Speech to GETBA (Greenmount East Tamaki Business Association), Manukau City, 21st March 2007.
Maybe you know this as something else, but although the art and science of Knowledge Management Planning is not well known, it is a fundamental strategic planning process, using what we know, to differentiate our businesses. With it we can accelerate our businesses profits to far greater heights than our contemporaries, and put our business beyond the reach of any competitor in the marketplace.
It is most often thought of as just explicit Knowledge like registered designs, patents, franchises, licenses, copyrights, trademarks, service marks and brands that can allow you clear space in the marketplace.
That registerable intellectual property [IP] is just 20% of it. But the remaining 80% is tacit or implicit invisible Knowledge and the real, albeit silent, workhorse of our businesses.
Knowledge Management Planning improves service and operations; these are inextricably linked to Knowledge Management Planning.
Service and operations cannot be separated from ‘how’ they are performed and it is the acts of doing that Knowledge Management Planning covers.
Think of this simple cake analogy – information is in the list of ingredients, Knowledge is in the recipe and service and operations is in the act of doing or making, and the cake is the product of having done.
It stands to reason that if you follow a recipe for a chocolate cake, you will not end up delivering a Madeira cake. Knowledge, service and operations are inextricable linked together.
Consider more ideas about service and operations -
- Services and operations are intangible. They cannot be seen or felt or heard.
The customer cannot sample before buying - So managing & planning how things are done is vital.
- A service or operations provider cannot be separated from personnel who are providing it. This creates a distribution problem.
In most instances, the customer has to come to the place of service, or the provider has to go to the customer. But the link must be maintained so clear Knowledge of where service or operations is to be performed is sometimes an issue. Offsite or in-house may change your ability to deliver on you promise.
- Because the service or operations are inseparable from personnel, there can be great variation in the quality of service provided.
One mechanic at your favourite service station may be exceptionally good and another not, and every great mechanic has an occasional bad day, where service quality suffers. Strategic Knowledge Management Planning [KMP] provides processes and procedures to even out and to deal with this.
- Service and operations are perishable. They tend to be only available for a very limited time, and then it become valueless.
Seats on today’s 10.15 flights to Dunedin are worthless at 10.30; today’s urgent delivery is not urgent if it arrives tomorrow. Clear Knowledge management of ‘when’ service or an operation is to be performed is often important.
Service and operations are based on ‘How, what, when, where, why you do things’ and they requires strategic Knowledge Management Planning to maximise value.
For example - Take say the Knowledge of ‘when’ and an office cleaning company. A clean office is a thing, it’s a product you can see and touch etc. - overnight cleaning, is a service or operation.
Strategic Knowledge Management Planning might suggest ‘Midnight Cleaning’ is something that could become a differentiated registered service-marked brand, that clearly stakes out its ownership of a particular service, and therefore becomes a package that is easier to sell, and more profitable.
Knowledge Management Planning - Gives you back time and money:
- Create re-usable models and links to knowledge so tasks can be designed by the best brains but delegated to lower cost personnel for action or at least not reinvented. Higher cost staff can be then be released for higher value tasks.
- World Bank claim that over 70% of the worlds business is service for pay - so learn something once; manage it strategically, and use it many times. Knowledge can be yours forever.
- All organisations are constantly learning but it is more valuable if it doesn’t mean discovering and learning the same things over and over again. Do it once and put it in an accessible Knowledge archive.
KMP Reduces your business risk:
- When staff leave at 5pm each night there is a risk they may not come back tomorrow, for all kinds of reasons. Staff are your most valuable assets – try doing business without them if you want to check? But it is really what they know that is required; labour can be hired by the hour or some tasks mechanised. Knowledge Management Planning looks to the three E’s. Good Entry processes, development and best use of Experts within and thorough Exit interview strategies. None of those are hard to do.
- Under KMP Errors are reduced because staff can be reliably trained to follow and repeat processes, the right way.
- AAR’s After Action Reviews are meetings or reports generated after an activity, every time, not for blame shifting but problem solving about how we can do it better. Creating models for doing it better next time, even if it went well but especially if it went wrong.
KMP Makes you money:
- Most products are available from a cheaper supplier but ‘how you do things’ separates you from the opposition. Adding the ‘how’ and the ‘you’ elements can add value. Think of how you are served at a petrol station – if the operator would smile, which is free, or serve you quickly, at a service station pump, would that be enough to get you to return to that place, next time you need a fill? How you operate makes a difference – so mange that process under a Knowledge Management Plan.
- Locking the opposition out of opportunities by registered designs, patents, franchises, licenses, copyrights, trademarks, service marks, brands can allow you clear space in the marketplace. Send a strong signal that it is your property and you will fight to protect it. The example above of ‘Midnight Cleaning’ differentiated you and is a service that customers can only buy from you if you service market and branded it.
- When you make a product and sell it, it is no longer yours. When you sell know-how you still know it, and can sell or lease it again and again, if you structure the sale correctly.
- Using Peer Assists you raise everyone’s game. Use your Experts or somebody else’s if need be. Invest most into those people that are already your best, but then incentivise them to mentor your weakest. That’s most cost effective.
Knowledge Management Planning Saves you money:
- Whereas ad hoc methods cannot be replicated, if there is a process you can replicate it and analyse it to reduce costs or to add value.
- The cost of training may seem high but the cost of not training is always highest.
- Sometimes it’s as simple as know-who to ask, for instance who the best supplier is can save time and money. That’s ‘know-who’ in Knowledge Management Planning terms, staff need to have a place in your systems for it.
KMP Gives you control so once over quickly, make a plan to:
- Know-how you do things, consistently.
- Know-who, knows who, knows how, to do things!
- Know-when to do things for best effect and least effort.
- Know-where your assets can be applied to give best return.
- Know-what needs doing and what does not.
- Know-right from wrong, it’s your brand, mark or company. Be certain that staff follow your ethics and standards.
- Knowledge assets or intellectual property is often worth more than real property.
- Know-why provides motivation.
- Know-your-customers and help them know-you.
- Know-your-suppliers and help them know-you.
Your KMP is different to everyone else’s, or it isn’t worth doing!
Each organisation requires explicit knowledge like brands, trademarks, patents etc and implicit Knowledge - a blend of people, processes and technology.
If you remember nothing more than this – it will help you.
Knowledge Management Planning goes through a 7 step process;
- Auditing – list what you know, by each person, each process and each technology.
- Coding – common language labels, cross indexed, so you can sort it, with a good chance of retrieval as needed.
- Gap analysis – pretty obvious, what don’t you know, that you need know.
- Storage and archiving – it’s intangible remember, so this is not as simple as it first might seem. If you cant list what you know then at least list who knows things, and who can work things out for others.
- Linking - connecting supply to needs and users.
- Marketing – the strategic core reasoning for doing it all, to achieve the organisations goals!
- Ultimately valuing – you will be amazed about how much extra money there is in most businesses once you use proactive Knowledge Management Planning.
To close on another analogy – I believe one of our Breweries have $2billion dollars worth of Knowledge on their assets register. If that asset value was just in a physical product like beer, you couldn’t carry it with you or shift it two centimetres, but as a listed intellectual asset and you could move it to the other side of the world in parts of a second, walk through any boarder with it, you could lease or sell the formula, brands, TradeMarks and Knowledge many times over. That illustrates what you know, when you make your beer, boats, insurance or tools, or whatever, it is the intangible assets, that you can’t see or touch, that are real property and if structured well, under a Knowledge Management Plan they can be your most important asset.
I hope this will encourage you to look at your own people, processes and technology and to establish your own Knowledge Management Planning.
Thank you, Coralee, GETBA and guests - my name is Doug Scott and I own a local specialist marketing consultancy called Knowledge Brokers NZ Ltd and we help our client companies capitalise and profit - from what they know.
Knowledge Brokers NZ Ltd
© Doug Scott 2007
