Page 225 - DCAP307_PLANNING_AND_MANAGING_IT_INFRASTRUCTURE

Unit 13: Knowledge Management

These technologies roughly correlate to four main stages of the KM life cycle: Notes
1. Knowledge is acquired or captured using intranets, extranets, groupware, web conferencing,
and document management systems.

2. An organisational memory is formed by refining, organising, and storing knowledge
using structured repositories such as data warehouses.
3. Knowledge is distributed through education, training programs, automated knowledge
based systems, expert networks.
4. Knowledge is applied or leveraged for further learning and innovation via mining of the
organisational memory and the application of expert systems such as decision support
systems.

Notes All of these stages are enhanced by effective workflow and project management.

Self Assessment

Fill in the blanks:

14. An organisational memory is formed by refining, organising, and storing knowledge
using ...................................... repositories.
15. Knowledge is applied or leveraged for further learning and innovation via
...................................... of the organisational memory and the application of expert systems.



Case Study Turning Business Information into an Asset

This case study describes how to turn your business information into an asset.
Background

A major Automotive Manufacturer had over time (mostly due to organic growth) created
multiple content repositories in almost every functional area of their business. Many of
these data repositories and web sites were designed without a strategy, master plan
or consistent standards. The result is that Sales, Customer Service, Marketing, Engineering,
and Product managers have a difficult time accessing and acquiring accurate and
trusted information, and have no way of knowing which version of the truth is the most
recent or cogent. Not only is the accessing of good, managed information key to a
company’s performance, but the costs involved of the wasted management time, poor
Customer Service numbers, care and maintenance of multiple information sources can
easily impact the bottom line and skyrocket out of control.
For example, the Customer Service desk had 87 separate sources available to them to answer
customer questions. Of these sources: 70% were accessible on a number of individually
managed web sites, 20% within applications or internal data bases, and 10% were buried
and “maintained” by a single subject matter expert (SME).

Contd.....

LOVELY PROFESSIONAL UNIVERSITY 219