IT essay on: “IF HP KNEW WHAT HP KNOWS”
- 1. Introduction:
This report is concerned with the how knowledge management helps the organization in sharing the information in the organization. At HP, the organizational culture followed is open, decentralized i.e. everybody can participate in the decision making process of the company. The flow of ideas is from the low level management to the high level management. There are various knowledge management initiatives undertaken by the company & the report would help in the better understanding of the same.
1.1 Background:
The knowledge audit refers to a systematic evaluation & examination of all the tools that have been used in a particular organization, company. It examines the knowledge gap, knowledge needs, knowledge flows as well as the behavior of the people sharing the information & creating knowledge.
Knowledge audit helps in identifying the organizational goals & the team goals. It tells how well the information is being circulated in the organization (HP).
The aim of knowledge management at HP is to use the emerging KM tools which are available in the market & would help HP in order to sustain the long run. This report help the analyzing the current knowledge management initiatives taken & how the implementation of the tools discussed further in the report would help HP.
2. Current Position:
2.1 Organizational Culture;
The existing organization structure at HP shows that they have a decentralized organizational culture. They also sometimes follow the open organizational culture too.
At HP, the decentralized organizational culture refers to a type of culture where the delegation of the decision making authority goes down to the last level of the organization. In such type of an organizational culture, the ideas flow from the lower level management to the top most level. At HP the organizational culture is quite open, which means that all the employees of the organization are free to tell their ideas, broadening the scope of decision making (Manville, Brooke & Foote, 1996).
At Hewlett Packard, the top level of the management delegates the lower level management in order to take certain decisions. Another relevant organizational structure which is prevalent at HP refers to the flat appearance of the organizational structure. Such type of structures would lead to an effective decision making by free flow of information from the lower levels of management to the high level of management (Manville, Brooke & Foote, 1996).
2.2 Knowledge Management System at HP:
It was noticed that there has been various Knowledge Management initiatives which have been taken up at HP. There have been various types of workshops which have been conducted at HP relating to knowledge management.
Some of the initiatives adopted at HP are listed as under:
Trainer’s Trading Post
One of the initiatives which have been taken up by HP with regards to knowledge management system refers to as the trainer’s trading post.
It involves educating the employees at HP. It has been noticed that there are more than 2,000 trainers distributed all across HP & work in small groups in order to impart education as well as share knowledge amongst the people working in the organization.
The head of the personnel department Karney, found that there were many complaints from the employees regarding the approaches towards imparting knowledge. Karney suggested to take certain efforts in order to share various types of information, too set, etc (Manville, Brooke & Foote, 1996).
HP has been known as a “knowledge-intensive” company. The company is known for the different types of technology which is being used by the firm. It has also been considered that the knowledge imparted by HP provides a competitive advantage.
Since, the organizational culture followed by HP is decentralized the knowledge is being shared all across the business units. In this type of an environment, the efforts of imparting the knowledge management would have been multiplied.
The three notable initiatives in case of knowledge management are as under “Trainers’ Trading Post”; the “Connex” guide to internal experts; and “HP Network News”.
Building a Network of Experts
Another knowledge management initiative adopted at HP was building a network of experts in the laboratories of HP. The major goal of such type of knowledge management system at HP would help in providing a guide to human knowledge resource within the laboratories as well other units of HP (Harris & David, 1996).
Imparting fair knowledge within the laboratories would help in identifying the various functions as well as guide them in order to solve the problems identified.
Knowledge Management on Product Processes
This initiative has been adopted by the managers at HP with regards to the processing of the products. Such knowledge management tool helps in performing various types of functions such as Procurement, marketing of the product, Organizational Change, etc (Harris & David, 1996).
Under this KM tool there are various other systems such as Product Generation Information Systems (PGIS) which would help in serving the functions mentioned above.
Another system under this initiative refers to the PPO knowledge management group. The PPO helps in linking the knowledge management group which would help in determining the concept of KM & summarizing it all across the business units of the HP.
Managing Knowledge for the Computer Dealer Channel
One of the major initiatives which have been adopted by HP is in regards to managing knowledge for the computer dealer channel. This initiative was adopted in order to manage knowledge within HP in order to grant product knowledge for the CPO i.e. Computer Products Organization.
In order to share the knowledge amongst all the members of the organization, workers at HP started to log in various questions on the database in order to get as much information/ knowledge as possible.
All the databases at HP were translated to the Lotus Notes. The conversion has led to an outstanding success in decreasing the number of calls.
This initiative has also led to effectiveness amongst the systems & sees all the dealer related problems very carefully. It not only deals in the type of problems being faced by the dealers but also various ways, knowledge is required in order to solve the problems. This initiative has also led to a consistent adding of knowledge amongst the dealers (Fink, 2002).
3. Knowledge Management Tools:
There are various knowledge management tools available in the market today. These tools help in the adding or gaining the whole process of knowledge management process.
Some of the knowledge management tools available in the market are enumerated as under. They are:
The first type of knowledge management tool which is widely used by majority of the companies is the Document Management Systems. As the name suggest, this type of knowledge management tool helps in storing, publishing, & retrieving of the various documents which is being used by the company in order to perform their day to day functions (Harris & David, 1996).
The document management knowledge system performs the following functions. Some of the functions are as under:
° The first & the most basic function performed by this type of knowledge management tool refer to the capturing of data, paper documents & scan it for further verification. Such type of a function is majorly used in those companies where variety of documents is used & processed (Manville, Brooke & Foote, 1996).
° The second function which would help any organization is classifying the data using metadata. This means that documents could be classified on the basis of date, author, key words, etc. which would help in the future retrieval of the documents.
° The next function which is performed by using this knowledge management tool is to search the document system. The search of the document using this tool would be done either by using phrases, key words, using document’s metadata, etc. which would help in better analysis of the same (Harris & David, 1996).
The next knowledge management tool which is being used by majority of the organizations refers to the Groupware System. This system would help in collaborating different types of applications (Fink, 2002).
There are mainly three types of groupware system, namely:
° Conferencing tools
° Communication tools
° Collaborative management tools
The conferencing tools refers to the type of tools which help in the transmission of the various kind of documents such as files, email, wikis, files sharing, etc
The conferencing tool in such type of knowledge management tool would help in free flow of video/audio conferencing, chats, blogs, forums, etc.
The last type of groupware system helps in managing the group activities such as workflow systems, information management system, etc
The best known or the emerging groupware system refers to the Lotus Notes.
The organizations can make the best outcomes by using this type of knowledge management tools. If the groupware system is implemented properly, this tool would facilitate sharing of knowledge by using various communication tools.
The organizations would be able to get a benefit by using the various supporting tools such as video chats, conferencing, etc. The expert would be able to find the logical sources of knowledge (Fink, 2002).
The next knowledge management tool used by the firms refers to the Content Management System. This system would be used by the organization as it helps in the creation, distribution as well as managing the content displayed on the website of the company.
The content management system would help any organization as various advantages are attached to it. The company would be acquainted with various advantages. Some of them are mentioned below:
° This system would help in providing a template for publishing the data, files in the easiest manner on the existing design/structure.
° This system also helps in tagging the content with the metadata mentioned above.
° The company would be able to integrate the document management system, collaborate the work, editing of the content, etc.
Another knowledge management tool which would help the managers at HP would be the Decision Support Systems. The DSS would help the managers at HP to have an access & manipulate the data available. DSS refers to a valuable tool which would help the managers at HP to provide all kinds of information to the experts. The DSS uses Online Analytical Processing system (OLAP) & employ creation data mining tools in order to mine the data from all the data which is available with the managers at the HP (Fink, 2002).
A proper DSS would help HP in order to perform the following & have an edge over the others. They are:
° The system would help in investigating the majority of the decisions which is to be taken up by HP.
° Comparison among the decisions within the Knowledge Management activities would help the organization.
° This support would help in evaluating the current decision support system in the knowledge management system (Davenport & Thomas, 1997).
One of the most important knowledge management tool which would help HP in order to share & impart information/knowledge amongst the employees at HP is OLAP.
OLAP is a tool which would help in order to acquaint the users, what has happened in the enterprise. This tool would help in improve & understand the data as well as the information (Davenport & Thomas, 1997).
4. Recommendations:
Looking at the current position of HP, a justifiable knowledge management project of the company (HP) should be initiated at the company which would help HP in the years to come. In order to develop the effective knowledge project, the following should be taken into consideration:
° Increased Participation: There should be an increased participation of all the members in the organization i.e. HP in order to have a well defined decision making process within the organization.
° Increased Transparency: The first & the second issue go hand in hand. With an increased participation of the members of the organization (HP), there should be an increased transparency which would help all the members in regards to the knowledge management system.
° Managing the uncertainties
5. Conclusion:
This report takes into consideration the current situation at Hewlett – Packard with regards to its current position in case of Knowledge Management System. The case study highlights the various knowledge management initiatives adopted within HP. The main aim or purpose of this report is to see how the various knowledge management tools available in the market prove to provide an advantageous situation which would help HP in the future.
It can be concluded that in order to create the information productive, it should be translated into an actionable knowledge. This report suggests that the knowledge management tools mentioned above assists the organizations in order to adapt the emerging tools available in the market which would help them to be fruitful in the long run (Davenport & Thomas, 1997).
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