Knowledge Management for an Effective Sales and Marketing Function

In the last decade, knowledge management has been receiving managerial attention particularly in the post-Internet era. With advancements in information and communications technologies, the incentives to manage knowledge have far surpassed the costs associated with it. The sales and marketing (S&M) function is one of the important functions in an organization with a unique blend of internal and external stakeholders to cater to. Another unique feature of knowledge management in the S&M function is that it lies on the interface of the organization with its customers. Therefore, information that comes into the organization through sales and marketing employees is often collected, filtered, and assimilated in different forms and with time lags. This chapter is aimed at familiarizing the readers with the importance of managing a continuously churning ocean of knowledge in the S&M function. We address various knowledge management issues and opportunities in the context of S&M and recommend a set of guidelines to enable managers increase the effectiveness of the S&M function by using appropriate knowledge management tools and strategies.

Aligning Business and Knowledge Strategies

The alignment of business and knowledge strategies necessarily includes the individual and the organizational perspectives. A major problem in this context is to reconcile these perspectives into a common framework for alignment. To this end, an intermediate level is introduced–the activity domain. The activity domain is a canonical structure comprising all kinds of organizational units, irrespective of size and organizational level. The organization is regarded as a constellation of activity domains, each having a capability to produce an outcome that the organization needs in order to fulfill its goals. Alignment is defined as the management of dependencies between capabilities such that these capabilities fit the business’s strategic intents. As a consequence, business and knowledge strategies can be linked to the same target–the activity domain. Practical guidelines and alignment targets for these strategies are suggested.

Creating and Delivering a Successful Knowledge Management Strategy

Over the past decade, the rapid proliferation of knowledge management (KM) has been one of the most striking developments in business. Viewing KM as a key driver of competitive advantage, we attempt to provide managers with important guidance on how to create and deliver a successful KM strategy. Specifically, we develop a framework of three factors that are vital to KM success: top management support, a culture of organizational learning, and effective measures of KM performance. To offer a better understanding of the factors, their multiple facets are further investigated and discussed.

Agile Alignment of Enterprise Execution Capabilities with Strategy

Emergent strategy provides for both planned and reactive aspects of strategic planning. It also identifies that strategy as implemented will often have different characteristics than originally anticipated. Today, even traditional, non-knowledge based organizations have adopted comparatively high levels of computerization compared to a decade ago. Enterprises now rely extensively on digital systems for data handling across operational and administrative processes. This chapter maintains that detection and reporting capabilities inherent in information technology (IT) can themselves be exploited as a strategy for managing knowledge. Using feedback loops to describe the dynamics of systems lets an organization capture and communicate intended strategy and emergent characteristics of the actual strategy along with changes in the execution environment. The role of IT as an execution capability required for both business strategy and knowledge management is examined, along with the need to more quickly align the business processes that use IT services to changes in business strategies or priorities. Advances in IT assisting in requirements discovery, system design and development- including use cases, patterns, decision modeling, and aspect-oriented software-are discussed. Techniques to capture and communicate knowledge vital for aligning organizational capabilities with emerging strategies and competing priorities are evaluated. A predicted emergent business pattern as a tool for managing the capture and communication of organizational knowledge is proposed. This includes techniques for defining strategy and decision elements as data about processes that can be used during execution to trigger notification and appropriate handling of exceptional events.

SMEs and Competitive Advantage

The global economy is transforming the sources of the competitive advantages of firms, especially for firms embedded in local manufacturing systems. Based on the theoretical contributions to knowledge management and industrial districts, this chapter describes alternative firm’s strategies and upgrading options by exploring the relationships among innovation, marketing, and network technologies. Starting from the analysis of the Global Competitiveness Report and the European Innovation Scoreboard, this chapter focuses on the case of firms specializing in the “Made in Italy” industries (fashion, furniture, home products) to outline a framework explaining the new competitive opportunities for SMEs. Through a qualitative analysis the chapter presents four case studies of Italian firms that promote successful strategies based on a coherent mix of R&D-based innovation, experienced marketing, and design by leveraging on ICT.

Conceptual Theory

This chapter will provide the reader with two definitions of knowledge, one at the individual level, the other at the organizational level. This will be followed by connecting the knowledge base of the organization to its sustainable competitive advantage by using a multiple-layer framework of organizational knowledge. Then, the chapter will discuss the frameworks of knowledge management vision, mission and goals for the organization. Temporary and functional gap analysis frameworks will follow. The chapter will end with a brief description of three tools developed by the authors.

Translating Knowledge Management Practices into the Boundaries of Supply Chain

This chapter aims to evaluate the application of knowledge management (KM) literature in supply chains. The underlying understanding derived from this evaluation can be used to devise a valid business strategy to encourage knowledge management practices in supply chains. The concept of a supply chain encompasses businesses organised around a common goal of delivering a product or service from the initial supplier to the end customers. In this respect, the importance of knowledge management within the boundaries of supply chain management has been iterated by many authors; some underline the strategic and tactical importance of knowledge management, whereas others focus on the advantages and tools used to create knowledge in supply chains. The difficulty of assessing knowledge management is twofold when considering supply chains–first, the underlying difficulty of locating the trail of knowledge creation in supply chains and secondly how this can be utilised to devise a business strategy. On close examination of the literature in this field, we can identify a salient need for the theoretical categorisation of existing theoretical frameworks of supply chain management (SCM) on KM-related practices. This chapter explicitly looks into three supply chains, namely learning chains, virtual chains and build-to-order supply chains, and the specific challenges that these create for knowledge management and devising a valid business strategy.

Aurora Health Care

Aurora Health Care, Wisconsin’s largest employer and healthcare provider faces intense competition, consolidation, and reform. Its choice is to view these challenges as opportunities instead of problems. A key component to realizing Aurora’s opportunities is an aggressive knowledge management system. They understand that to maximize their potential, they must get the most out of their knowledge management. The purpose of this chapter is to present to you a case study of knowledge management applications in the healthcare industry through the many lenses of Aurora Health Care. First we will describe the background of this accomplished healthcare provider. We will then look at their business and knowledge management strategies. Next will be a review of the major components: core competencies, knowledge base, culture, implementation, and key success indicators.

How Do We Get There? Strategy Action Framework–"Action Engine"

The chapter will describe a comprehensive planning framework for developing a company’s knowledge management strategy. The framework includes the goals and game plans of the strategy and the use of three enablers supporting such a strategy: levers, processes, and systems. This is complemented by the development of an action plan while considering the resources needed and the constraints present. The framework also includes the discussion of aligning the knowledge management strategy with the company’s business strategy as well as with the organization’s knowledge base and core competencies. The chapter uses two cases to illustrate some of the aspects discussed.

Linking Exploration and Exploitation Capabilities with the Process of Knowledge Development and with Organizational Facilitators

Knowledge management is a fundamental capability in today’s evolving markets. Management needs to understand which organizational processes are necessary to trigger each of the stages in knowledge development. The objective of this study is to outline the main concepts and stages in the process of knowledge development in organizations and the organizational activities that have a positive influence on those stages. A conceptual framework is proposed which combines the model of knowledge development proposed by Nonaka (1994) with the concepts of exploration and exploitation initially described by March (1991). Information systems are seen to play a fundamental role in supporting this process, especially in activities related to exploitation capability.