Case Study
Andrea is working with a team to implement a knowledge management approach within her organization. They’ve got buy-in from the CEO and employees; now they just need to figure out what would work best for their organization. Andrea has been put in charge of deciding which IT solutions would fit her company’s needs.
Andrea’s company is relatively small, with about 150 employees. However, the business is expanding and the company has just opened a small office overseas. With this expansion, there has been a natural amount of upheaval. However, there have also been a high amount of complaints from staff. They feel that the tools they are using to share knowledge are no longer sufficient to support the shift in the organizational structure.
Andrea looks at the knowledge sharing tools they currently have. Right now, they have a basic company intranet that is used mostly for e-mail. Andrea wonders what else this intranet might be able to accomplish. They also have a basic document storage database but it is not systematized or monitored and people have no standard to adhere to when inputting information. Actually, Andrea has overheard employees saying they stay away from this database because they find it useless.
Andrea then thinks about what she wants from an IT solution(s). She wants a place for customers to be able to view products and services that would give more information than the company website. She also wants employees to be able to collaborate on documents, especially with the opening of the overseas office. She knows that although there are only 150 employees within the company right now, this number will soon rise. This means that people need to have networking tools and a way to tell them who else is in the organization. Your job is to help Andrea get on the right track with her IT solutions.