Enterprise Knowledge Management

In his posting “Tacit vs. Explicit Knowledge” Gerald has explained the main differences between the two type of information and their importance. According to Gerald tacit knowledge is the primary factor, which contributes in the development of the competitive advantage of a company. Therefore it is extremely important for the company to externalize tacit knowledge, as there is always a threat that the employee holding the knowledge may leave the company any time and taking the knowledge with him. On the other hand explicit knowledge is of less value and can be easily replicated.

But replacing the tacit knowledge with the explicit knowledge is not the solution of the problem, as keeping the tacit knowledge intact with the employees is also a risk. Therefore according to Gerald both tacit and explicit knowledge are interdependent and cannot be dissociated. In his posting “How virtual organizations conduct their business” Gerald has given a detailed comparison of the two virtual organizations and the way they conduct their business. In this case he has compared Buy. com and Amazon. com. According to Gerald Buy. com focuses its value proposition around price and constantly compare its price with its competitors. Buy. com use the knowledge and understanding regarding their customers to use as a competitive advantage. As a portal the company acts an intermediary between the customers and sellers. Amazon on the other hand uses a different approach. The company is much more than an intermediary. On the other hand their main asset is the understanding of their customers and their needs. The company uses different techniques to get the knowledge regarding the customer’s taste, behavior, needs and profile.

Every move of the customer on the website is carefully monitored. By collecting this information these companies get the required knowledge to promote their products and sales effectively. Amazon for example provides the list of recommended products based on the previous purchases done by the customers. In this way the company develops a knowledge platform that detects similitude in habits, behaviors and centers of interests. Gerald recommends development of intelligence based on the acquired information that triggers the signals and put the information into a particular context.

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Moreover, Gerald gives an example of in his posting “The Knowledge Worker” Gerald has given a thorough description of the nature and importance of a knowledge worker. According to Gerald knowledge worker is a person who transform business and personal experience into knowledge through capturing, assessing, applying, sharing and distributing knowledge within an organization to solve problem or create value. All the great discoveries and creations have knowledge as a part of the process. Knowledge based companies always find new ways of addressing problems and acquiring competitive advantage.

There is no high value of a product without having the knowledge associated with it. Because not everybody can create value and take advantage of knowledge, a knowledge worker classification seems to be a good one.

Key Learning Points of Rajesh:

In his posting “Tacit vs. Explicit Knowledge” Rajesh compares both kind of knowledge. According to Rajesh as most employees are of average level of intelligence, and they can improve themselves in a continuous manner, an internalize knowledge is needed. This internalize knowledge could be helpful to improve their abilities.

According to this perspective explicit knowledge is of continuous value to the company. Speaking about the tacit knowledge Rajesh states that much more effort is necessary to extract, preserve and make use of tacit knowledge. Rajesh recommends long-term retention of staff and introduction of incentives for the staff to encourage them to share tacit knowledge etc. Therefore in terms of ROI, Rajesh concludes that creating explicit knowledge would prove to be more profitable. In his posting “How Virtual Organizations Conduct Their Business” Rajesh gives a thorough comparison of both virtual marketplaces Buy. com & Amazon. com. According to Rajesh both companies take advantage of their digital nature of data available for these marketplaces. Amazon. com uses personalized recommendations, other recommendations, bestseller magazines, deals, top selling books, the amazon blog and the help link. All these links use the knowledge gained by the customer regarding his/her habit, taste, behavior and needs to provide recommendations. Buy. com on the other hand uses methods like what’s shaking ranking system based on transactions, deal of the week offers, featured products, most popular and what’s the buzz etc.

The above-mentioned methods used by both companies indicate that both distill customer’s information to provide recommendations and offerings. Therefore the best part of the electronic marketplace is that it provides the best set of knowledge to both buyers and sellers. Finally Rajesh states that the electronic marketplace depends on the analysis of the data they retrieve from their customers and users who visit their websites. In his posting “The Knowledge Worker” Rajesh has given a thorough description of knowledge worker.

According to Rajesh when looked at the workers according to the knowledge-based perspective than every worker is a knowledge worker indeed. Every worker has his/her own kind of knowledge, which is unique to him/her only. According to Rajesh the most interesting part in this article is the way the value of knowledge worker is determined, i. e. by determining the cost of replacing him. Rajesh does not agree that the term knowledge worker is a correct one. He argues that every worker is a knowledge worker, because they all possess unique kind of knowledge.

The concept of the importance of particular person because of his tacit knowledge is becoming common in the modern corporate world. Rajesh Agrees with the author that the knowledge workers have always existed since the beginning of the industrial age. But Rajesh thinks that the exercise to classify the workers between knowledge workers and non-knowledge workers is a futile effort. He further called the term a fad and a misnomer. My Key Contributions: Speaking about the tacit knowledge and explicit knowledge, I think that both are necessary for the organization.

The explicit knowledge is necessary for daily operations, structuring the organizational hierarchy and the way business is conducted. Tacit knowledge on the other hand is the basis of the core competencies, value creation and competitive advantage of the company. Because tacit knowledge resides in the heart of an individual in the form of experience and expertise, it needs much more effort to externalize tacit knowledge as compared to explicit knowledge. Speaking about the way Buy. com and Amazon. com conduct their business, I think that both companies use the same way, technology and methods to promote their sales and market their products.

Both of them use data analysis tools and customer profiling techniques to get the complete user profiles. In this way they know a lot about the way of thinking of the customer and offer him deals and packages according to his taste and apparent needs. Knowledge worker is an individual who have specific and unique tacit knowledge and has the ability to use it and create value with the help of it. Since simply possessing certain kind of knowledge is not enough, therefore not every worker can be a knowledge worker.

He should have the assessment, application and distribution abilities of the knowledge he possesses. Therefore I agree with the author in this regard that the term knowledge worker is indeed a good kind of classification. In this case I do not agree with my fellow Rajesh who calls it a fag or misnomer. The second posting of Gerald regarding the comparison of Buy. com and Amazon was really helpful as it gave me an insight of the way both companies work. While the final posting of Rajesh was really helpful though I do not agree with his argument.

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