Speaking the Language of Business - knowledge management - Statistical Data Included

Chief Executive, The, July, 2001 by Bob Woods

Exchanging knowledge across many borders means recognizing a world of difference.

"Toto, I have a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore."

Like young Dorothy Gale -- and her little dog, too -- who was blown to a distant place where the way people went about their business was quite foreign, companies going global have to find ways to adapt to their surroundings and get the job done. Dorothy looked to a wonderful wizard for guidance, though his wisest advice was to look inward for answers. Outside Oz, company leaders share the same counsel -- to rely on the core knowledge and values of their employees.

In some cases, that means there's no place like the home page. Consider ShareNet, a Web site created by Siemens to spread around the knowledge of the company's world-wide work force. From any point on the planet, be it the Ozarks or Oslo, employees can log on and chat with or e-mail colleagues, search an extensive database or store their own information. Set up initially in 1999 for the use of the 12,000 salespeople in Siemens' Information & Communications Networks Group, ShareNet has been credited with adding $122 million in sales -- a sizable return on the initial $7.8 million investment.

More than just a databank, though, Siemens' knowledge-sharing program recognizes local peculiarities. For example, a sales team in Malaysia customized a broadband network to meet a client's specific needs, but the project was based on a network designed by a Siemens team in Denmark to the client's specs. ShareNet may be the common repository, but the know-how in it needs to be tailored to the location and the particular requirements.

That's the reality of globalization. A U.S. company can't simply pack up its best practices, ship them off to another country and expect them to work exactly the same way. The management of intellectual capital needs to reflect global characteristics, as well. "The old corporate culture doesn't work in other parts of the world," explains R.S. Moorthy, director of Motorola University, the training, education and research center of Motorola, Inc. "As we become more global, we recognize that it is important to look at values rather than procedure. It is important to learn from what is happening in other parts of the world. Understanding other cultures is critical to how we do business."

Yet some best practices do turn out to be universal. Take Pfizer's awareness that in many parts of the world, pharmacies function as community centers -- which means that patients seeking prescriptions for some conditions may be embarrassed to do so in front of friends and neighbors. The solution is as simple as putting a plain sleeve around a product box, and as complex as coaching doctors in how to address conditions without embarrassment to themselves or their patients.

Deloitte Consulting's regional managing partner for greater China, Shane Tedjarati -- a native of Montreal, raised in Canada and Europe and living in China for the past decade -- acknowledges the importance of adapting Deloitte's global corporate culture to accommodate his local clients. "Most of them ask, 'Have you done this type of work before? And where?'" he says. "They like to know that we're able to harness that experience and use our best practices in their particular environment, or translate them to their particular set of requirements. That is very key to what we do, although it does not mean that we use cookie-cutter types of consulting."

Colgate-Palmolive, in expanding its intellectual capital internationally, has instituted a program that nurtures the human element. People are relocated outside their home countries, for six-month to two-year assignments, as a way to establish new knowledge networks and to leverage learning from one part of the world to another. The consumer products manufacturer also has implemented comprehensive education and training programs to support and share learning among its employees on a global basis.

Knowledge management pioneer Buckman Laboratories has gone so far as to offer courses for credit and degree programs from about 20 different universities around the world, free of charge, to its work force. "We had to go through the culture change we did," says Robert Buckman, chairman of the executive committee of the specialty chemical maker's board of directors, "and to create unlimited opportunities for our employees to grow -- both to retain them and to keep their knowledge valuable to the company and to the customers they serve."

KNOWING A PLACE FROM THE INSIDE OUT

Of course, the Internet has been a prime instigator of globalization, particularly with its ability to link buyers and sellers, anytime, anywhere. However, layered into the data and processes that facilitate global transactions are deeply embedded regional nuances -- and they didn't get there through any software upgrades or versioning. That type of specialized input comes from having knowledge workers on the ground in other countries who are intimately familiar with their environment.