ENVISAGE - ENGAGE - ENABLE - ENACT
Case Study: Global Defense Company
With dozens of offices spread across a vast geographic landscape, multiple business sectors within the organization and very diverse groups of customers, this global defense company faced a substantial challenge.
THE CHALLENGE
Develop a knowledge strategy for a global defense company
The myriad business-critical projects at any given time consistently required extensive collaboration across organizational boundaries, geography, and functions. In the late 90s, knowledge management activities emerged sporadically in a few areas of the company. Contained within the various segments of the organization, these activities addressed content management issues, and in some cases included communities of practice and virtual teaming. However, very little activity took place beyond the respective boundaries of the key business sectors.
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By 2003, a new CEO intent on fostering greater levels of collaboration across sectors provided considerable impetus to move to an enterprise-wide approach to knowledge management. A number of initiatives were launched, including a CEO-sponsored study which revealed valuable capabilities that lay dormant across the company. Strategic developments that year, including an acquisition and the addition of two new sectors with separate technology platforms, further fuelled the need for common technology infrastructure and an integrated knowledge strategy. It became imperative for knowledge and collaboration to flow freely across sectors, bringing greater convergence to overall activities.
Our Approach
Formulation of a knowledge strategy
Saint-Onge Alliance worked in close partnership with the Corporate Knowledge Council to formulate an enterprise-wide knowledge strategy that would increase organizational capability. A number of critical activities helped shape the success of the strategy.
To foster agreement and ownership for the strategy, Saint-Onge Alliance designed and facilitated a comprehensive two day session engaging 60 representatives from across the company. As a result of the session, this diverse group reached consensus on the approach and successfully developed a three-year roadmap outlining key activities needed for implementation.
The strategy was carefully designed to:
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Clearly outline the value proposition for proactively managing the knowledge of the organization.
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Reinforce the overall business strategies of the organization.
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Foster a high level of ownership across the enterprise by involving and engaging members of the organization.
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Optimize results and the investment required by providing an enterprise-wide knowledge framework.
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Reduce costs and redundancies by providing a common technology platform across all business segments.
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Orchestrate the evolution of current and future knowledge initiatives in a decentralized environment.
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Deliver a platform for enhancing knowledge work as it unfolded.
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Ensure the unencumbered flow of knowledge across different segments of the organization.
Purpose & goals of the strategy
To enhance the capability and the effectiveness of both individuals and the organization:
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Applying knowledge management (KM) principles across core process areas to rapidly increase the rate and effectiveness of organizational collaboration and drive competitive advantage to increase shareholder value.
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Pursuing high-leverage communities of practice to support corporate business objectives and key business opportunities.
Goals cont'd...
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Capitalizing on existing sector investments by identifying best practices (even if they were not started as KM initiatives), and adopting them across the organization.
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Creating a systems architecture and operations model that allowed for the creation of both corporate KM initiatives and unique sector initiatives.
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Developing a governance model that allowed for centralized taxonomy, decentralized management, and for pace of adoption to be driven by the business.
Early Results
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The company has acquired software that supports content management and collaboration across the organization – the first component of a 3-year plan.
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Using the enterprise-wide strategy as a foundation, all sectors have developed their own knowledge strategy and are in the process of implementation.
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All sectors have designated senior managers to champion knowledge initiatives. They are now leveraging the tools and processes being launched across the organization.
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A number of enterprise-wide communities of practice now exist in areas critical to business success. In addition, recent virtual collaboration among three sectors resulted in a significant business opportunity that would not have emerged without collaboration.
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One of the key applications of the knowledge platform is being used successfully in the development of proposals to clients.
Ongoing Work
We've been asked to continue to support the Knowledge Council in renewing and deepening the implementation plans supporting the strategy. With full support from each of the business sectors, these plans encompass both the content and collaboration dimensions of the knowledge platform.
CONCLUSION
Although some segments of the company already recognized the advantages of knowledge management early on, the true payoff didn’t emerge until an enterprise-wide approach was embraced.
New strategic developments created undeniable opportunities for the entire organization to benefit from an integrated knowledge strategy. By developing a powerful foundation and structure for content management and collaboration, this organization continues to reap the rewards of increasing organizational capability and competitive advantage.
Contact Us
Please contact us today to discuss how we can partner with you to achieve similar results for your organization.
"Hubert is a remarkable professional and a wonderful person to work with. His thought leadership is world-class and I always walk away with greater knowledge every time I meet with Hubert. Hubert has a tremendous ability to collaborate with others at all levels, and he quickly establishes strong trust based relationships."
Scott Shaffar, Northrop Gruman
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