Research Challenges and Approaches in Knowledge Management

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Research Challengesand Approaches in Knowledge
Management

• Presentation at the 2nd International Seminar on
• Knowledge Management and e-Learning
• Florence, 21-22 October 2002

Gregoris Mentzas Associate Professor, National
Technical University of Athens
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Three trends for the corporation of the future

• The organic company
• Organic in the sense that they are able to
  process signals from their environment and
  convert such information into fluid plans of
  action
• key characteristics speed in responding and
  self-organising capacity
• Managing knowledge in order to adapt and grow
• Business Eco-systems
• Organisations are parts of dynamic, collaborative
  webs of relationships with their partners,
  suppliers and customers even competitors!
• Key concepts co-evolution co-opetition
• Managing knowledge in order to cultivate value
  chains
• Product-service hybrids
• delivering customer experiences with distinct
  characteristics
• life-time linked to the customer needs
• design as the major cost element
• subscription and user-fees as main revenue model
• marketing objective building communities of
  satisfied clients
• Managing knowledge within the offering to the
  customer

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Four challenges for knowledge organisations

• CONTENT
• The challenge to capture and organise knowledge
• PEOPLE
• The challenge to facilitate collaboration
• PROCESS
• The challenge of knowledge-enabled processes
• TRADE
• The challenge to facilitate knowledge-enabled
  commerce

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The challenge to capture and organise knowlege
Content Management

• Multi-disciplinary solutions for capturing,
  organising, storing and using knowledge
• Methods, models and tools for enterprise-wide
  knowledge taxonomies that help help and filter
  knowledge needs
• Methods and tools that exploit and leverage
  multiple knowledge sources
• (internal or external)

Time-Sensitive Information
External Information Sources
Internal Information Sources
CAPTURE
FILTER
STORE
DIFFUSE
USE
BUSINESS PROCESSES
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The challenge to facilitate collaboration

• Encourage collaboration and knowledge sharing
• multi-functional intra-organisation manner
• inter-organisational knowledge chains
• Multi-disciplinary methods and tools to
  facilitate virtual communities
• that bring business value by sharing their
  knowledge

Collaboration Management
Customer VirtualCommunities
COMMUNITIES OF INTEREST / PRACTICE
ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE
COMMUNITY B
COMMUNITY A
SUPPORT TEAM
ORGANIZATIONALSTRUCTURE
Communication collaboration
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The challenge of knowledge-enabled processes

• Multi-disciplinary solutions that enrich
  intra-organisational business processes by
  integrating knowledge KM processes into each
  step
• Methods and tools to support knowledge chains in
  the dynamic inter-networked enterprises and their
  distributed business processes

Process management
BUSINESS PROCESSES
KNOWLEDGE SOURCES
ENHANCED BUSINESS PROCESSES
6/9/96
6/9/96
Page 1
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The challenge to facilitate knowledge trading

• Shared ontologies for trading partners to
  meaningfully share information and intent
• Market economics and governance
• Participant trust / confidence
• Virtual communities of byuers and selllers
• Value of brokers / infomediaries

Commerce Management
Communication collaboration
Buyers
Sellers
Price setting Payment mechanismc
Content Management
Trust and Secutiry
Market-makers
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Knowledge-asset based research projects

• CONTENT
• The challenge to capture and organise knowledge
• PEOPLE
• The challenge to facilitate collaboration
• PROCESS
• The challenge of knowledge-enabled processes
• TRADE
• The challenge to facilitate knowledge-enabled
  commerce

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Focus on strategic resources

• Valuable
• Allow the firm to exploit opportunities in the
  market
• or address competitive threats
• Rare
• Owned by a small number of firms in the industry
• Imperfectly imitable
• Can be sustained for long periods of time
• without competitors replicating it or acquiring
  it
• Non-substitutable
• It has no strategic equivalents

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Differences of knowledge assets

• Knowledge is not inherently scarce
• It cannot be depleted
• Knowledge is not easily appropriable
• Same knowledge can be used by different economic
  entities
• Knowledge is regenerative
• New knowledge may emerge from knowledge-intensive
  processes
• Knowledge exhibits increasing returns to scale
• Its value increases the more it is used

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Research that addresses the challenges

• CONTENT
• The challenge to capture and organise knowledge
• PEOPLE
• The challenge to facilitate collaboration
• PROCESS
• The challenge of knowledge-enabled processes
• TRADE
• The challenge to facilitate knowledge-enabled
  commerce

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The Know-Net Solution
KnowNet Framework
KnowNet Method
KnowNet Tool
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Overview of the Know-Net framework
Assets
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Strategic Planning for Knowledge Management

• Goals of Stage I
• Align Knowledge strategy
• Assess Change Readiness
• Define KM Business Case

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Leveraging Knowledge Assets

• Goals of Stage II
• Leverage Knowledge within Process / People /
  Technology
• Define Knowledge Objects
• Integrate the KM Architecture

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Measuring knowledge assets

• Goals of Measurement
• Focus on key knowledge assets
• Distinguish between stocks and flows
• Link to strategy

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KnowNet Tool-set Architecture
K Navigators
KSAN
KWN
KASI
KWMA
SKN
Km Processes / Apps Library
K Server
KM Systems Ontology
Km Objects Directory
RDBMS
Metadata store
Mail KB
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The Know-Net ToolPlaying several parts of the
tool together
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The Know-Net Solution Tight integration of
components
Common Language -gt Navigators
Key Business Area K.Assets / K.Processes
KM Strategy
Method Stage I Strategic Planning
KM Case Key Business Area K.Assets
KnowNet Framework
K.Objects K.Proceses K.Systems
Method Stage II Develop K.Organisation
K.Objects K.Processes K.Systems
KM Strategy
Knowledge Assets Measurement System
K.Assets K.Objects
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The companies which have applied Know-Net
One of the world's leading financial services
groups
Leading company in Greece in the area of business
software
UK-based global firm of Chartered Surveyors and
Commercial Property Agents
Turkish company specializing in DBMS Application
Development
UK-based global developer of CRM software
solutions
ERP development and localisation centre based in
the Czech Republic
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Research that addresses the challenges

• CONTENT
• The challenge to capture and organise knowledge
• PEOPLE
• The challenge to facilitate collaboration
• PROCESS
• The challenge of knowledge-enabled processes
• TRADE
• The challenge to facilitate knowledge-enabled
  commerce

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Knowledge-intensive Processes in Décor
For augmented work-flow and associated indexing
ontologies, modelling tools and a methodology for
organisational take-up are developed.
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Knowledge assets within workflow meta-model
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Information units group information, metadata,
and links to structure elements /other
information units
content of information unit 1
structure elements linked to info unit 1
links to / from information unit 1
other info units linked to info unit 1
content of info unit 2
structure elements linked to info unit 2
information unitslinked to info unit 2
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Three cases

• IKA is the largest Greek social security
  organisation
• 330 insurance branches and 360 health branches
  all over the country
• Support for the granting full-old age pension
  process
• PVG is a subsidiary of the German Red Cross
• Processing of blood plasma to plasma products
• Supporting the Change management in the context
  of computer systems validation process
• CHU Brugmann - Belgian Public Hospital
• University Hospital - 3 campuses, 843 beds
• Supporting the Patients admission process

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Research that addresses the challenges

• CONTENT
• The challenge to capture and organise knowledge
• PEOPLE
• The challenge to facilitate collaboration
• PROCESS
• The challenge of knowledge-enabled processes
• TRADE
• The challenge to facilitate knowledge-enabled
  commerce

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From e-marketplaces to knowledge
marketplaces

• E-knowledge marketplaces are e-marketplaces which
  provide digital community contexts where sellers
  of knowledge assets can be matched with potential
  buyers
• trading hubs where anyone, 365 days a year can
  locate expertise, distilled into knowledge
  products/services
• Intellectual property trading / Recruitment
  agencies / Management consultancies / Research
  companies / etc
• The direct information exchanges will be a 6
  billion business by 2005 and will facilitate over
  50 billion of online purchases by that year
• Source Datamonitor analysis
• Attempts to develop e-knowledge markets in USA
  Canada
• Area under-exploited in Europe

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Knowledge Asset Trading in INKASS

• INKASS aims at the development of an intelligent
  Internet-based marketplace of knowledge assets.
• targeted at European SMEs and their needs
• in the areas of professional services for
  business and engineering

• INKASS develops and validates
• intelligent agent-based and ontology-enabled
  knowledge trading tools for facilitating
  automatic (and/or semi-automatic) transactions
  and supporting semantic mappings.
• innovative business models for the virtual
  knowledge market-place in which knowledge
  providers and knowledge seekers will trade and
  exchange knowledge assets

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Generic Process and Service View in Knowledge
Trading Media
Create-contract
generation
consumption
process view
creation
review qualification
k-integration
k-use
initiation
trading
process view
process view
information
intention
contracting
settlement
Top-level processes
Lower level processes
arbitration
review
search
evaluation
signaling of interest
negotiation
financiallogistics
digitalproductlogistics
mediation
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Issues in knowledge asset trading

• multi-attribute interactive knowledge search
  facilities
• ontology-based retrieval facility (uncertainty,
  fuzziness, etc)
• agent-based platform services (query relaxation)
• knowledge brokers (trust, etc)
• virtual communities of knowledge providers and
  seekers
• pricing schemes and trading mechanisms for
  knowledge asset

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Three pilot trials

• TWI UK-based research and technology
  organisation
• Experimenting with knowledge trading in a group
  of member companies (MI 21)
• Planet Ernst Young - leading Greek management
  consulting company
• Internal (with Knowledge office) and external
  (with clients) knowledge market
• ACCI represents more than 80,000 Greek
  companies
• Knowledge sharing model between the members f the
  chamber of commerce

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Four challenges for knowledge organisations

• CONTENT
• The challenge to capture and organise knowledge
• PEOPLE
• The challenge to facilitate collaboration
• PROCESS
• The challenge of knowledge-enabled processes
• TRADE
• The challenge to facilitate knowledge-enabled
  commerce

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Thank you for listening