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New Economy Excellence Series, New Economy Energy: Unleashing Knowledge for Competitive Advantage PDF

289 Pages·2001·9.74 MB·English
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The New Economy Excellence Series New Economy Energy Unleashing Knowledge for Competitive Advantage Sultan Kermally JOHN WILEY & SONS, LTD Chichester • New York • Weinheim • Brisbane • Singapore • Toronto Copyright © 200I by John Wiley & Sons Ltd, Baffins Lane, Chichester, West Sussex pOI9 IUD, England National 01243 779777 International ( + 44) 1243 779777 e-mail (for orders and customer service enquiries): [email protected] Visit our Home Page on http://www.wiley.co.uk or http://www.wiley.com Sultan Kermally has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work. All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning or otherwise, except under the terms of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 or under the terms of a licence issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London, UK W1P 4LP, without the permission in writing of the publisher and the copyright holder. Other Wiley Editorial Offices John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158-0012, USA WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH, Pappelallee 3, D-69469 Weinheim, Germany John Wiley & Sons Australia, Ltd, 33 Park Road, Milton, Queensland 4064, Australia John Wiley & Sons (Asia) Pte Ltd, 2 Clementi Loop #02-01, Jin Xing Distripark, Singapore 129809 John Wiley & Sons (Canada) Ltd, 22 Worcester Road, Rexdale, Ontario M9w ILI, Canada British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN 0-471-49963-3 Typeset in 11/14pt Garamond by Mayhew Typesetting, Rhayader, Powys Printed and bound in Great Britain by Antony Rowe Ltd, Chippenham, Wiltshire This book is printed on acid-free paper responsibly manufactured from sustainable forestry, in which at least two trees are planted for each one used for paper production. CONTENTS About the author iv Acknowledgements v Introduction E-business energy: unleashing knowledge for competitive advantage 1 Chapter 1 Knowledge management: the main drivers 13 Chapter 2 E-business, strategy and new business models: creating value for customers and shareholders 35 Chapter 3 Strategic assets of a knowledge-driven organisation 61 Chapter 4 Knowledge management is about people 85 Chapter 5 Managing talent 109 Chapter 6 Capturing knowledge for competitive advantage 129 Chapter 7 The role of the Internet in knowledge creation, capture and transfer 151 Chapter 8 Knowledge and innovation 175 Chapter 9 The learning organisation 193 Chapter 10 Intellectual property protection: the legal dimension of knowledge management 217 Chapter 11 Knowledge management in practice 235 Chapter 12 Becoming a knowledge-driven organisation 255 Notes 273 Bibliography 275 Subject index 281 ABOUT THE AUTHOR Sultan Kermally, M.A., B.Sc.(Soc.), LL.B. Ph.D., Dip. Fin. & Accts., Dip. Marketing, is a management development consultant and trainer designing and delivering courses in business strategy, business economics, marketing, managing people, performance and knowledge and personal development. He has conducted training in the UK, the Netherlands, Belgium, France, Austria, the Middle East, Hong Kong and Tajikistan. For several years he held senior academic positions in Scotland and senior management positions with Management Centre Europe in Brussels, London Business School and The Economist Intelligence Unit, where he was Senior Vice-President of the Economist Conferences, Europe. He has been involved in management education and development for a number of years, including distance learning management education courses. He has been tutoring with the Open University and Open University Business School since their inception. He is an associate lecturer in strategy and knowledge management for the Open University Business School MBA modules. He also teaches the organisational behaviour MBA module for the Durham University Business School and is a core tutor for FT Knowledge. He is the author of Total Management Thinking, Management Ideas and Managing Performance, all published by Butterworth- Heinemann in association with the Institute of Management, When Economics Means Business: the New Economics of the Information Age, published by FT Pitman Publishing, and The Management Tool Kit, published by Hawksmere. For consultancy and training assignments he can be contacted at 57 Southlands Road, Bromley, Kent, BR2 9QR. Tel: +44 (0)20 8313 3378, fax: +44 (0)20 8460 1536; E-mail: [email protected]. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The theme of this book was suggested to me by Jeremy Kourdi, Senior Vice-President of the Economist Conferences, and John Moseley, Publishing Editor at Wiley. I am indebted to them for giving me the opportunity to write a book in the New Economy Excellence series and as a consequence prompted me to explore the world of e-business. When I was deciding to write this book I rehearsed my views with my baby daughter Zara, who was then only 14 weeks old. Her smiles and body language indicated her approval of my views. However, all the shortcomings of this book are entirely mine. The book contains some cases, opinions and articles. For these I would like to thank the following individuals, organisations and publishers for their direct and indirect help: Professor Thomas Davenport, Britton Manasco, Verna Lee, Elizabeth Lank, Kevin Jones, Llan Greensberg; Teleos, Open University Business School, The University of Edinburgh, The Economist Confer- ences, Systematica, Knowledge Inc., WIPO, Insead, Pricewater- houseCoopers, CIO.com, Bathwick Group, Kogan Page, Butterworth-Heinemann, Webmergers Inc., Jossey-Bass, McGraw-Hill; Business Week, Fortune, The Economist, The Sunday Times, The Times, Financial Times, Harvard Business Review, TechWeb, WebBusiness Magazine, Digital Britain, Business 2.0, Performance & Innovation Unit Report, 1999, Human Resources, Inter@active Week, Information Week. The Wiley production team, especially Vivienne Wickham and Sally Lansdell for their professional approach to editing. I am particularly impressed with the way the book has been copy- edited. My thanks and love go to my wife Laura for her faith in my ability to undertake the project and my daughter Zara for being vi ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS so good and cheery as to make it possible for me to hide away in my study and work on this book; she has been an inspiration for this project. My daughter Jenny, for her philosophical outlook on life and her constant encouragement, my daughter Susan and her husband Thomas Powell for their pride in my work, my son Peter (Mwalimu) for his interest in my work, and my grandson Matthew and my two granddaughters Eve and Anna for the joy they have brought to my life. Dedication This book is dedicated to my wife Laura my children Zara, Peter, Susan and Jenny, and my three grand children Matthew, Anna and Eve E-business energy: unleashing knowledge for competitive INTRODUCTION Overview The success of e-business depends on converting 'e' into: • energy: energy is required to deliver speed. • enthusiasm: staff have to be enthused to share knowledge. • empathy: the business has to get under the skin of its customers. • enterprise: the leadership has to introduce an entrepreneurial culture. • evolution: the business has to evolve into partnership networks. 2 E-BUSINESS ENERGY Knowledge management and competitive advantage The importance of knowledge Economies are increasingly based on knowledge. Finding better ways of doing things has always been the main source of long-term growth. What is new is that a growing chunk of production in the modern economy is in the form of intangibles, based on the exploitation of ideas rather than material things, the so-called weightless economy. In 1900 only one-third of American workers were employed in the service sector; now more than three-quarters are. More and more goods, from Mercedes cars to Nike trainers, also have increasing amounts of knowledge embedded in them, in the form of design or customer service.1 Knowledge management: its impact on bottom- line results Under increasing competitive pressures and with a strategy of KEY CONCEPT gaining and maintaining Knowledge in any organis- competitive advantage, many ation comes in two formats: one is located in employees' organisations are focusing their heads and is known as tacit attention on managing knowledge. knowledge, and the other is Knowledge is beginning to be presented in written (codi- fied) format and known as recognised as a key capability if an explicit knowledge. organisation is to compete suc- cessfully in a global environment. The benefits of knowledge management relate to the following areas: • Meeting customers' expectations. • Enhancing employees' competencies. • Adding shareholder value. • Generating innovation. KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT AND COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE 3 • Minimising risks. • Bringing about business transformation. • Reducing costs. One of the key aspects of managing knowledge is facilitating the transfer of knowledge throughout an organisation. Knowledge in any organisation comes in two formats: one is located in employees' heads and is known as tacit knowledge, and the other is presented in written (codified) format and known as explicit knowledge. The transfer of both types of knowledge is important in enabling organisations to build their capabilities. How is knowledge transferred? A transfer from tacit knowledge to tacit knowledge takes place between people through conversation, dialogue and meetings. A transfer from tacit to explicit knowledge takes place through creation of documents, messages, memos and reports. A transfer from explicit to explicit knowledge takes place through creating directories or maps. Finally, a transfer from explicit to tacit knowledge takes place through documents and data. The modes of transfer and knowledge creation are examined in detail in the later chapters. Finding the person with the knowledge one needs and then successfully transferring it from that person to another are difficult processes. (Professor Thomas Davenport) What are the benefits of knowledge transfer and knowledge sharing? Transferring problem-solving skill Employees who are involved in working on and managing projects do not have to reinvent wheels if they have access to

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Forward-thinking companies are focusing their attention on knowledge, that insubstantial asset which is recognised as a key competitive capability in the new economy. Yet despite the mantra that knowledge is '70% people, 20% process and 10% technology', too much emphasis is still placed on technical
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