CHAPTER 8
Helping Organizations
Access, Share And Use
Information
Opening Case:
Leveraging Knowledge at
Bell Canada
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Chapter Eight Overview
• SECTION 8.1 – TURNING INFORMATION INTO
KNOWLEDGE
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Teams, Partnerships, and Alliances
Collaboration
Content Management Systems
Workflow Management Systems
Groupware Systems
Knowledge Management
KM and Social Networking
• SECTION 8.2 – ENTERPRISE PORTALS
– What are Enterprise Portals
– The Potential of Enterprise Portals
– Factors Affecting Enterprise Portal Adoption and Use
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Learning Outcomes
1. Explain how information systems can help companies
turn information into knowledge, and build
partnerships, teams and alliances.
2. Describe what is meant by a collaboration system, and
how such systems can support both structured and
unstructured collaboration.
3. Explain the differences between, and business
advantages of, various types of collaboration systems,
such as groupware, content management systems,
and workflow management systems.
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Learning Outcomes
4. Understand the difference between knowledge
management and knowledge management systems.
5. Explain how enterprise portals can help organizations
access, share, and utilize information better.
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SECTION 8.1
TURNING INFORMATION
INTO KNOWLEDGE
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TEAMS, PARTNERSHIPS, AND
ALLIANCES
• Organizations create and use teams,
partnerships, and alliances to:
– Undertake new initiatives
– Address both minor and major problems
– Capitalize on significant opportunities
• Organizations create teams, partnerships,
and alliances both internally with
employees and externally with other
organizations
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TEAMS, PARTNERSHIPS, AND
ALLIANCES
• Collaboration system – supports the work of teams by
facilitating the sharing and flow of information
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TEAMS, PARTNERSHIPS, AND
ALLIANCES
• Organizations form alliances and
partnerships with other organizations
based on their core competency
– Core competency – an organization’s key
strength, a business function that it does
better than any of its competitors
– Core competency strategy – organization
chooses to focus specifically on its core
competency and forms partnerships with
other organizations to handle nonstrategic
business processes
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TEAMS, PARTNERSHIPS, AND
ALLIANCES
• Information technology can make a business
partnership easier to establish and manage
– Information partnership – occurs when two or more
organizations cooperate by integrating their IT
systems, thereby providing customers with the best
of what each can offer
• The Internet has dramatically increased the
ease and availability for IT-enabled
organizational alliances and partnerships
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COLLABORATION
• Collaboration system: An IT-based set of
tools that supports the work of teams by
facilitating the sharing and flow of information
• Collaboration solves specific
business tasks such as
telecommuting, online
meetings, deploying
applications, and remote
project and sales management
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COLLABORATION
• Two categories of collaboration
1. Unstructured collaboration (information
collaboration) - includes document
exchange, shared whiteboards, discussion
forums, and e-mail
2. Structured collaboration (process
collaboration) - involves shared
participation in business processes such as
workflow in which knowledge is hardcoded
as rules
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CONTENT MANAGEMENT
SYSTEMS
• Content management system (CMS) –
provides tools to manage the creation,
storage, editing, and publication of
information in a collaborative
environment
• CMS marketplace includes:
– Document management system (DMS)
– Digital asset management system (DAM)
– Web content management system (WCM)
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CONTENT MANAGEMENT
SYSTEMS
•
Common types of content management systems
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CONTENT MANAGEMENT
SYSTEMS
•
Content management system vendor overview
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WORKFLOW MANAGEMENT
SYSTEMS
•
Work activities can be performed in series or in
parallel and involve people and automated
computer systems
•
Workflow – defines all the steps or business
rules, from beginning to end, required for a
business process
•
Workflow management system – facilitates
the automation and management of business
processes and controls the movement of work
through the business process
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WORKFLOW MANAGEMENT
SYSTEMS
• Messaging-based workflow system –
sends work assignments through an email system
• Database-based workflow system –
stores documents in a central location
and automatically asks the team
members to access the document when
it is their turn to edit the document
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GROUPWARE SYSTEMS
• Groupware technologies
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GROUPWARE SYSTEMS
•
Groupware – software that supports team
interaction and dynamics including calendaring,
scheduling, and videoconferencing
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GROUPWARE SYSTEMS
• Instant messaging application
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KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT
•
Knowledge management (KM) – involves
capturing, classifying, evaluating, retrieving,
and sharing information assets in a way that
provides context for effective decisions and
actions
•
Knowledge management system (KMS) –
supports the capturing, organization, and
dissemination of knowledge (“know-how”)
throughout an organization
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Explicit and Tacit Knowledge
•
Intellectual and knowledge-based assets
fall into two categories
1. Explicit knowledge – consists of anything
that can be documented, archived, and
codified, often with the help of IT
2. Tacit knowledge - knowledge contained in
people’s heads
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Explicit and Tacit Knowledge
• The following are two best practices for
transferring or recreating tacit knowledge
– Shadowing – less experienced staff observe
more experienced staff to learn how their
more experienced counterparts approach
their work
– Joint problem solving – a novice and
expert work together on a project
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Explicit and Tacit Knowledge
Reasons why organizations launch knowledge
management programs
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KM Technologies
• Knowledge management systems
include:
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–
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Knowledge repositories (databases)
Expertise tools
E-learning applications
Discussion and chat technologies
Search and data-mining tools
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KM and Social Networking
• Finding out how information flows
through an organization
– Social networking analysis (SNA) – a
process of mapping a group’s contacts
(whether personal or professional) to identify
who knows whom and who works with
whom
– SNA provides a clear picture of how
employees and divisions work together and
can help identify key experts
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OPENING CASE QUESTIONS
Leveraging Knowledge at Bell Canada
1. What type of information does the MKC portal collect
and distribute as a means of promoting knowledge
sharing and learning? How is this type of information
different than that found in transactional databases and
data warehouses containing summarized information?
2. Give examples of decision-making scenarios where
information obtained from the MKC portal would be
used. How would these decision-making scenarios
differ from those where employees use transactional
information obtained from databases? From
summarized information obtained from data
warehouses and data marts?
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OPENING CASE QUESTIONS
Leveraging Knowledge at Bell Canada
3. How has a centralized MKC portal improved knowledge
sharing and information partnerships within Bell
Canada and across the BCE family of companies?
What is the ROI of centralizing the MKC portal
solution?
4. What enhancements could be made to the MKC portal
to further promote collaboration among project teams at
Bell?
5. What enhancements could be made to the MKC portal
to further promote employees understanding the
information obtained from the portal and their ability to
potentially put that information into action? That is,
what features or functions added to the portal would
help employees glean insights, make deductions, and
forge new insights?
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SECTION 8.2
ENTERPRISE PORTALS
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What are Enterprise Portals?
• Enterprise Portals - Are single-point Web
browser interfaces used within an organization
to promote the gathering, sharing, and
dissemination of information throughout an
enterprise.
• Web browser interface facilitates navigation of
the Enterprise Portal via:
– Enterprise taxonomy or classification of information
categories
– Search engine
– Hyperlinks to both internal and external resources
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Enterprise Portals
Features
• Publishing facility
• Automatic indexing facility
• Subscription facility
• Intelligent agents
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The Potential of Enterprise Portals
• Potential of Enterprise Portals
– Facilitate knowledge creation, distribution, and use
– Promote Collaboration
• Portals must comprise three distinct areas to be
effective
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Factors Affecting Enterprise Portal
Adoption and Use
Major factors affecting adoption and use of
Enterprise Portals are not technical in nature
Lesson
Description
Lesson #1
•In terms of information politics, the human struggle over an enterprise portal’s
content and functionality can lead to resultant designs that favour certain stakeholder
groups rather than address end-user needs.
Lesson #2
•In terms of the system development process, a perceived slowness in changes to an
enterprise portal’s design or information content can lead to user dissatisfaction.
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Factors Affecting Enterprise Portal
Adoption and Use
In terms of information culture, there are several lessons to be learned:
Lesson
Description
Lesson #3A
•With respect to information sharing, the provision of protected, secure areas in an
enterprise portal to pre-defined individuals or groups can lead to greater exchange of
documents and ideas.
Lesson #3B
•With respect to information overload, the filtering of information within an
enterprise portal can lead to greater user acceptance of the system.
Lesson #3C
•With respect to information access, providing quick and universal access to an
enterprise portal can lead to heightened usage.
Lesson #3D
•With respect to information control, offering a means to tailor the display and
presentation of information on an enterprise portal can increase user satisfaction with
the system.
Lesson #3E
•With respect to attitude towards using an enterprise portal, a positive perception
towards and awareness of an enterprise portal’s functionality can lead to greater user
adoption.
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Factors Affecting Enterprise Portal
Adoption and Use
• Insights from Computer Supported
Cooperative Work (CSCW) on adoption
and use of Enterprise Portals
– Ensure that everyone benefits
– Create incentives for use
– Promote multiple perspectives
– Understand current work practice
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OPENING CASE QUESTIONS
Leveraging Knowledge at Bell Canada
6. Is the MKC portal an enterprise portal? Explain why or
why not.
7. What features or functions could be added to the MKC
portal to improve its potential as an enterprise portal?
8. Assume Bell Canada has an enterprise portal (let’s call
it Bellnet) that is independent of the MKC portal. In this
sense, the MKC portal would be a sub-portal of Bellnet.
What are the advantages of setting things up this way?
The disadvantages?
9. Using the lessons and insights listed in Figures 8.12
and 8.13 as a guide, what advice would you give Bell
Canada to promote the avid use of the MKC portal?
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CLOSING CASE ONE
DreamWorks Animation Collaboration
1. How can companies use Halo to increase their
business efficiency?
2. Explain how a company like PepsiCo can use Halo to
gain a competitive advantage in its industry.
3. How can knowledge management be increased by
using a product such as Halo?
4. Why would a company like DreamWorks, that is not IT
focused, be interested in collaboration systems?
5. What are a few of the security issues surrounding this
type of information system?
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CLOSING CASE TWO
Enterprise Content Management at Statoil
1. Why do you think content management is such a
critical part of Statoil’s strategy?
2. Comment on the utility and importance of Statoil’s use
of an information portal to promote enterprise-wide
content management.
3. To what extent do you think Statoil’s predicament of
information overload is typical for organizations in
Canada?
4. What lessons learned and insights from the chapter's
discussion on the factors affecting the adoption and
use of enterprise portal could help promote Statoil’s
adoption and use of its content management initiative?
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CLOSING CASE THREE
Open Text Gets Social
1. Do you think the employment of social networking
software will be commonplace in corporate
environments in the future? What are the drivers of the
use of such software? What are the inhibitors of use?
2. Why is e-mail not conducive to collaborative work?
How are Web 2.0 technologies better suited to support
collaborative work?
3. What is the advantage of having Web 2.0 software
functionality built upon a strong underlying ECM
platform?
4. What factors contribute to the current low levels of
adoption of enterprise content management software
by corporations?
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