Managing Enterprise Knowledge

The pursuit of knowledge has always been a high priority on the human race's to-do list. Recall the familiar metaphor of supplicant seeking sage. Imagine yourself: traversing gray desolate terrain, clawing your way up treacherous slopes and sheer mountain passes, enduring privation, suffering ignorance - and then discovering the man on the mountain - the enlightened one. You haul your worn body onto the final plateau, breathlessly expecting a weather-beaten, meagerly-dressed, meditating figure. And you behold finally…a C-level executive donning a double-breasted Armani suit, Bruno Magli shoes, and a precision haircut?

So, timeless metaphor meets modern motif. And, in accord with the modern reinterpretation, the unexpected sage might very well be a seminar leader of the AMA (American Management Association). The AMA is a $300 million, international provider of business education. And, fortunately for business executives everywhere, the organization has simplified the quest for enlightenment (its Manhattan-based headquarters is equipped with elevators, and reasonable seminar fees have replaced hardship and suffering).

Poorly Managed Knowledge: Misinformation, Miscommunication, And Missed Opportunities
All businesses have intellectual property. The AMA, however, has more than most. The company's core business is providing live, mediated training sessions that are supplemented with written materials. "All of our business is based on intellectual property," says Bruce Alper, CIO at the AMA. "In addition to the seminars, we are the world's largest publisher of business books. We not only have business and customer intelligence, we also have to manage the content - the intellectual part of our product. It's a massive task."

Producing these seminars requires the cooperation of many individuals and groups among the AMA's nearly 3,000 employees. Successfully getting them to work cooperatively was a road riddled with obstacles, especially since the company just underwent a reorganization. "Different business units were complaining that they didn't have the information they needed, and that caused a lot of scapegoating and lack of accountability," remembers Randi Spier, project manager for knowledge management at AMA. "We investigated the complaints and found the information existed – people just didn't know where to find it."

Finding And Implementing A Knowledge Management Solution
By June 1999, the company realized it needed a knowledge management solution. At that time, the AMA began evaluating vendors and soon had chosen Cincinnati-based Synergistics, Inc., a provider of knowledge management solutions. Specifically, the AMA chose Synergistics' Prevail product suite.

Because the AMA's business is educating other businesses, the company was already familiar with many of the vendors in the marketplace. Alper says that familiarity facilitated the decision process.

"We knew we needed a tool that was soft enough to quickly evolve with the business," explains Alper. "If the solution isn't flexible, it will define the process - and that defeats the reason for having the system. We wanted a solution that would allow us to organize and structure data in the way that would best suit our needs."

Rolling Out A Knowledge Management Solution
The AMA began the first phase of the Knowledge Network rollout in November 1999. This involved a day and a half of training before going live and distributing the product to the company's primary user groups (content providers, graphic designers and layout people, marketing and sales staff). The company plans on tracking key users as a guide for the next phase of the rollout.

"Within the next year," says Spier, "we will monitor the use of the system and the organization's direction to determine who will be involved in the next phase. By then, we plan to have the system fully structured, but you also have to realize that you're never completely finished with this type of installation. You'll always continue to revamp it as your business develops."

Mirroring Processes With Knowledge Management
Currently, the AMA is using the system for the production of its seminars and written materials. Specifically, groups that produce content use Knowledge Network as a collaboration tool. For example, when a group of AMA employees is working on a seminar, Knowledge Network provides employees simultaneous access to documents and information. This access creates a consistency in work and safeguards against miscommunication. Content providers place data on the system, making it accessible to other business units. Design and layout people can access the information to package it, then offer it back in a format that is accessible to other AMA business units (graphic programs previously could not be read by other business units). Marketing and sales can access content and adjust strategies accordingly, and press materials can reflect current and developing products, as can sales strategies.

The collaboration is even convenient for pre-existing material. Because the AMA's reputation is based on its expertise, it must constantly update educational materials. Knowledge Network's collaboration tools allow this, offering the same sharing capabilities for prewritten, as well as emerging, information.

Technology Infrastructure Bolsters Knowledge Management Solution
In addition to its knowledge management solution, the AMA has integrated a number of other solutions to complete its technology infrastructure. The majority of the company's business applications run on Oracle products. AMA uses an Oracle financial and telebusiness system (OTB), as well as an Oracle database. The company has actually integrated the Oracle database with its Lotus Domino database, using cross-platform access to produce one large knowledge base.

"It is a unique approach," comments Alper, "but it has worked well for us. Part of continuing its success involves several exciting upgrades in the near future."

Future Technology Developments
The first of those upgrades is an Oracle-based CRM (customer relationship management) solution. The company plans to go live with the product in June, and to use it in conjunction with a Prevail sales automation product from Synergistics. The Prevail system runs on the Domino platform, but accesses data in the Oracle database platform. "We want browser-compatible applications as our standard, instead of unique clients," says Alper. "We are even moving in that direction with Knowledge Network. We are also installing a Domino R5, which provides browser support."

Beyond these changes, the AMA is also turning to today's ubiquitous area of business development - aka the Internet. "Although the Web isn't conducive to the hands-on, live training that we conduct, there are still great benefits in this medium," says Alper. "Most of the AMA's clients are Fortune 1000 businesses. To strengthen relationships with these and other customers, the company is developing a Web portal that will extend the AMA's knowledge base into the organizations of its customers." AMA clients will be able to track employees involved in AMA educational programs, analyze the employees' skill sets, and base decisions for future education on this knowledge.

Practice What You Preach: Best Business Practices
When your business is business education, you'd better make sure you know how to run your own affairs - or you'll look like a fool. Fortunately, the AMA appears to be taking into consideration the very lessons it teaches.

"Information is useless - until it is applied. Then it becomes knowledge," explains Alper. "Knowledge allows you to increase the value of your business. Since we teach others how to apply information, it only makes sense that we follow the same practice internally."

If Alper's approach seems obvious, it is. It makes you wonder how so many businesses can overlook such an obvious and important task: managing enterprise knowledge.

If you're not already managing your corporate knowledge, take a cue from Alper's example. Whatever you do, though, don't sit there like an impotent dolt. Poorly managed corporate data spells lost time, labor, and profits - or even the loss of your business. On a lighter note, if you're headed down the road to bankruptcy, it's always easier to manage data when you have none.

Questions about this article? E-mail the author at DougC@corrypub.com.