified the associated benefits/risks.

We also compared our findings against a recent study, which was conducted by Teltech, to determine where other organisations have been focusing their knowledge management activities. The survey revealed that production (those activities which deliver products/services) and product development were the most popular targets, as follows:-

We reviewed the business model to see if the organisation would benefit from such an approach.

The focus and benefit of a programme to manage organisational knowledge soon became self evident, as did the necessity to be selective and only concentrate on those areas of maximum return.

Having decided to proceed, we set about assigning the key objectives for the initiative and designed a programme for implementation. Like so many business changes it is always useful to trial the approach with a pilot scheme. The knowledge gained is very helpful in overcoming organisational barriers and early wins are a bonus in terms of mobilising the forces for change. On this occasion we trialled the scheme by focusing on several operational processes where we thought improvement could be made.

Client Benefits

The results were astounding. We found that the employees were keen to map their processes, receive feedback and improve them. Co workers and internal customers provided suggestions for improvement. Not only were significant process improvements made but a far higher level of mutual understanding both within and across departments were achieved. The pilot was such a success that the programme continues with the processes being categorised and recorded on a database which is accessible by all on the company intranet.