mini case 5 : Boygues Telecom

KM The Boygues Telecom Way

1. Knowledge Management

“Knowledge Management is a business model embracing knowledge as an organizational asset to drive sustainable business advantage. It is a management discipline that promotes an integrated approach to create, identify, evaluate, capture, enhance, share and apply an enterprise’s intellectual capital“ writes a consultant.

“Knowledge Management is not a shrink-wrapped functional solution, it is a combination of technology, methodology, and corporate belief in the competitive advantage to be gained from KM“ explains another consultant. The discussion on the concepts of Knowledge Management is very intense between consultants.

Actually, there are many definitions of the Knowledge Management and, may be, it’s due to the lack of operational experiences. So, for a lot of professionals the Knowledge Management is still a concept. The case underneath presents the approach of the Knowledge Management adopted by a well known French company.

2. The Bouygues Telecom way

With more than six million customers and a network covering 98 per cent of France, Bouygues

Telecom, created in 1994 as a subsidiary of the Bouygues global industrial group (turnover : 19 billion euros in 2000), has established itself as one of the most dynamic and innovative players in the French mobile telephony market. But size can be a challenge – as with most large companies, Bouygues Telecom was struggling to manage the flow of information and know-how across the organisation.

At times, departments and individuals were unable to collaborate effectively with employees in many parts of the business. At the end of 2000, Bouygues Telecom launched an initiative aimed at maximising the value of its business and employee intelligence. More than discussing about the Knowledge Management and the way of implementing it, the idea of Bouygues Telecom is to define and develop short and practical KM projects. But research into the solutions available at that time proved disappointing. They were difficult to implement, hard to manage and far too expensive. So the company issued an invitation to tender. Following careful research of the market, Microsoft’s SharePoint Portal Server solution was selected because it is easy to implement and flexible enough to meet the various requirements of the Bouygues Telecom business. Described as a single knowledge portal, SharePoint Portal Server is based on a document management server which enables organizations to manage all of the workflow processes associated with the publication of documents and to share them in dedicated spaces. Speed to market was also essential.

Bouygues Telecom defined a brief which specified that completion of the first project should not exceed three months.

In order to meet this challenging schedule, Bouygues called on Valtech, a company specialising in management consulting and enterprise IT. Valtech was chosen because the project required the rapid delivery of effective knowledge management solutions and its experience in this field is well established. In just a few months, the company has implemented four knowledge management systems that are enabling the organisation to leverage and extend its current IT systems and infrastructure.

SAP best practice

The pilot project – tested in north-east France – delivers support to one hundred staff using SAP. The aim of the project was to provide online assistance to end-users and ensure that they could share best practice of this solutions. The knowledge base manages the publication and the classification of documents and provides users with a single knowledge portal. Users can add their own advices and experiences relating to SAP via their browser. Results were immediate and impressive. Users need immediate and accurate information to get the most out of this relatively complex software and make a real contribution to the bottom line. The knowledge base has helped Bouygues Telecom to leverage and extend the value of its SAP investment.

Knowledge management in a technical reference system

Initially designed for maintenance technicians from the same region, the second project involved about thirty people in its pilot phase before being extended to a further 200 staff. It gives technicians online access to a company knowledge base of technical information. Technicians frequently work on site. From their portable computers, they can connect to the technical knowledge base on the portal and access technical files and recommendations made by their colleagues in similar situations. If a file is not 100 per cent relevant, they can improve it and make their expertise available to others.

In a matter of months, Bouygues Telecom has built a comprehensive online library of technical knowledge. Technicians now have rapid, real-time access to the sum total of the company’s expertise. It is also highly versatile. Technicians can search the knowledge base according to various criteria including full text, and their specific areas of interest. End-user feedback is also extremely positive. Technicians now have all the information they need to make better decisions more rapidly than ever before. Before the portal they spent far too much time searching for right person with the right information – now all they need to do is look on the web. They can resolve networking issues quickly and with minimum fuss helping the company to further increase the overall quality of customer service.

Using knowledge management to innovate information systems

CPS (Computer Planning Strategy) Division is responsible for researching new technology and then ensuring rapid implementation of the solutions that best support the company’s business objectives. It was formed to track and research new technologies and then validate them before they go live in any part of the business. The knowledge base was used for accelerating the movement of new technology from the CPS management to operational divisions. All technical documents are classified, and each event in the knowledge base can be traced. No time is wasted searching for documents and the CPS can make full use of acquired knowledge to develop innovative new information system strategies.

Keeping track of new technologies

The success of the CPS project has generated interest in additional knowledge management solutions. The CPS team and operational management would like to access a knowledge base on the latest technological developments. Such a tool is to help them collect and validate new information and leverage knowledge.

Like the earlier projects, it will only take a few weeks to complete. Bouygues Telecom has overcome the main obstacle to knowledge management success – end user resistance with a light use of change management. By setting up focused, effective projects that deliver impressive and immediate results, Bouygues Telecom has managed to make its knowledge management vision reality.

3. The best approach for implementing Knowledge Management

In the Knowledge Management as in many other subjects there are two kinds of approach : top down and bottom up. The top down approach of the Knowledge Management is currently defined as an approach with two main objectives : identifying the whole knowledge management needs of a company, defining the knowledge bases for covering these needs and establishing a portfolio of projects for implementing the knowledge bases.

It‘s a study in a strategic and general management point of view, not an implementation approach. On the other way, the bottom up approach of the Knowledge Management is an implementation approach. It’s positioned as an incremental deployment of the Knowledge Management and focalised on unit realisation of knowledge base. With this approach, the job is registering and qualifying the needs for knowledge bases rose from the ground floor. To qualify the needs Valtech usually integrate all the aspects of the implementation of a knowledge base : Return on investment, Process, Modelisation, Information System, Human Resources, Change Management and Organisational Learning Actually, implementing the top down approach is impossible for a company without any practical experience in Knowledge Management. If the company doesn’t have any operational knowledge base, the Knowledge Management still stay a concept. Like Bouygues Telecom did, the best approach for implementing Knowledge Management, can be split in the major following steps:

• Identify needs for a Knowledge Management application

• Qualify the opportunity of realising a knowledge base

• Define the knowledge base

• Implement the knowledge base

• Develop a focused change management

• Obtain a practical success

This approach has to be reproduced until the company has implemented with success a sufficient number of knowledge bases. At this time, the company can introduce the top down approach.

4. Key Points for implementing Knowledge Management

• Focalise efforts on results not on concepts

• For the beginning of the KM implementation in your company start by the ground floor

• Define value added KM projects

• Identify measurable and non measurable gains to obtain by projects

• Choose a tool easy to implement and use which can readily meet all the company’s professional Requirements

• Obtain staff adhesion by a good utilisation of change management

• Design, develop and implement the projects quickly

mini case 4 : CNA

CNA Financial Corporation (NYSE: CNA) is a financial corporation based in Chicago, Illinois, United States, and noted for its 600-foot (180 m) tall red headquarters building, CNA Center. Its principal subsidiary, Continental Casualty Company (CCC) was founded in 1897. CNA celebrated its centennial in 1997. CNA (the parent company) was incorporated in 1967.

Continental Assurance Company of North America was founded in Detroit in 1897. The purpose of the company was to provide accident and health insurance to railroad industry employees. This company then merged with the Metropolitan Accident Company, changed its name to the Continental Casualty Company, and moved to Chicago.

The National Fire Insurance Company was acquired in 1956, and in the 1963 the American Casualty Company was acquired. The first letters of each of the original companies were merged to form the acronym CNA. It was then referred to as the Continental National American Group, now it simply goes by CNA.

On January 1, 2004, CNA sold its Group Benefits division to The Hartford, based in Hartford, Connecticut. The Hartford merged its new purchase with its own Group Benefits Division. With the sale of this division came the end of CNA’s long history as a multi line insurer.

The primary business focus of CNA is to provide commercial property and casualty insurance to businesses and professionals. CNA markets its products and services primarily through independent agents and brokers.

CNA itself is 89% owned by a holding company, Loews. This holding company also has interests in, offshore oil and gas drilling rigs, natural gas transmission pipelines, tobacco, and in hotel operations.

FOR GORDON LARSON, telling stories is all in a day’s work at his job as chief knowledge officer at CNA, and that’s just fine with executives at the Chicago-based insurance giant.

Larson owes his job to a shift in corporate direction. Three years ago, under the direction of a new chairman, CNA set off on a new mission. The ultimate goal, says Karen Foley, CNA’s executive vice president of corporate development, was “to get out of the distribution business and become a great underwriting company.” And in order to do that, the company had to become more informed about the industries and customers it served.

But CNA’s traditional structure of 35 separate strategic business units made sharing internal information among employees nearly impossible. A single customer seeking answers to different insurance needs might be passed along to a variety of departments.

CNA knew it had to create one uniform face to customers, and that meant it had to reeducate its employees. Branch offices would have to be consolidated to facilitate closer working relationships among staff teams. Most important of all, CNA had to equip its employees—many of whom had focused solely on niche markets—with the much broader knowledge of all the company’s products. To do that, CNA set about building a Web-based knowledge network that captures the expertise of its employees. And it’s that expertise that Larson uses as the fodder for his “knowledge” stories.

KM PROBLEM

To facilitate knowledge sharing and collaboration among employees in support of a new corporate strategy to provide one face to customers

A Strategy in Search of a Solution

In 1999, a team of CNA executives evaluated the feasibility of becoming a “great underwriting company,” and what they found wasn’t pretty. In North America, 175 branch offices supported CNA’s 35 business units. In order to create a single face for customers, the executives decided to reorganize the company’s business into three major areas: property casualty, life and group benefits, and reinsurance. By December 2001, the trio of new business units was established. CNA is still consolidating its field operations into 75 offices organized round five geographic regions, and that process is expected tobe complete by early next year.

Along with the physical reorganization, the very nature of what employees did had to change as well. “Just by reorganizing, we wouldn’t get people to change how they think and work with other people,” Larson says. “Moving from a decentralized culture to a collaborative one is a major change-management challenge.”

As the new “single face” of the company, each employee had to cede narrow product and market expertise to  gain general knowledge of the company’s entire product portfolio. In the past, a CNA small business customer that wanted additional coverage in the international arena would have to contact another underwriter and complete separate applications. With the new CNA, such customers would get all their needs met through one representative. “We needed to give the frontline underwriter the ability to appear like an expert for a variety of products,” Larson says.

But how to make instant experts out of the staff? CNA’s offerings include hundreds of products in more than 900 industry segments for both businesses and individuals, and in-depth knowledge was dispersed among 15,000 employees. The company had to figure out how to make the collective expertise of so many employees readily available to anyone, when and where it was needed. And it would have to do so in a way that didn’t crimp individual work styles or create undue burdens on employees looking for information. Larson knew the company would have to “make it easy for any individual to have access topeople within CNA who had answers and information.” Even if that staff was geographically dispersed. Then Larson hit upon the idea of an expert locator system, software that allows employees to post questions and give answers via the Internet or an intranet.

Working with consultants from Cap Gemini Ernst & Young, a team of CNA managers spent the end of 2000 evaluating numerous expert location software products. In late 2000, the team chose AskMe Enterprise software from AskMe Corp. of Seattle. Factors in AskMe’s favor included software that was scalable and capable of being integrated with Microsoft Outlook (already used by the company’s employees), which meant a quick implementation. In February 2001, Bob James, CNA executive vice president of the technology and operations group, spearheaded a team of consultants from AskMe’s professional services group to customize the software and create a small pilot project of 500 employees. The system, which CNA calls the knowledge network, has since been rolled out companywide and is being actively used by 4,000 employees. Now if a CNA employee needs someone with underwriting

experience in the inland marine industry, for example, he can type in a query and other employees are notified via e-mail that a question in their area of expertise has been posted. When employees answer questions, the software automatically adds to the archive, which eliminates the headache of answering the same question over and over again. Employees who have identified themselves as subject experts are known as knowledge sources. “Our knowledge network is a high-tech, geographically neutral watercooler that enables access to thousands of people,” says James.

A New Role, A New Message

Larson, a 20-year veteran of the insurance industry and CNA employee since 1995, didn’t officially join CNA’s knowledge management effort until four months after the pilot launch of the expert locator system. Back then, Larson was working with Foley in the corporate development department on efforts to bring together CNA’s various products and expertise in professional liability and standard property casualty. “It was hard to bring our internal expertise to our customers because each business unit had separate channels and distribution,” Larson says. Given his prior experience in cross-marketing and in getting employees in different units to collaborate, he was very interested in taking a key role in CNA’s new strategic direction. In June 2001, Foley formalized a leadership role around knowledge management, and Larson assumed the helm of a four-person team dedicated to promoting KM.

As Larson sees it, implementing KM represented a significant cultural change at CNA, where employees traditionally didn’t collaborate with one another. For Foley, creating a KM department under the corporate development umbrella was a nod from management to the importance of knowledge sharing. “Our KM sits in corporate development for a specific reason,” she says. “We chose not to put KM under technology because we don’t want it viewed as a piece of technology. We chose not to put it in HR because it’s not a training program. For us, KM involves brand development, research and employee communication.”

Daniel Wright, AskMe’s vice president of professional services, who consulted with James on implementing the knowledge network, says that CNA’s establishment of a high-profile chief knowledge officer (CKO) role in conjunction with rolling out a KM system is part of an increasing trend. “Having a CKO not only shows commitment from the executive team, but it helps create accountability,” he says. “Leaders within an organization have to drive adoption of knowledge-based networks in order for them to be effective.”

That’s not to say that Larson has had it easy simply because he now wears an official CKO mantle. He is quick to admit that creating an environment receptive to knowledge sharing came at a particularly problematic time. When CNA announced its

reorganization plans, the inevitable rumors of layoffs and restructuring that resulted sent nervous vibes throughout the company. “Getting traction for the knowledge network in the second half of last year was difficult,” Larson concedes. “We were reorganizing the company into three major business units, there was a great amount of organizational turmoil, and employees were not sure of their roles or where they would fit in the new structure.” However, now that the reorganization is complete, organizational roles have been clarified. “There’s now a clear understanding of the importance of collaboration and knowledge sharing because the knowledge network is aligned with our corporate strategy,” Larson says. For their part, employees are now clearer about their roles, responsibilities and accountabilities, and Larson has seen a groundswell of interest in the knowledge network as a result.

Telling Tales

Much of that interest in the knowledge network is attributable toLarson’s message and the way he has chosen to deliver it. He has hammered home to employees and CNA’s leadership alike the connection between presenting one face to the customer and shared knowledge. Larson has done that by telling stories about how sharing knowledge has helped employees on the job. He highlights individual success stories and publicizes them on CNA’s intranet via a newsletter called Inside Scoop that’s pushed to employees’ desktops. As of April, Larson was in the process of recruiting so-called knowledge champions in about 20 functional areas throughout the company who will be responsible for collecting stories and passing them his way. “Storytelling is a helpful way for people to understand the role of the network,” he says. “I highlight some of the ways using the network has helped us land new business or avoid unnecessary costs.”

The case of Donald Schwanke is a perfect example. A claims consultant in commercial insurance from Syracuse, N.Y., Schwanke received a claim from Canada in February 2001 that involved a lawsuit relating to alleged abuses that took place between 1953 and 1962. Included with the claim was a policy written through Continental Insurance, which had merged with CNA. Canada would not allow any statute of limitation defense—making this, potentially, CNA’s responsibility. However, some of Schwanke’s colleagues, former employees of Continental, recalled that all the Canadian policies had been sold following the merger. Schwanke needed to find out if the policy in question was among those sold and if so, which company had purchased it.

Schwanke turned to the CNA knowledge network, where he posted his question. His answer came the next day from an executive in a different business line who pointed Schwanke to a Canadian insurance company that had indeed purchased the policy. Schwanke was then able to notify the party who’d sent the claim of the correct insurer. According to Larson, the end result was Schwanke saving hours researching the issue—and CNA was spared settling a potentially very expensive claim.

The KM Road Show

Larson spent last winter and early spring reorganizing the categories on the knowledge network to better reflect CNA’s new strategy and the roles of employees. For example, within the underwriting group, Larson is organizing content into casualty, property and specialty categories to capitalize on internal expertise. In the process, Larson is also recruiting new knowledge sources to populate the categories with information. To get out the word about the new knowledge network, Larson and his KM team took their message on the road this summer by visiting CNA’s field offices and offering a hands-on introduction. In addition to gathering feedback from employees about the knowledge network and its relevancy to their job, Larson gathered more stories to share. To demonstrate the value of the knowledge network in the future, Larson wants to incorporate a more formal metrics process through regular employee surveys.

Despite high-level executive support for the knowledge network in particular and knowledge management in general, Foley remains circumspect about KM’s ability to completely transform CNA. “We’re excited about the [KM] initiative, but we’ve  come to understand that people and paper are still important,” she says. James is a bit more enthusiastic. “The idea of using technology to connect people in a knowledge network is a very interesting one for corporations with a lot of intellectual talent geographically dispersed,” he says. “Where it’s difficult to get to know your colleagues, these networks can really help collaboration efforts.” For Larson, the end result is the power of collective knowledge. “With the network,” he says, “we have the tremendous capability to deliver the expertise of thousands of people to our customers.”

mini case 3 : Cisco

A VisionCor CASE STUDY

KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT

Cisco Systems

Service & Support Advocacy

Cisco Systems, Inc. is a multinational corporation with more than 66,000 employees and annual revenue of US$39 billion as of 2008. Headquartered in San Jose, California, it designs and sells networking and communications technology and services.

Cisco’s stock was added to the Dow Jones Industrial Average on June 8, 2009. It replaced General Motors which has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

The Client

As the leading supplier of high-performance internetworking products, Cisco provides the infrastructure for the Internet. With over 40,000 employees and record growth, the need for quick and easy access to information is vital to Cisco’s ongoing success To manage costs and practice what they preach, Cisco runs a significant amount of internal operations on their corporate intranet. While this technology is very useful in many areas, its role in customer support is critical.

The Challenge

Exemplary customer service ranks high in the minds of Cisco employees—starting at the top. John Chambers, CEO, spends up to 40% of his time listening to customers and personally reviewing all critical accounts every night. Cisco created the Service & Support Manager (SSM) role to provide a single point-of-contact for large clients. This one-to-one relationship gives customers a resource that understands and even anticipates their needs—a role that benefits both Cisco and the customer. With the goal of hiring 250 Service & Support Managers in a period of 18 months, Cisco needed to minimize their time-to-proficiency by providing new SSMs immediate access to critical information as well as orientation and reference information. Cisco also needed to leverage the expertise of their more experienced SSMs by capturing and sharing their knowledge. Finally, vital to their success was fast and easy access to all of this information.

The Business Objectives

Minimize time-to-proficiency. Orient new SSMs within 90 days of hire date by providing just enough of the right information about Cisco, the Customer Advocacy organization, and the SSM role in order for SSMs to become productive as soon as possible.

Maximize performance and sharing of knowledge assets.

Provide information specific to the SSM role, such as how other SSMs handled certain customer situations, goal setting, and advice on when and how to engage other departments within Cisco.

Foster ongoing learning and communication. Provide a communication vehicle within Cisco’s geographically diverse work environment for sharing information and experiences with other team members.

Why VisionCor

For Cisco, an Internet-centered company, a web-based resource was essential. Todd Griffin, SSA Senior Manager, wanted a partner with experience researching, analyzing, and organizing complex environments. “There are plenty of Internet consulting firms out there today, but we needed a partner with real knowledge management expertise and a proven methodology,” says Griffin. “VisionCor understands how to determine what information to gather or build and how to organize the information so it is truly useful. They did it more quickly than we thought possible. Rapid solution development is vital to a company like Cisco—we need resources that can help us continue to grow at a rapid pace. This solution does just that, and we could not have done it without VisionCor.”

The Integrated Knowledge ArchitectureTM

The Integrated Knowledge ArchitectureTM (IKA) is VisionCor’s innovative approach to creating highly accessible and usable information resources to support business operations. The IKA is a proven, object-oriented approach to organizing content based on how the content is used. The IKA provides a guide for organizing information, learning, and knowledge into smaller pieces called knowledge objects and building meaningful relationships between these objects. As a result, the end user can more quickly and easily locate the critical information needed to improve productivity and performance. The IKA is technology-neutral and can be used to leverage the capabilities of any portal or web-based KM application.

The Solution

VisionCor assigned a team of consultants that included expert content developers, information architects, and a project manager. The team used VisionCor’s project management methodology to develop a project plan. Status reports, project schedules, and conference calls kept the VisionCor team in Charlotte in synch with the Cisco teams in San Jose, Chicago, New York, and Research Triangle Park. After a complete project and role analysis, the project was divided into three distinct phases:

Quick Hits. With new hires already in place and looking for direction, there was an immediate need for a 90-day new hire roadmap. Through interviews with existing SSMs and managers, the VisionCor team gathered, analyzed and organized the events and tasks required for a new SSM. Within 30 days, the most important new hire information was made available.

Initial Development. Because the SSM role was a new and highly strategic one within Cisco, the VisionCor team conducted numerous interviews to assist in building consensus within the company on some of the aspects of the SSM role. As a result of this consensus, VisionCor built an overall site map and detailed content plan. The site look and feel was designed based on content, audience analysis, and the existing intranet. Information was then converted into web format. With site navigation, graphics, and an initial content in place, VisionCor conducted usability tests to ensure intuitive site structure and meaningful content. Experienced SSMs tested specific scenarios to ensure maximized usability.

Core Development. With the initial content in place and tested, development and coding of the site content began. To confirm the team was still on target, the SSM role was reanalyzed and content categorization was checked based on lessons learned to date. The remaining content was gathered, developed, and coded, with additional interviews conducted as necessary. The site was again retested. In addition to providing feedback, the usability tests also assisted in user acceptance of the site. User acceptance is vital to the success of any knowledge management initiative.

The Results

The Service & Support Advocacy intranet site was very well received within the SSM organization. “This web site is such a great resource,” says Mike Pusich, SSM for Boeing. “Everything I need is in one place. I can find what I need when I need it without having to wait on an e-mail reply, walk around looking for someone, or search through gigs of information on the intranet. Plus, after working through difficult situations, I can post my lessons learned on the site so my colleagues can learn from my experiences.” “I’m a new SSM, and this web site is a gold mine of information,” says Rob Dacey, SSM for GM. “It guided me through my first 90 days, helped me build a support team, and introduced me to other SSMs. Now I’m using it to define my objectives. Basically, this site just makes my job easier and gives me more time to focus on servicing my customer.” Today, Cisco is working with VisionCor to leverage the knowledge and benefits gained from the SSM project into other areas of their organization. Record-breaking growth and razor-sharp focus on customer satisfaction could be chaotic, but the focus of VisionCor’s knowledge management expertise coupled with Cisco’s commitment to customer satisfaction turned Cisco’s information overload into knowledgeon – demand.

About VisionCor

VisionCor is a 12 year-old, consulting firm based in Charlotte, North Carolina dedicated to helping companies provide their employees with the information, education, and knowledge that they need to work smarter, faster. VisionCor focuses on creative highly accessible and usable information, education, and knowledge management resources including learning and knowledge portals, training, and performance support applications. VisionCor has worked with many leading organizations such as Bank of America, Cisco Systems, and Wachovia Corporation. VisionCor experts are frequently invited to speak at national knowledge management and e-learning conferences. For more information, visit their website at www.visioncor.com.

mini case 2 : Siemens

Siemens AG is Europe’s largest engineering conglomerate.^[3] Siemens’ international headquarters are located in Berlin and Munich, Germany. The company is a conglomerate of three main business sectors: Industry, Energy and Healthcare with a total of 15 Divisions.

Worldwide, Siemens and its subsidiaries employ approximately 480,000^[4] people in nearly 190 countries and reported global revenue of $110.82 billion as of 2008. Siemens AG is listed on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange, and has been listed on the New York Stock Exchange since March 12, 2001.

History

Siemens was founded by Werner von Siemens on 12 October, 1847. Based on the telegraph, his invention used a needle to point to the sequence of letters, instead of using Morse code. The company – then called Telegraphen-Bauanstalt von Siemens & Halske – opened its first workshop on October 12.

In 1848, the company built the first long-distance telegraph line in Europe; 500 km from Berlin to Frankfurt am Main. In 1850 the founder’s younger brother, Sir William Siemens (born Carl Wilhelm Siemens), started to represent the company in London. In the 1850s, the company was involved in building long distance telegraph networks in Russia. In 1855, a company branch headed by another brother, Carl von Siemens, opened in St Petersburg, Russia. In 1867, Siemens completed the monumental Indo-European (Calcutta to London) telegraph line.^[5]

In 1881, a Siemens AC Alternator driven by a watermill was used to power the world’s first electric street lighting in the town of Godalming, United Kingdom. The company continued to grow and diversified into electric trains and light bulbs. In 1890, the founder retired and left the company to his brother Carl and sons Arnold and Wilhelm. Siemens & Halske (S&H) was incorporated in 1897. In 1907 Siemens had 34,324 employees and was the seventh-largest company in the German empire by number of employees.^[6]

In 1919, S&H and two other companies jointly formed the Osram lightbulb company. A Japanese subsidiary was established in 1923.

During the 1920s and 1930s, S&H started to manufacture radios, television sets, and electron microscopes.

Sharing the Wealth

How Siemens is using knowledge management to pool the expertise of all its workers

In July, 1999, about 60 managers in Siemens’ telecommunications division (SMAWY ) were deposited on the shores of Lake Starnberger, 12 miles south of Munich, and told to build rafts. All they had to work with were steel drums, logs, pontoons, and some rope. Another catch: No talking. The managers, who gathered from offices around the world, could only scribble messages and diagrams on a flip chart. For the better part of a day, it was knowledge-sharing at its most basic. Yet the group managed to put together a small fleet of rafts, which they paddled about triumphantly on the placid waters of the lake.

Okay, Survivor it ain’t. But the exercise has its own can-do lessons for companies trying to find a competitive edge in a slowing economy. The raft confab showed managers just how vital sharing information can be. It was organized by Joachim Döring, a Siemens vice-president in charge of creating a high-tech solution to the age-old problem of getting employees to stop hoarding their knowhow. His grand plan: Use the Internet to spread the knowledge of 461,000 co-workers around the globe so that people could build off one another’s expertise. “People who give up knowhow get knowhow back,” says Döring, a hyperactive 31-year-old who likes to spend his free time skydiving.

At the heart of his vision is a Web site called ShareNet. The site combines elements of a chat room, a database, and a search engine. An online entry form lets employees store information they think might be useful to colleagues–anything from a description of a successful project to a PowerPoint presentation. Other Siemens workers can search or browse by topic, then contact the authors via e-mail for more information.

So far, the payoff has been a dandy: Since its inception in April, 1999, ShareNet has been put to the test by nearly 12,000 salespeople in Siemens’ $10.5 billion Information & Communications Networks Group, which provides telecom equipment and services. The tool, which cost only $7.8 million, has added $122 million in sales. For example, it was crucial to landing a $3 million contract to build a pilot broadband network for Telekom Malaysia. The local salespeople did not have enough expertise to put together a proposal, but through ShareNet they discovered a team in Denmark that had done a nearly identical project. Using the Denmark group’s expertise, the Malaysia team won the job.

Better yet, the system lets staffers post an alert when they need help fast. In Switzerland, Siemens won a $460,000 contract to build a telecommunications network for two hospitals even though its bid was 30% higher than a competitor’s. The clincher: Via ShareNet, colleagues in the Netherlands provided technical data to help the sales rep prove that Siemens’ system would be substantially more reliable.

ShareNet is a case study in knowledge-management systems, which are gaining a foothold in corporations around the world. Advocates preach that the collective expertise of workers is a company’s most precious resource, so executives need to tear down the walls between departments and individuals. By using the Net, companies can quickly and easily unlock the profit potential of the knowledge tucked away in the brains of their best employees. While only 6% of global corporations now have company-wide, knowledge-management programs, that will surge to 60% in five years, according to a 2000 survey by the Conference Board. Among the early birds: Chevron (CHV ), Johnson & Johnson (JNJ ), Royal Dutch/Shell (RD ), Ford Motor (F ), and Whirlpool (WHR ).

Siemens’ project has become something of a poster child. For the past two years, it has been voted “best practice” by members of the American Productivity & Quality Center, a Houston-based industry group with more than 400 member organizations. “They’ve accomplished a whole lot more as compared to any other organization,” says Farida Hasanali, a project leader for the center. Companies, including Intel (INTC ), Philips, and Volkswagen (VLKAY ) studied ShareNet before setting up their own knowledge systems.

Siemens has had little choice but to lead the parade. The $73 billion conglomerate, which makes everything from X-ray machines to high-speed trains, is under intense pressure because of uncertainty about the global economy and shrinking profit margins. Some analysts believe it may have to sell off chunks of its empire, perhaps divesting slower-growing industrial units such as power plants and focusing on tech businesses like telecom and medical technology.

Boot Camp. That’s a path Chief Executive Heinrich von Pierer rejects. He is trying to prove big can work–and might even be an advantage in the Information Age. The CEO wants to take the ShareNet approach beyond the telecom unit to every nook and cranny of the Siemens empire. Next up: people who service telecom equipment and scientists in research and development.

Siemens already has staged a ShareNet boot camp for telecom service people and started rolling out the system. So far, a few hundred of the staff of 10,000 are online. “The only rationale for these businesses staying together is if they share their knowledge,” says Thomas Davenport, director of the Institute for Strategic Change at Accenture, formerly Andersen Consulting. Davenport has worked as a consultant to Siemens and is co-author of an in-house textbook on the company’s knowledge-management programs. Siemens may even set up specially tailored ShareNets to give customers direct access to its knowledge storehouse. Döring and his team plan to start small in a few months with an experimental ShareNet involving a few select customers. The puzzle, which Siemens is working on, is how to protect customers’ confidential information. If the system works, customers should get quicker access to technical info, and Siemens hopes the online dialogue will lead to the development of better products.

Even though the advantages are clear, getting employees to change their ways and share is the toughest obstacle to overcome. “You have to go in and change processes around. It takes a lot of time,” says Greg Dyer, a senior research analyst of knowledge management services at IDC. Siemens has tackled this problem through a three-pronged effort. It has anointed 100 internal evangelists drawn from all its country units, who are responsible for training, answering questions, and monitoring the system. Siemens’ top management has shown that it’s behind the projects. And the company is providing incentives to overcome employees’ resistance to change.

Delicate balance. Siemens uses the carrot and the stick. Managers get bonuses if they use ShareNet and generate additional sales. But CEOs and CFOs of the company’s country business units can’t collect all their performance-linked bonuses unless they demonstrate that they either gave information over ShareNet or borrowed information from it to build sales. Employees get prizes such as trips to professional conferences if they contribute knowledge that proves valuable to someone else. That may not sound like much, unless you’re a salesperson in Bombay and the conference is in New York. But the real incentive is much more basic. Commission-driven salespeople have learned that drawing on the expertise of their far-flung colleagues can be crucial in winning lucrative contracts. “They realize very soon that people using ShareNet have an advantage, and that convinces them to join the club,” says Roland Koch, CEO of Siemens’ telecom unit.

Now comes the hard part. What’s the incentive for someone in R&D or marketing to use the system? They’ll contribute as long as ShareNet provides useful information in a convenient way. But that depends on a delicate balance between giving and getting, says Döring. People need to believe that if they reveal precious secrets, others will too. “As it gets bigger and bigger, there’s a danger you’ll lose that trust,” acknowledges Döring. Servicepeople will continue to log on if they learn new tricks of the trade. R&D people will join if the system helps them develop new products faster.

One challenge is spreading the ShareNet idea around the company without creating an unwieldy monster. Siemens is loath to restrict access or exert too much control over how employees use it. But some restrictions are necessary to keep ShareNets from getting so overloaded with information they become useless. Siemens employs teams of people that keep an eye on ShareNet content and weed out the trivial or irrelevant. It’s not enough to create groovy software. The system has to serve up the best ideas in digestible bites that help people do their jobs better.

mini case 1: Viant

Viant Inc. was a San Francisco-based Internet consulting firm, founded in April 1996, that became one of the most successful web consulting firms during the early stages of the Internet era.

The company was founded by Eric Greenberg, Duc Haba, Dwayne Nesmith, and Robbie Vann-Adibé as Silicon Valley Internet Partners (SVIP).

It was one of the first consulting firms to attempt to integrate the disparate disciplines of strategy, creativeness, and technology into a single value proposition and project approach. Such blended multi-disciplinary approaches have since become common.

With investment from Mohr Davidow Ventures, Trident Capital, and Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers, SVIP grew rapidly.

Robert Gett, from Cambridge Technology Partners, was recruited in mid-1996 in be the CEO. At this point, SVIP corporate functions moved to Boston, Massachusetts. Greenberg left the company in early 1997, and subsequently founded Scient.

SVIP changed its name to Viant in the spring of 1998 after paying a naming firm thousands of dollars. After a company-wide vote, Robert Gett chose the name Viant. Its San Francisco Bay Area offices relocated in 1998 to the South of Market area in San Francisco.

Practical Aspects of Knowledge Management

Knowing what knowledge is

Lately I’ve been monitoring some heated discussions in an online community dedicated to Knowledge Management (KM), and while it’s fascinating, I’m a bit out of step with the group’s comments and concerns. Much of the energy and debate seems focused on defining Knowledge Management, on what ”knowing” and ”knowledge” are, and how to build a case with senior management for launching a KM initiative in a large company. Interesting topics, but most of the concerns seem awfully academic. Some participants are so consumed with the issue itself that they’re missing the fact that many companies already accept that effective KM is crucial to their success – they just want to figure out what to do and how to do it, and fast. Here I offer not a general answer or one suitable for any particular organization, but rather a short case study describing a set of principles and observations drawn from our experiences at Viant, where we are aggressively experimenting with and adapting our Knowledge Management processes as we build our company.

Conditions required for the success of KM

Before getting into some of the practical aspects of KM, I propose the following initial and ideal organizational conditions, which can help KM take root and flourish. For medium to large companies that have been in existence for years, changing the mindset and habits of hundreds or thousands of employees to create this environment may well be the toughest hurdle. Any company that can start fresh, writing new rules and building a culture that supports KM, has a distinct advantage in this area. Either way, for a KM initiative to be successful, employees must have the motivation to participate, access to adequate training when necessary, feel a sense of security in sharing their knowledge, and get some form of reward for doing so. When the goals of individuals are aligned with those of the company, people adopt behaviors that are consistent with those required for the success of KM.

Conditions at Viant that make KM necessary

Founded in 1996, Viant is a professional services firm that helps companies build digital business strategies, brands, operations, and implementations in the I*Net space. Our founders had some lofty goals about openness, sharing, and lack of rigid hierarchy – a tall order, but not too hard to achieve in a company with 50 people in two offices. Now, with more than 400 employees in eight offices from Los Angeles to London, Viant is moving away a bit from the ”start-up mentality,” but is still focused on preserving an environment that remains conducive to KM. Truth is, it’s more important now than ever before, and it will become increasingly valuable as we grow. To deliver value to clients, Viant brings together a range of skills and backgrounds to address the needs of companies ranging from Fortune 1000 to still-need-a-business-plan startups. Employees who may have never met are working on similar projects or encountering similar problems. They need facilities for recording and locating explicit knowledge assets, allowing reuse of materials that may contribute to the completion of their projects. They also need the ability to locate and interact with experts and interested parties, sharing tacit knowledge in collaborative communities. Clearly, there’s a lot of KM ground to cover.

Conditions at Viant that make KM a reality

To make KM work at Viant, we start with the directive stated above: aligning the goals of individuals with those of the company. Our corporate goals include rapid but stable growth, while continuing to perform innovative and challenging work that meets or exceeds all client expectations. These goals cover both motivation and reward. They resound with employees, who want to do the most interesting work possible, as well as build a successful firm that can, and will, contribute to their own financial goals. All Viant employees receive stock options upon joining, making each of us a shareholder.

Security comes from the understanding that knowledge sharing presents no risk to our job or our chances to pursue the path we find most satisfying. Again, the founding principles of openness and sharing, and the absence of a rigid hierarchy – actively preserved as we have grown – make this kind of security possible. And in fact, security is tied to reward – sharing knowledge and experience is actively encouraged, and Viant rewards performance and growth in the form of public recognition and direct compensation. Performance is defined as an individual’s direct contribution to the success of client projects; growth encompasses demonstrable personal skill growth, role growth, and the individual’s contribution to the growth of the firm.

Finally, all employees start their Viant careers with a mandatory training program we call QuickStart. Held monthly in our Boston headquarters, new hires from all offices spend three weeks together, learning about Viant’s culture and norms, the processes that guide our work, and the infrastructure and systems that support us. This training comes together in week three of the program, with small team projects that replicate our project environment. When QuickStarters return to their home offices, a support structure is made available to them in the form of KM specialists, or Project Catalysts, who provide ongoing help and assistance in the correct application of process and the best use of the systems and tools at hand.

Additional training, delivered in-house, on-line, or in classrooms outside the company, remains available to all employees throughout our time at Viant. Training, too, is tied to reward: two-thirds of Viant’s recognition and compensation program is based on growth and learning. All of these cultural norms and programs create an ongoing motivation to participate in KM for the ”greater good.”

Incidentally, there’s also the matter of technology infrastructure. Serving clients’ needs in the Internet space has also helped us think through our own needs to build a robust and pervasive infrastructure that supports all Viant employees in all offices. As a result, individuals and teams have access to the full knowledge and resources of the firm from any Viant office worldwide. Connected by high-speed lines, we share a common email system and an Intranet that provides staff and revenue reporting, project collaboration, document sharing and categorization, plus index and search capabilities.

Where to begin?

To launch a KM initiative in your organization, start by considering the four primary cultural factors: motivation, security, reward, and training. What can you do to promote these? Stating the explicit goals for your KM initiative and some success metrics to measure performance against those goals is important for management buy-in. No matter what the goals might be, success will require that some individuals put something into the initiative to get it going, without receiving any direct immediate benefit. This calls for the dedication of ”true believers,” or maybe someone willing to make that their job responsibility for a while – it takes time to define and put in place the processes.

Once you figure out a plan to capture and categorize explicit knowledge, or facilitate the creation of communities to share tacit knowledge, you can pilot a program with a minimal amount of funding and technology infrastructure. You may even have spare capacity on some systems where you can embark on your efforts without much expense. To recap: when developing a KM program, consider cultural factors, define goals for success, lead with process, and let technology follow once you know what you really want.

Define goals and success metrics

Goals can take many forms. For some companies, the primary goal of a KM initiative might be to make more of the tacit, or ”unspoken,” knowledge in the organization explicit, and then create mechanisms to share it.

Others may choose to ignore recording and categorizing explicit knowledge, preferring to create opportunities for direct collaboration where knowledge seekers locate experts to interact directly, even if those interactions go unrecorded and not made explicit.

The goals of Viant’s KM program are simple, and defined with a focus on project teams: to improve the efficiency, repeatability, and consistency of those executing client work. Even though all clients and their needs are unique, we encounter many patterns and similar elements in our work. That’s why we have placed emphasis on capturing and conveying explicit knowledge, both in the process of delivering client work, as codified in Viant’s Service Model, as well as in the artifacts required to complete that work, such as financial models, creative style guides, system architectures, source code, etc. Measuring success is a step that’s easy to skip, which isn’t fatal at first, but if you clearly define what you hope to get out of a KM initiative and create a way to actually measure it from the beginning, you’ll be much better off.

Remember that KM costs an organization in people, in time, in the ”extra” work it demands at the beginning (at least until critical mass is achieved), and in the financial investment required for hardware and software. Even in the most enthusiastic organizations -those that already believe in the value of KM – having some indicators to track and measure success over time are important to ongoing executive support and good employee participation.

Viant has three ways of measuring the success of our KM efforts: activity, investment, and effectiveness. The following are some of the areas to which we apply those measures. Core Knowledge represents generally accessible assets (documents, charts, graphics, papers, etc.) that have been identified as having the potential for broad reuse or reference. Core Knowledge assets are ”scrubbed” of any mention of specific clients, and may not contain real client data. Community Workspaces represent email list servers, threaded discussion groups, and shared document repositories that allow communities to form and collaborate around a specific topic. Directory Assets are those that usually have no intrinsic value, but organize, recommend, and direct people to other assets that may be used directly in their client work. (Note that Directory Assets themselves may be directly applicable to a team’s client work if the client is pursuing a KM initiative.)

Activity is measured monthly by analyzing information associated with KM system use, including:

• • Total number of Core Knowledge and Community Workspaces, and the number of newly created ones.
• • Number of accesses to KM Directory Assets.
• • Total number of documents classified as Core Knowledge, and the number of newly created ones.
• • Number of unique user accesses of Core Knowledge documents.
• • Total number of established, active communities (leader/moderator + collaboration space + activity).
• • Total number of collaborative Community Workspace sessions/threads conducted.
• • Total number of Viant experts accessed from other project teams via KM channels.
• • Total number of Project Catalyst interactions with project teams and communities.

Investment is measured monthly in total dollars allocated to salaries, hardware, software, and services, and in total person-weeks spent on KM activities such as training and knowledge capture. Each month, we analyze:

• • Total number and total salary of KM personnel.
• • Total spent on outside KM services/contractors.
• • Total capital investment for KM & Collaboration (hardware and software).
• • Total person-weeks allocated to dedicated training (QuickStart, classroom, online).
• • Total person-weeks spent by project teams in knowledge capture and making assets reusable.

Although the effectiveness of our KM program cannot be measured directly, it can be measured through a set of proxies. The items we track monthly include:

• • Percent of accesses to KM directory assets that lead to use of a project-related asset.
• • For completed projects, the percent of project deliverables derived from reused assets.

There are also several ”soft” factors that are more difficult to measure or to prove are the direct result of KM activities, but which we strongly believe are affected by it. These include enthusiasm and support by all employees for KM efforts, and the external image this helps Viant build with potential clients and investors. There may also be a correlation between KM activities and project profitability. We will look for these correlations; if we identify any, we may attempt to prove causality at that time.

Put processes in place

Once goals and metrics to gauge them are defined, carefully consider the processes that will work in your

organization. You’ll want to help create and advance a culture that supports KM (or a sub-culture if you’re starting at the departmental level). Not all KM practices require a lot of technology to support them, and many begin with little more than file sharing, list servers, and email capabilities. After all, the goal is get people to record and share knowledge, or to find each other and interact directly.

What you will need, however, are defined processes or channels, with effective owners or champions. There must be at least one person in the organization dedicated to driving your KM initiative, and bearing the responsibility for its success or failure; better still, a few people. Once they’re done defining it, they need to spend time ”selling” it – informing, inviting, cajoling, reminding, training, and challenging people to participate. If all goes well, enough people in the organization will buy in and become secondary agents.

Through their belief in the KM program and the benefits they receive from it, they will naturally and informally assist in propagating it, building support, and helping it to spread more rapidly. Within Viant, several groups participate in the processes that directly support KM. Each has a primary target audience they are meant to support. The Development & Learning group runs the QuickStart program, and organizes much of the subsequent training and direct mentoring available to all individuals. Regional Discipline Leaders help organize the technology, strategy, and creative communities by chairing periodic conference calls that we call Conduit Calls. These calls include a few key members of the community from each office, who then serve as conduits to report back to the rest of the local community. They also capture news and issues from the community and discuss them on the Conduit Call. The discipline leaders also track the needs of their communities in terms of best practices, emerging trends, and needs for training and resources. Finally, the Catalyst group concentrates on helping project teams execute efficiently by addressing their needs in the areas of tools, assets, processes, and knowledge.

Regional Project Catalysts support project teams by coaching them in best practices in our delivery process, helping them locate assets and expertise that is relevant to the work they are doing, and training them in the correct and complete use of the various systems available to them. Based on frequent interactions with many project teams, the Project Catalysts also publish a monthly report, which is distributed over the Intranet, describing best practices, lessons learned, and best-of-breed assets contributed by those teams.

All of the support roles described above are full time, meaning the people who perform them are not staffed to client work at the same time. Some people accept these support roles permanently, while others commit to the role for one year. In the latter case, these individuals have usually done client work prior to their rotation, and plan to return to it at the end of their tenure.

Add supporting technology

Finally, it’s time to think about the technology you will need to support the goals you’ve specified, the stakeholders you’ve chosen to support, and the way your organization works (or is willing to work). For example, if your goal is to capture and categorize explicit knowledge, you’ll need a document store, a database, an index & search engine, and a web server. Workflow support for document authoring and publishing may also be important. You’ll require a process to define a categorization hierarchy or nomenclature for documents, identify the best ones to capture, clean them up or convert their formats for publication if necessary, and categorize them. Ongoing processes will also be required to identify new documents that belong in the document store and categorize those. Note that this is somewhat process heavy, and may be seen as intrusive in some organizations.

As a result, some organizations choose paths they see as less intrusive. One example is the class of

email monitoring and analysis software. Such software analyzes the content of selected emails (which theoretically, people are already creating), and profiles employees’ areas of expertise and interests. Once profiles are built, employees can submit questions targeted at subject matter experts, or explicitly search for expertise. Many ”Big Brother” concerns surface in this area. However, depending on the specific product, only emails specified by the creator will be analyzed, and each

individual’s expertise profile will remain under their own control, hidden until that person chooses to expose it. Supporting technology here includes email servers, web servers, a database, and the expertise profiling software.

Another category of software deals with communities and collaboration. Rather than try to record assets or profile individuals, bring people together to share ideas and experiences. The mechanism by which the communities come together may be ignored by the supporting products, but real-time chat software, asynchronous threaded discussions, video conferencing, live document sharing, and whiteboarding can all contribute to compressing distances, reducing travel costs, and allowing idea sharing to flourish.

To provide end-users with a consistent and coherent experience that unites separate products, systems, and information stores, several vendors offer web portal products. These allow information to be united for display on a single screen in a web browser, as well as for search purposes, combined as a single logical source of data and information. For organizations that have a variety of legacy systems and sources of data – many that may have no web-based interfaces – this is an effective way to unlock, unify, and deliver a large amount of information that could not be accessed previously using pervasive and affordable technology. Viant has combined many of these elements in our Intranet system, and created some custom applications, as well.

For more than two years, we have been using a web-based enterprise document store that allows categorization and search, and supports secured access. Separate workspaces are organized for each project team, community, and area of corporate core knowledge. Corporate news and headlines are placed on the home page of the Intranet, keeping everyone informed about major events of broad interest. Several Resource Centers exist to help employees navigate through process- oriented areas or special topics. Through a separate system, employee information is available, with project staffing history and skill profiles. The professional resumes of all consultants are also available, and may be searched as well to locate subject matter experts. All employees may contact each other through email and live chat sessions, and may discuss topics of interest through threaded discussion groups and list servers.

Looking ahead

In the coming year, we will unite some of these capabilities behind a corporate portal, allowing personalization and customization so that each employee can combine the elements most important to them into a single view that best supports the way they prefer to work.

Dell in Globalized Economy

Pada bulan Juni 1987, Dell berspekulasi keluar dari Amerika Serikat untuk pertama kalinya dan mulai berbisnis di Inggris. Jurnalis dan para analis berspekulasi bahwa penjualan langsung kepada Pelanggan yang diterapkan Dell mungkin berguna secara efektif di Amerika Serikat, namun tidak di Eropa. Akan tetapi lebih dari 11 operasi internasional telah dibuka dalam periode tahun 1987 – 1991.

Pada tahun 1994, Dell memiliki banyak anak perusahaan internasional di 14 negara, dan menjual serta mendukung produk – produknya ke lebih dari 100 pasar melalui kesepakatan bermitra dengan distributor teknologi.

Tahun 1995, konstruksi dimulai di Asia Pasific Customer Centre (APCC) di Penang, Malaysia. Pada pertengahan tahun 1995, Dell membuka cabang kantornya di 6 negara di wilayahnya. Malaysia menjadi suatu cabang yg memiliki manajemen, penjualan, dan jaringan markerting yang komprehesif yang meliputi Australia, China, Hongkong, India, Indonesia, Korea, Malaysia, New Zealand, The Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan, dan Thailand.

Tahun 1998, Xiamen, pabrik dan pusat servis telah dibuka, kantor pusat regional Dell Asia Pacific tetap beroperasi di Hong Kong. Dell beroperasi melakukan penjualan di setiap cabangnya di 33 negara dan melayani pelanggannya dilebih dari 170 negara dan teritori di seluruh dunia. Bisnis Dell di pasar China telah bertumbuh terus menerus dan penjualan system komputer dilakukan melalui distributor. Xiamen menjadi kota yang berkembang pesat dengan ekonomi yang kuat dan bangunan infrastruktur yang modern.

Tim pelayanan pelanggan Dell dibagi kedalam 3 sekmen:

• Large Corporate Accounts ( LCA ) – Kantor yang memiliki lebih dari 1500 karyawan.
• Preferred Accounts Division ( PAD ) – Kantor dengan karyawan berjumlah 500 – 1500 orang.
• Home and Small Business ( HSB ) – Kantor yang memiliki karyawan kurang dari 500 orang

Dell Asia pasifik telah menargetkan pendapatan di China untuk membentuk sekitar 10 persen dari penjualan global ( mewakili 50 persen dari penjualan di wilayahnya ) pada tahun 2002, membuatnya sebagai pemasok PC terbesar kedua dan mungkin pemasok terbesar bagi LCA.

Pada kuarter keempat tahun 1998, penjualan Dell meningkat 100%, walaupun bertumbuh kecil dari tingkat dasar. Dalam kuarter kedua tahun 1999, catatan tahunan unit Dell bertumbuh sebesar 561%.

Peringkat industri PC di China thn 1999.

CEO Dell menerangkan kondisi dan keadaan bisnis di China, diantara yang terbaik didunia ditengah lambatnya pertumbuhan global pada pertemuan di Beijing hari Kamis.

China telah mengeluarkan suatu rangsangan atau stimulus dalam melakukan pengeluaran besar-besaran dan peluncuran diskon untuk masyarakat pedesaan untuk membeli komputer dan barang elektronik lainnya untuk memacu pertumbuhan.

Limabelas produk Dell, termasuk beberapa model yang dimodifikasi untuk konsumen China, sudah memenuhi syarat untuk mengikuti program subsidi dari negara. Perusahaan melakukan investasi di daerah pedesaan untuk mendukung program dan meningkatkan penjualan, kata Dell.

Michael Dell, Chairman dan Chief Executive perusahaan mendengar bahwa pelanggan ingin sesuatu yang lebih untuk uang yang mereka keluarkan pada kemunduran ekonomi yang terjadi. Dell berkata: “Besarnya tantangan ekonomi global begitu jelas untuk semua orang. Pelanggan dari semua jenis masih memerlukan dan membeli teknologi, namun mereka melakukan hal tersebut dengan menggunakan harga lama dan dalam frekuensi yang lambat, dan mereka ingin menyimpan uangnya ketika mereka membeli serta menggunakan IT. Kami menyederhanakan IT, mengurangi biaya dan memaksimalkan produktivitas bagi pelanggan.”

Perusahaan menyatakan akan fokus pada pemotongan biaya di masa depan, dan karena itu akan ada biaya yang berkaitan dengan pengurangan biaya secara umum yang akan berlanjut, serta persekutuan bisnis lainnya. Menurut pernyataan yang tersedia dan komentar dalam konferensi, pemotongan biaya merupakan suatu cara untuk menghadapi kemunduran dalam pembelanjaan teknologi. Brian Gladden, Kepala keuangan Dell.Inc berkata: “Di lingkungan ini kami akan bersikap sangat agresif terhadap biaya. Ini merupakan suatu tingkat yang dapat kami kontrol.”

Dell menjelaskan dalam pernyataannya: “Mengingat adanya pilihan antara profit dan pertumbuhan, kami akan memilih profit. Kepercayaan kami adalah bahwa dengan adanya perubahan yang kami bangun dalam hal struktur keuangan kami, kami akan dapat mendapatkan kedua hal tersebut.”

The Whole Problem Case at Dell

Dell mengalami apa yang dinamakan dengan snowball effect. Snowball efek adalah kondisi dimana suatu perusahaan yang sangat besar mengalami kesulitan untuk bertumbuh. Dell telah mencapai titik dimana sulit bagi Dell untuk menguasai pangsa pasar seperti yang dilakukannya dulu.

Banyak pengamat, termasuk pelanggan, mitra bisnis, dan para analis, khawatir kalau Dell mungkin saja telah memotong ongkos produksi untuk mencapai target keuangan, termasuk di dalamnya pengurangan costumer support, dan mungkin saja, kualitas produk. “kuncinya adalah tetap membuat pelanggan senang dengan cara yang efisien” kata Maxwell. Kesalahan dalam menjalankan proses dapat menjadi bumerang kepada keseluruhan system.

Sementara itu, perusahaan dengan produk yang lebih inovatif dan memilii support yang lebih baik, seperti Apple (AAPL), bertumbuh dengan fase yang lebih cepat. Bahkan Hewlett – Packard (HPQ) yang dulunya tidak bisa dianggap sebagai rival Dell, memiliki tingkat pertumbuhan yang lebih cepat dari kuartal Dell yang terakhir. Tingkat pertumbuhan HP yang setinggi 17,9% , melebihi Dell yang hanya 17,8%. Suatu momen penting yang menyadarkan Dell yang selama ini merasa sebagai satu satunya perusahaan pembuat PC yang mendapatkan keuntungan yang sangat besar.

Dell telah berhenti melakukan inovasi dan membangun bisnis baru. Mungkin mereka telah menjalankan bisnis secara sempurna selama 10 tahun, tapi tetap mustahil bagi Dell untuk terus melanjutkan bisnisnya bila mereka tidak melakukan pembaharuan.

Akibat yang ditimbulkan dalam persaingan cukup terasa bagi Dell. Dell harus mengeluarkan dana sebesar 300 juta dollar untuk menutupi pengeluaran dan mengganti dua unit OptiFlex yang digunakan sebagai computer model. Juru bicara Dell, Jess Blacburn mengatakan bahwa bagian elektronik yang disebut capacitator pada 2 tipe produk, GX 270 dan GX 280, seringkali menyebabkan kerusakan pada PC. Dia tidak menyebutkan berapa banyak mesin yang memiliki masalah ini.

Selain dana 300 juta dollar yang dikeluarkan pihak Dell untuk mengganti capacitator yang rusak, Dell juga harus mengeluarkan dana sebesar 150 juta dollar untuk menarik seluruh barang dan iklan yang telah dikeluarkan di seluruh dunia. Meskipun ini bukan suatu hal yang besar, tetapi hal ini menjadi sinyal yang jelas bagi para investor untuk memindahkan sahamnya dari Dell. Hal ini mengakibatkan saham Dell turun lebih dari 25% sejak bulan juli.

Meskipun Dell tetap memiliki margin yang lebih besar dari pembuat pc yang lain, yaitu sebanyak 32%, sepak terjang Dell dinilai kurang bagus untuk sebuah perusahaan yang telah 15 tahun merajai dunia PC.

Kemunduran Dell diakibatkan oleh semakin banyaknya pesaing yang masuk, seperti Acer dan Fujitsu. Pada quarter ke 3, Pertumbuhan Dell dicatat sebesar 17.8%, lebih sedikit dibandingkan pertumbuhan pada quarter ke 2 sebesar 23,7%. Di pangsa pasar Amerika, permbuhan Dell menurun dari 16,3% menjadi 12,2%, menurut catatan IDC.

Masalah lain yang dihadapi Dell adalah Dell adalah satu satunya pembuat server yang tidak menjual system yang menggunakan Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) operation chip. Yang belakangan ini menjadi pilihan sebagian besar konsumen. Sedangkan Dell masih menggunakan Intel (INTC), dan Intel sudah tidak kompetitif lagi.

Kalau Dell tidak menyusun rencana baru, seperti mencari cara untuk melakukan pengembangan pada pangsa pasar lainnya seperti networking, storage, atau customer electronic, akan berbahaya bagi Dell. Karena mempertaruhkan segalanya hanya pada satu aspek industri saja dapat mengakibatkan penurunan yang sangat signifikan bagi kelangsungan hidup perusahaan.

Tiga kunci realisasi materi yang dipikirkan Dell diantaranya:

1. Dell harus menargetkan perusahaan yang lebih besar jika bisnisnya ingin bertumbuh.
2. Untuk melakukan hal ini, mereka harus memberikan dukungan terbaik dalam industri.
3. Meskipun sebenarnya perusahaan baru berumur 2 ½ tahun, perusahaan perlu berkembang secara global dan bertumbuh diluar US.

Dell harus mampu membawa produknya melalui internet yang merupakan bagian dari rencana Dell dalam menjalankan E-Support.

Dell

Profile

Dell Computer Corporation didirikan pada tahun 1984 oleh Michael Dell.

Dell Computer Corporation merupakan sebuah perusahaan yang memproduksi dan memasarkan perangkat keras komputer terutama untuk kebutuhan Personal ( Personal Computer/PC ). Dell juga menjual produk – produk lainnya yang berhubungan dengan komputer seperti server, alat penyimpanan data, switch jaringan dan kluster komputer untuk perusahaan.

Dell bertempat di Round Rock, Texas dan sudah mempekerjakan lebih dari 82.700 karyawan di banyak Negara.

Dell berkembang pada tahun 1980-1990 untuk menjadi penjual PC dan server terbesar pada saat itu. Pada tahun 2005 Dell telah menjadi salah satu perusaan yang paling dipandang, dan pada Februari 2005 Dell tampil di tempat pertama dalam urutan “Most Admired Companies” majalah Fortune.

Tahun 1985, Dell memproduksi komputer pertamanya yang diberi nama “Turbo PC”. Komputer yang merupakan hasil rancangan sendiri tersebut dijual dengan harga US$795 dan menggunakan prosesor Intel 8088-compatible dan berjalan pada kecepatan 8 Mhz.

Dell Corporation merupakan salah satu perusahaan pertama yang sukses dengan modal usaha tersebut dan meraih pendapatan kotor lebih dari $73 juta pada tahun pertama.

Nilai bisnis Dell berkembang dari $62 juta tahun 1985 menjadi $ 21,7 miliar tahun 1999. Kesukesannya ditemukan pada “direct business-to-customer model” atau penjualan langsung sesuai dengan model pelanggan yang merevolusi industri PC pertama – tama di US dan berkembang ke lebih dari 170 negara di dunia.

Tahun 1992, majalah Fortune memasukan Dell Computer Corporation kedalam daftar 500 perusahaan besar dunia.

Tahun 1996, Dell mulai melakukan penjualan produknya melalui internet. Dalam kuarter pertama tahun 1997 laporan penjualan online Dell mencapai US$1 juta.

Tahun 1999, Dell mengambil tempat perusahaan Compaq dan menjadi penjual Personal Computer terbesar di Amerika Serikat dengan pendapatan $25 miliar sesuai dengan laporan bulan Januari 2000.

Pada bulan Maret 2002, Dell mencoba memasuki pasar multimedia dan home-entertainment dengan memperkenalkan produk televisi, handhelds, dan pemutar suara digital. Dell juga memproduksi printer Dell untuk penggunaan rumahan dan kantor – kantor kecil. Michael Dell mengundurkan diri sebagai CEO pada tanggal 16 Juli 2004, namun tetap mempertahankan kedudukan sebagai Ketua Dewan Komisaris. Kevin Rollins yang telah memegang berbagai jabatan eksekutif di perusahaan Dell, ditunjuk sebagai CEO yang baru.

Tahun 2005, Dell muncul di urutan pertama dalam daftar “Most Admired Companies” yang dikeluarkan oleh majalah Fortune.

Pada bulan November 2005, Majalah BusinessWeek mengeluarkan artikel “It’s Bad to Worse at Dell” yang berisi tentang ketidakmampuan Dell dalam memenuhi target perkiraan pemasukan dan penjualan yaitu lebih buruk daripada yang diperkirakan pada kinerja financial kuartal ketiga – suatu pertanda buruk untuk perusahaan yang selalu menghargai rendah pemasukannya. Kevin Rollins sebagian menyalahkan buruknya kinerja perusahaan pada focus PC low-end.

Pada tanggal 23 Maret 2006, Dell membeli perusahaan pembuat perangkat keras komputer Alienware. Alienware tetap diijinkan beroperasi secara independent melalui manajemen yang sudah ada.

Pada tanggal 31 Januari 2007, Kevin Rollins, CEO perusahaan yang menjabat sejak tahun 2004, mengundurkan diri dari jabatan CEO dan Direktur secara tiba – tiba. Michael Dell kembali masuk sebagai CEO perusahaan. Investor dan para pemegang saham lainnya beranggapan pengunduran diri Kevin Rollins diakibatkan oleh buruknya peforma perusahaan.

Dell’s Build-To-Customer Order

Visi dan Misi

Visi Dell:

Melalui komunitas partnership (persekutuan) yang efektif dan strategis, Dell membantu program pelayanan pendidikan yang menempatkan akses teknologi yang paling kritis dan dasar yang diperlukan oleh komunitas Dell sebagai prasyarat untuk sukses di dunia digital. Hal ini adalah cara kami dalam melakukan bisnis, hal ini juga merupakan cara kami berinteraksi dengan komunitas kami,. Hal ini merupakan cara kami mengartikan dunia disekitar kami — kebutuhan pelanggan, masa depan teknologi, dan iklim bisnis global. Apapun perubahan yang terjadi di masa depan akan membawa visi kami – visi Dell – akan menjadi kekuatan pembimbing kami.

Misi Dell:

Misi Dell Computer adalah menjadi perusahaan komputer yang paling berhasil di dunia dalam hal memberikan pengalaman terbaik bagi pelanggan di pasar yang kami layani. Dalam melakukan hal tersebut, Dell berusaha memenuhi harapan terbaik para pelanggan terhadap mutu terbaik, teknologi unggul, penentuan harga yang kompetitif, tanggung jawab perorangan dan perusahaan, pelayanan dan dukungan terbaik; kemampuan penyesuaian yang luwes, kewargaan korporat yang baik, dan kestabilan finansial.

Kelompok 8

1000877880  -  Abraham S.

1000878025  -  David Christian

1000878044  -  Ferry Widjaja

1000877874  -  Daniel Lambok

1000878063 – Danniel