Customer Intimacy Using Knowledge-sharing Ecosystems

1. Customer Intimacy Using Knowledge-sharing Ecosystems KM World 2006 Track A105 October 31, 2006 Darcy Lemons Senior Project Manager APQC (713) 685-7255 dlemons@apqc.org

2. To work with organizations worldwide to improve productivity and quality by: discovering effective methods of improvement, broadly disseminating findings, and connecting individuals to each other and the knowledge they need to improve. APQC’s Mission

3. Project Scope Overview • Scope Area 1: • Gain support for knowledge sharing partnerships • Scope Area 2: • Build a streamlined extended knowledge space • Scope Area 3: • Manage the extended knowledge enterprise • Scope Area 4: • Gauge the results

4. Sponsors: BP NGL EDS Halliburton Intel Lucent Technologies Petrobras S.A. Study Participants Best-practice Partners: • Buckman Laboratories • Caterpillar Inc. • Raytheon Co. • Tata Steel Ltd. • US Air Force Materiel Command

5. Findings Are Organized Into Six Categories • Competing on Knowledge • Creating an Enabling Environment and Gaining Support for Knowledge-Sharing Partnerships • Creating and Managing Knowledge-Sharing Partnerships • Information Technology • Gauging the Results • The Next Stage

6. DevelopVision& Strategy Design &DevelopProducts& Services Market & Sell DeliverProducts &Services ManageCustomerService Definition of Value Chain A connected series of internal and external organizations (including suppliers and customers), resources, and knowledge streams involved in the creation and delivery of value to end customers.

7. 1. Competing on Knowledge

8. Axioms • Organizations achieve market results by maximizing the effectiveness of their value chains. • Treat the value chain as a knowledge-sharing ecosystem, using KM tools and principles to cross the boundaries. • Knowledge exchange and synthesis translates “Customer Intimacy” into reality and revenue • It takes dialogue to find the sweet spots for you and your customers.

9. Competing on Knowledge: Best Practices • Escape the commodity pricing trap through customer segmentation and intimacy developed through knowledge sharing. • Build a sustainable, win-win value proposition all along the extended value chain. • Build value chain initiatives on a foundation of competency in KM, process improvement, leadership development, and learning. • Use relatively straightforward techniques for managing the potential legal and exposure risks in sharing knowledge across the extended value chain.

10. Example Buckman • Focused on three core segments: pulp and paper, leather, and wastewater treatment • Developed consistent methods of sharing knowledge through: • 1) transition workshops and • 2) customer satisfaction surveys • Focus and methods allowed them to: • build their technical expertise, • provide a broader range of services, • assume consignment management of key customers’ specialty chemicals, • identify new products and services, and • make more money.

11. Example Tata Steel • Focused on automotive and construction • Instituted customer value management program with 25 key customers • Goal: Create Shared Destiny (“Shared growth rate”)

12. DevelopVision& Strategy Design &DevelopProducts& Services Market & Sell DeliverProducts &Services ManageCustomerService Organizational Learning Knowledge Management Strategies, Approaches, Tools Process Improvement (Lean and Six Sigma) V A L U E Examples of Integrated Approaches • Caterpillar: Six Sigma, learning, and communities of practice • Raytheon: knowledge management and Raytheon Learning are embedded in Raytheon Six Sigma • Buckman: integrated knowledge sharing and learning with consistent set of customer engagement methods • Tata Steel: KM and process improvement all under the ASPIRE framework The Performance Program

13. 2. Creating an Enabling Environment and Gaining Support for Knowledge-Sharing Partnerships

14. Creating an Enabling Environment: Best Practices • Gain clear, visible, and sponsored executive support by tying knowledge sharing to business strategy and business value. • Understand business processes so that knowledge-sharing practices can be built around them. • Gain buy-in by leveraging strong change management techniques and involving the appropriate value chain partners in the design of the knowledge-sharing initiative. • Use a communication strategy to spread the word about the initiatives and build and sustain buy-in.

15. 3: Creating and Managing Knowledge-Sharing Partnerships

16. Creating Knowledge-Sharing Partnerships: Best Practices • Create an approach to determine and prioritize which parts of the value chain to enable with knowledge-sharing tools and techniques. • Analyze the performance of critical value chain partnerships to identify where it is appropriate to transfer and implement best practices. • Select the appropriate array of knowledge-sharing tools/approaches to match the needs of each partnership. • Lower the barrier to entry for knowledge sharing between value chain partners by providing intuitive, easy-to-use tools.

17. Managing Knowledge-Sharing Partnerships: Best Practices • Create and operate under a shared funding model divided between the business units and the corporate level. • Define clear governance processes for value chain knowledge-sharing partnerships. • Define clear roles and responsibilities for overseeing knowledge-sharing partnerships and managing the change required for success. • Create standard operating processes and workflow for managing the security and confidentiality within the partnership. • Conduct face-to-face partner forums/workshops with key value chain partners to build understanding of processes and create trust for knowledge sharing. • Use multiple communication vehicles as often as possible to strengthen support for current and future knowledge-sharing partnerships.

18. Tools Include KM and Non-KM Approaches • Examples of various approaches – do your employees know when/how to use appropriately? • 6Sigma and lean projects • Formal and informal communities of practice • Internal and external customer/supplier networks • Benchmarking and consultant projects • Councils and leadership teams • Leadership development program projects • Innovation projects • Knowledge-sharing portals • Expertise locator systems • Community-specific web tools and discussion threads • Knowledge repositories • Enterprise resource planning (ERP) system modules

19. Examples of Partner Approaches • “One size does not fit all.” • AFKN • CoPs, deskbook, search engine, wisdom exchange • Buckman • TeamToolz teams, Discussion forums, ERP, Product rollout teams • Tata Steel • CoPs, Knowledge Manthan (churning), ASPIRE, SVM, CVM • Raytheon 6Sigma, Learning, CoPs

20. Examples: Shared Funding Models • AFKN combined funding model • 40% centralized • 60% internal budget transfer • Caterpillar – until 2005, funded by executive offices. In 2005 and 2006, charged as “pay as go” in BU training budgets • $85 = number of people using/Knowledge Network budget • Raytheon aligns R6σ and the business through strategic plans and reviews, operating plans and reviews, and HR reviews to foster shared funding.

21. Raytheon’s Virtual KM Structure

22. Partner Examples • Air Force Knowledge Now CoE for KM (19 people) responsible for strategy, IT/tech support, CoP support and facilitation, and KM governance. • Caterpillar’s core KM team (3 people) support the application, set the strategic direction, assess value, provide training, and help with requests. • Internal governance for knowledge sharing (via Caterpillar University) integrated into regular business governance entities • CEO sits on the Caterpillar board of governors for Caterpillar University • Raytheon’s R6σ council of cross-functional business leaders plan and execute the deployment of R6σ across the enterprise. • The council’s mission is to drive the development, deployment, integration, and improvement of R6σ for employees and leadership through: • alignment of R6σ to business strategy; • assuring R6σ is focused toward constraints in providing value to customers; • knowledge sharing; • establish the learning and development objectives for leaders, master experts, experts, and specialists; and • governance of the R6σ processes and practices.

23. Driving Security/Confidentiality • 100% of partners manage the risk of sharing knowledge inside the internal value chain and outside the value chain. • Avoid allowing suppliers/partners to create anti-trust or collusion problems using the organization’s - closely manage discussions. • 3 steps for security/confidentiality • Perform a security audit on sharing systems. • Partners used both internal IT resources and outside companies to test the system from inside and outside the firewalls. • Work with the legal department and appropriate business functions to create and implement appropriate disclaimers to protect all parties. • If outsiders are going to be allowed to access explicit information or expertise, embed strong authentication and encryption tools.

24. Caterpillar’s “Mother of All” Disclaimers • Caterpillar’s disclaimer has sections on: • description of service, • site access, • content, • confidentiality of content, • code of conduct, • disclaimer of warranties, • limitation of liability, • indemnification, • export and/or international laws, • miscellaneous, and • competition and antitrust.

25. Tata’s “Riding the Tiger” Process • Tata Steel is cautious to only share information that is pertinent to creating value with a customer. • HOWEVER, there is always the possibility that a customer may take an idea created with Tata Steel to one of Tata’s competitors. • Tata curtails this by working to continually generate more ideas for an organization and maintain an active and long relationship. • As the level of trust increases, then the risks associated with that organization will decrease. • In the words of Tata Steel representatives, “Once you a mount a tiger, you can’t get off.”

26. Building F2F Sharing • Convening organization must provide: • Clear boundaries and rules for any discussions, • Business goals, • List of exact participants, and • Detailed agenda of items to cover. • This provides all participants time to prepare and decide what to share based on the audience and goals of the session. • Raytheon’s Supplier Forum is a touchstone event for RILCOM and drives a significant portion of the $40+ million savings RILCOM has realized in 2005. • Buckman Labs’ transition workshop uses interviews, surveys, discussions to create an action plan for better business and partnership.

27. 4. The Information Technology (IT) Infrastructure

28. The Information Technology (IT) Infrastructure: Best Practices • Leverage existing knowledge-sharing tools for use with internal and/or external partners, suppliers, or customers where it makes sense to do so. • Provide a suite of applications CoPs can customize for their specific needs. • Implement strong authentication and monitoring capabilities for those IT tools.

29. Portals allow for easy access The idea behind Buckman’s portal was to make knowledge sharing and collaboration as easy as possible for its associates by integrating all of the tools they might need into one place.

30. AFKN CoP Screenshot

31. Caterpillar Security Profile for a CoP

32. 5. Gauging the Results

33. Gauging the Results: Best Practices • Devise business value measures • Have a methodology in place to measure the results and execute this methodology continuously

34. 1. Devise Business Value Measures • Knowledge-Sharing Measures • The AFKN team can measure the number of participants who have created accounts, the number of documents uploaded into the communities, and the number of pages displayed per month, as well as the number of submissions received for CoP awards. • Process Measures • Buckman gauges the effectiveness of its knowledge-sharing tools and activities in a variety of ways, including the number of BAARs, the number of trained associates, customer loyalty scores, supplier relationship enhancement, customer satisfaction survey results, rate of new product development, new product sales, and continuous improvement for Buckman and its customers. • Business Value Measures • At Tata, for example, cost and productivity of the steel making shop is governed by parameters such as the life cycle of cost of refractory in the steel ladle and the consumption of aluminum wire. For the CVM program, typical key performance indicators reviewed by senior management include increase in the share of business, improvement in delivery compliance, system inventory, and volume of new products or grades.

35. 2. Have Robust Measurement Methodology • Metrics to evaluate a phenomenon normally fall into two categories – process metrics and output metrics. • Process Metrics • Define the process • Define the attribute being measured • Analyze the measures • Internal History • External Measures • Devising interventions • Output Metrics • Metrics that evaluate the finished product • Define who is going to evaluate • Define what is going to be evaluated • Analyze the measures • Choose interventions • Report interventions to the evaluators

36. Contact APQC 123 North Post Oak Lane, Third Floor Houston, Texas 77024 Toll Free: (800) 776-9676 Email: apqcinfo@apqc.org Web: http://www.apqc.org Darcy Lemons (713)685-7255 dlemons@apqc.org Download the full report “Leveraging Knowledge Across the Value Chain” at http://www.apqc.org/studies/krt More Information