Reference no: EM133181593

Topic: How does a company use KM to strategic value?

Harry Hartfield is looking over some new travel brochures and consulting a recent Google search. Retirement is only five days away and he cannot wait to see the Fiji Islands. Harry is currently the head aero-engineer at GDD, and has been in charge of purchasing and maintenance of the planes for the last 15 years. He's been at GDD for a total of 40 years, having worked his way up through the company to his current position, and has seen a lot of eco-friendly flying initiatives come and go. For the past four weeks, Harry has been training his replacement, Imogine Farthing, a woman in her 40s who is transferring from their London branch. Harry gets along with Imogine and thinks she will do well in the role, but he is apprehensive about her eagerness to purchase the new Boeing 777 cargo plane. Imogine believes it will go a long way toward improving their fuel consumption and air emissions in the run between Chicago and Singapore, but the cost of the new plane is three times that of the comparable Lockheed model. Harry believes the Lockheed model would save fuel costs over the old cargo plane they are using now, but will not achieve the same air pollutant emission reduction as the Boeing model. Harry acknowledges air pollution is an important concern for GDD, but he also knows from previous experience that these emission controls often make the cost of the plane higher - and the fuel reduction lower - than the company predicts. Imogine does not agree. Harry knows it will be her call, but wishes he had access to all the old reports he submitted when making similar decisions earlier in his career. Using that information as a base, and with updated figures, he may be able to persuade Imogine to change her mind. During his retirement party, Harry discusses the situation with President Rockfish, hoping that Rockfish may know how to locate the reports. Rockfish says he will look into it, but isn't sure what he can do.

After his conversation with Harry, Rockfish chats briefly with one of his sales managers, Amid Jordan. Amid has been with the company for only three years and Rockfish is shocked to hear that he is also leaving. Amid says he's very sorry to go, he's been offered a job in Orlando with UPS, one of GDD's biggest competitors. Rockfish notes that UPS has been poaching many of his managers lately, and he's concerned about proprietary information and good talent departing the company. How can he stop people from leaving the company and taking their valuable knowledge with them?

Rather than being a festive occasion, Harry's retirement party is starting to depress Rockfish. His mood worsens when he joins a conversation between Harry and a shipping manager visiting from the Asia branch. She has come to the Chicago office to try to rectify a major glitch in the process used to get packages to Malaysia. It seems that, despite generally strong communications between the branches, packages are consistently running a day behind schedule. The shipping manager has determined that the problem is driver pick-up times in the United States. The Asia branch has been requesting that the time difference be adjusted by three hours rather than the current one hour adjustment, but the change is not being communicated to the drivers, and unhappy customers are now filing late-package claims.

Rockfish reflects on the fact that all three of these issues deal with knowledge and its value to the company. He's heard a lot about this point lately from Jane Clive, not to mention Joanna Bockman and her situation with Fredrick Helmut. Rockfish's mind is made up. He finds Jane at the party and tells her, "Okay, I think you are right about knowledge management. We need to put some processes in place ASAP, but you will have to explain it to the Board of Directors. They need to see how KM strategic value for the company before they will buy into the plan."

1. Address specific KM issues , as well as how KM solutions will bring value to the company.

2. Identify if handled by a KM manager, use value for the company rather than loss.

3. How failure to capture tacit knowledge will cost GDD money now and in the future.

4. How tacit knowledge affects culture and employee performance (refer to Fredrick Helmut).

5. At least four ways in which retaining and capturing tacit knowledge will benefit the company, not just in relation to these specific issues but in other ways.

6. How technology can aid in the collection and storage of tacit knowledge as well as explicit knowledge.