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4. Knowledge Management: Knowing What You Know
Product Websites
Exchange and Domino are the leading, proprietary e-mail and groupware vendors. WorkSite is one of
a. What steps might a manager take to encourage his or her employees to use the organization’s
knowledge management system?
Managers might consider any or all of the following:
• Train employees about how to use knowledge management tools.
b. Should managers set minimum quotas for system usage for each employee? Why or why not?
Yes.
c. Aside from setting employee usage quotas, how might an organization benefit from knowledge
management system usage statistics?
Managers should primarily reflect on the processes affecting the numbers. They should ask
themselves several questions:
• Have my employees received sufficient training?
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ANSWERS TO REAL WORLD CASES
RWC 1: How to Win Friends and Influence Business People
Case Study Questions
1. By changing the way his group talks about IT investments, CIO Tim Schaefer is trying to change the
way the rest of the company sees IT. Why do you think this is necessary? What would be the prevailing
mindset about IT in his company, such that he needs to do something about it? Provide some examples of
how IT may be regarded in this organization.
Necessity
It’s important for IT to speak and understand the language or languages of the businesses they support. In
2. Chip Gliedman of Forrester Research breaks down IT risks into implementation and impact
considerations. Why do you think these are so difficult to manage? What makes IT investments different
from investments in other areas of a company?
Management difficulty
IT projects are difficult and the terms “implementation” and “impact” cover all project lifecycle aspects
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3. Do you agree with the notion that IT investments can be treated in the same manner as financial
investments, and similarly quantified by putting a dollar value to them? Why or why not? Would your
answer change depending on the type of IT investment under consideration?
Yes
Cost, benefit, risk analysis typically provide enough information to make an informed business investment
Real World Activities
1. Do you agree with the approach and metrics used by Northwestern Mutual to value their IT
investments?
Agree
2. Can you think of alternative ways, and how those might stack up against those discussed in the case?
Break into small groups with your classmates to discuss the pros and cons of alternative approaches to
valuing the impacts of IT in a company.
General approach
The approach in this case involves providing information to business leaders using vocabulary they
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Valuing
When evaluating the legs on a three legged stool, how does one “value” an individual leg? Without any one
of the three legs, the stool will fall. Likewise, a bank, an airline, an investment firm, and most businesses,
3. Go online and search for examples of IT projects that have been successful, as well as those that have
failed. Make a list of the different factors that seem to influence the outcome of these implementations. Can
you group them into the categories discussed in the case? Which seem to be the most important? Prepare a
presentation to share your findings.
Examples
Atwood, Jeff. “The Long, Dismal History of Software Project Failure”6
RWC 2: For Companies Both Big and Small
Case Study Questions
1. In which ways do smartphones help these companies be more profitable? To what extent are
improvements in performance coming from revenue increases or cost reductions? Provide several
examples from the case.
Profitability:
• Reduced time it takes to close a purchasing deal
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Examples:
Better communications enable improved field support with fewer personnel required to fix a problem
2. The companies described in the case encountered a fair amount of resistance from employees
when introducing smartphone technologies. Why do you think this happened? What could
companies do to improve the reception of these initiatives? Develop two alternative propositions.
Employee resistance – CPS: management could not visualize the value these devices would provide.
Employee resistance – Lloyd’s Construction: employees were not technically savvy and required
significant training. Though not directly mentioned, the case also implied that employees may have
3. CPS Energy and Lloyd’s Construction used smartphones to make existing processes more
efficient. How could they have used the technology to create new products and services for their
customers? Include at least one recommendation for each organization.
The main point of this question is “how”, but students may well focus on “what” instead. On the
“how” side, both organizations may create new products by providing their customers with access to
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Lloyd’s work is done on a project by project basis. Lloyd’s could use their systems to provide their
Real World Activities
1. In addition to the companies featured in the case, others like FedEx and UPS, which have large
mobile workforces, heavily use mobile communication technologies. What other companies could
benefit from these innovations?
Search Terms: “mobile workforce automation” + “case studies”
2. Go online and research uses of smartphones in industries different from the ones reviewed here.
Prepare a report to share your findings.
3. Use the Internet to research the latest technological developments in smartphones, and discuss
how those could be used by companies to deliver value to customers and shareholders.
Search Terms: “smartphone” + “case studies”.
RWC 3: Wachovia and Others: Trading Securities at the Speed of Light
Case Study Questions
1. What competitive advantages can the companies described in the case derive from the use of
faster technology and co-location of servers with the exchanges? Which would you say are
sustainable, and which ones temporary or easily imitable? Justify your answer.
Competitive advantage: faster technology and co-location enable faster transactions. Fast transaction
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2. Tony Bishop of Wachovia stated that “Competitive advantage comes from your math, your
workflow and your processes through your systems.” Referring to what you have learned in this
chapter, develop opposing viewpoints as to the role of IT, if any, in the development of competitive
advantage. Use examples from the case to support your positions.
Technology enables faster and more efficient workflows, and organizations may derive competitive
3. What companies in industries other than securities trading could benefit from technologies that
focus on reducing transaction processing times? Provide several examples.
Examples:
• Airline reservations systems
Real World Activities
1. Most of the discussion in the case was done from the perspective of the trading firms and the
value that these technologies add to them and their customer. However, the case also mentions
actions taken by stock exchanges to improve their transaction processing and turn these needs into a
revenue-generating asset. Research what recent technologies have been implemented by major stock
exchanges such as NYSE and NASDAQ and prepare a report detailing what benefits have occurred
as a result.
Note: Because NYSE and NASDAQ are such common terms within articles about technology (and
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2. The technologies described in the case represent an example of how different barriers to the flow
of goods and information are being overcome by the use of IT. Break into small groups and select an
industry other than the one described in the case and brainstorm what barriers to commerce you see
there and how IT may help to do away with them.
Barriers to commerce fall into several categories:
• Lack of communication
RWC 4: IT Leaders: Reinventing IT as a Strategic Business Partner
Case Study Questions
1. What are the business and political challenges that are likely to occur as a result of the
transformation of IT from a support activity to a partner role? Use examples from the case to
illustrate your answer.
Business challenges:
• Measuring how IT is valued within the organization. This means a focus on the value chain.
2. What implications does this shift in the strategic outlook of IT have for traditional IT workers
and for the educational institutions that train them? How does this change the emphasis on what
knowledge and skills the IT person of the future should have?
Implications for traditional IT workers:
• IT workers should expect change as part of their work environment. Even their company name,
Chapter 02 – Competing with Information Technology
3. To what extent do you agree with the idea that technology is embedded in just about everything
a company does? Provide examples, other than those included in the case, of recent product
introductions that could not have been possible without heavy reliance on IT.
Agree: as a minimum, technology is effectively embedded in the production and distribution of a
Real World Activities
1. Search the Internet to find information about other firms that have transformed their IT
organizations and the role that the CIO plays in the governance structure of the organization. What
benefits have they been able to derive from these changes? Prepare a report and present your
findings to your class.
Note: CIO.com provides an excellent source of current articles about transformational IT and a variety
of IT management issues, initiatives, successes, and failures.
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2. Consider the virtual reality technologies employed by Procter & Gamble and described in this
case. Break into small groups and brainstorm applications of these types of technologies for
companies in industries other than those reviewed in the case.
Potential applications:
• Architecture: human traffic flow analysis