Posted by Jay Reay on March 17, 1998 at 13:47:37:

In Reply to: Re: No Proof? posted by Ross Hall on March 11, 1998 at 14:38:22:

Hi Ross
You touch on point of major importance to practical business here. While I think it is important for managers in every environment (including not-for-profit and public service as well as general business needing to create a bottom line per se) to understand that KM is important to them, and why, that is has breadth and depth and what those parameters encompass, and that what is within its field is:
a) important to their business
b) can be enhanced to the strategic and tactical advantage of the business
c) affects the value of the business as an asset to its owners and as a wealth creator to its staff, industry and community
I feel that those of us engaged as consultants and academics are in danger of losing the audience we need.

Most of our clients are well educated, intelligent and interested in the world as a whole. What they do not need, and will not thank us for, is semantic discourse of abstruse matters concerning the meaning of the elements of knowledge and KM.

If we are right in our assumption that Knowledge (and by extension KM) is a vital element in generating competitive advantage, it is of practical concern to our clients. They need practical help to allow them to leverage it.

Part of the need is to measure results and this is where this thread started. We have proof of the positive effects of knowledge management on our clients. For example, a client in chemicals is making money from technology transfer into markets it cannot compete in. Another client in art publishing is using its knowledge of market trends to advise other companies in non-competitive product areas - co-opetition at work!

The effective management of its knowledge allows a F1 racing team (sorry to bring this up again!) enables it to makes engineering changes the morning after track testing, bringing together designers, test engineers, production engineers and specialist knowledge holders using virtual meeting tools.

I would like to pursue this thread more - it seems self-evident that clients need to be reassured that KM DOES offer bottom line results, if effectively introduced. This requires understanding, but above all demands the right kind of design and implementation. Any thoughts on all this?

Jay Reay

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• Re: No Proof? Ross Hall 04:41:38 3/21/98 (0)

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