Question

Toronto-based Mercedes-Benz, Canada, with a network of 55 dealers, did not know enough about the customers. Dealers provided customer data to the company on an ad hoc basis. Mercedes did not force dealers to report this information. There was no real incentive for dealers to share information with the company.

1.     What is the role of knowledge management and knowledge management programs?

a.    Define knowledge management and explain its value to businesses

b.    Describe the important dimensions of knowledge.

c.    Distinguish between data, knowledge, and wisdom and between tacit knowledge and explicit knowledge.

d.    Describe the stages in the knowledge management value chain.

2.    What types of systems are used for enterprise-wide knowledge management and how do they provide value for businesses?

a.    Define and describe the various types of enterprise-wide knowledge management systems and how they provide value for businesses.

b.    Describe the role of the following in facilitating knowledge management portals, wikis, social bookmarking, and learning management systems.

Answer 1

a. Knowledge management is the set of process which is used to create, store, transfer and apply knowldge in the organizations. Knowledge management can promote organizational learning by increasing the ability of the organization to learn from its environment and to incorporate knowledge into its business process. There are mainly three types of knowledge management program like enterprise-wide knowledge management system, knowledge work system and intelligent techniques.

b. Following are the important dimension of knowledge------------

1. Knowledge is both situational and conditional, as it is equal important that knowing when to apply procedures is as important as knowing the procedures.

2. Knowledge has different form can be either tacit or the explicit.

3. Knowledge is also an intangible firm asset requiring company resources to transform information into data.

4. Knowledge also has a location and a cognitive event involving mental models and maps of individual.

c. Data ------data are the building blocks of information and knowledge.

Knowledge-------knowledge is all about the discovery of patterns, rules and contexts within information.

Wisdom---------collective and individual experience of applying knowledge to the solution of problem.

Tacit knowledge--------Knowledge residing in the minds of employees that has not been documented.

Explicit knowledge-------explicit knowledge is the knowledge that has been documented.

D. Following are the stages in the knowledge management value chain-----------------

1. Acquire---------In the first stage knowledge can be acquire through the online experts networks, or also by the discovering patterns in the corporate data.

2. store-------In the second stage knowledge must be stored in the logical and easily accessible manner.

3. Disseminate-------The internet has bought about many different avenues of communication that can be used to collaborate and share knowledge.

4. Apply------Knowledge must be useless it it is not implemented into any type of business process.

2. A. Enterprise wide knowledge management system is the system which include capabilities for searching for information , storing both structured and unstructured data, locating employees expertise within the firm and tools for collaboration.

Following are the various types of enterprise wide knowledge managemnt system------------

1. Knowledge network system---------it is a specialized system built for enginers , scientist and other knowledge worker charged with the discovering and creating new knowledge for the company. it can make it easy for the employees to find appropriate expert in a company.

2. Intelligent company-----------It is used for discovering knowledge, distilling knowledge in the form of rules for a computer program, and also discovering the optimal solution for the problems.

B. pORTALS-----------PORTALS PROVIDE ACCESS TO external sources of information such as news and research etc.

Wikis---------It is a central repository for all the types of data that can be displayed in the web browser.

Social bookmarking------searching for information is made easier by allowing users to share their bookmarks on a public website.

Learning management system----------learning managemnt system can provide tools for the management , delivery, tracking, and assessment of various types of employee learning and training.