2010 Promise and Reality award finalists

KM REALITY AWARD

In many organizations, knowledge management is just rhetoric. This award recognizes an organization in which knowledge management is a positive reality. The recipient of the KM Reality award is an organization demonstrating leadership in the implementation of knowledge management practices and processes by realizing measurable business benefits. The knowledge management program will have:

• been in place for a minimum of two years,
• demonstrated senior management support, and
• defined metrics to evaluate the program and its impact on organizational goals.

The KM Reality finalists:

Aspen Technology—provides process engineering, plant operations and supply chain software solutions to process industries. Its Knowledge Management Office (KMO) was formed for the Manufacturing & Supply Chain business unit to implement standardized processes and tools to capture and share intellectual capital and best practices, with a special focus on services methodology. With the success of the initial program, the KMO was elevated to a corporate function reporting to the CIO, and the team led a 2005 implementation of SharePoint. Adoption of the intranet in 2009 called for implementation of SharePoint 2007 and creation of a virtual team of successful group knowledge managers able to continue to build upon the successful initiative.

ATP World Tour—The Association of Tennis Pros (ATP) is the governing body of the men’s professional tennis circuit. The ATP wanted to create a way for its distributed work force to build connections with colleagues and to facilitate better sharing of knowledge and expertise. It also wanted to aggregate and centralize its knowledgebase to improve fan experience at events, tournament staff best-practice sharing and employee collaboration. With any multinational professional sports organization, consistency in the application of rules and in the execution of events is critical. Players and fans expect a consistent and high-quality experience no matter which country they are in or tournament they are attending. Before its program launched in August 2008, e-mail and telephone conferencing were the primary collaboration tools as face-to-face interactions were almost impossible between the key stakeholder groups. Using the IGLOO Community platform, ATP has transformed its decision-making process to be faster, more consistent and inclusive of more opinions from key stakeholder groups.

Boeing Company—is an aerospace company with more than 150,000 employees working in 70 countries worldwide. In November 2007, Boeing created Knowledge Management Gateways, a mechanism to identify and deliver the content that is crucial—and appropriate—to particular jobs. Those Gateways can be open to the entire enterprise or, in some cases, limited to a particular work group. KM Gateways provide deep value by improving employees’ competencies in the following ways: encouraging and cultivating new abilities, understanding and emphasizing sharing knowledge across program and regional boundaries; enhancing technical execution based upon lessons learned from previous programs or functions; and increasing the ability to quickly retrieve credible, customized and contextualized information.

Canadian Partnership Against Cancer—is an independent nonprofit organization charged with improving the country’s cancer control system. The Partnership teamed with Oracle and the global consulting firm Deloitte to implement Oracle WebCenter Suite 11g, a comprehensive enterprise portal solution that provides fully integrated collaboration, content management and enterprise search capabilities through a set of customizable applications. Cancer View Canada, the Partnership’s publicly accessible cancer control information portal, provides visitors with a single point of access for cancer-related information and allowsregistered users to connect and collaborate through Web/Enterprise 2.0 services.

Digital Opportunity Trust (DOT)—is an international organization that focuses on creating educational, economic and entrepreneurial opportunities through the effective use of information and communications technology (ICT) for communities and people in countries that are developing, are in transition or are under stress. DOT has a particular focus on youth and women. It has developed the Digital Knowledge Network, which leverages Web 2.0 and the cloud to connect thousands of ICT experts from around the world, “Connected Communities’’ for knowledge sharing. Currently, there are 10 distinct regions in the network. Each region has its own localized online community that is managed and operated by the local ICT members. Members use their regional community (i.e. Rwanda, Ethiopia, China) to help support their local ICT programs.

Erlanger, Kentucky Police Department—used mapping and statistical software to provide information to patrol officers and supervisors. Neighboring cities, however, used different systems, and many police records were only available offline in hard copies stored in filing cabinets, making sharing information beyond city boundaries cumbersome. While criminals crossed back and forth over those boundaries, the information about their crimes stayed within individual cities, often out of reach when it was needed most. Erlanger Police Department’s solution combined BI and search using Information Builders’ WebFOCUS Magnify software. Erlanger PD can now search dynamic BI content and structured and unstructured data sources. By using simple keyword searches, users can locate important facts, and then follow links to execute reports and access information in the format of their choice, including Excel, PDF, HTML and XML.

Grant Thornton LLP—is the U.S. member firm of Grant Thornton International Ltd, one of six global audit, tax and advisory organizations. Grant Thornton’s longtime, ongoing KM goal is to continue to empower people by seeking, sharing and applying knowledge, as well as toprovide the leadership to guide a knowledge-enabled organization and distinctive client service. When assembling engagement teams, the mandate is to bring the best team together regardless of geography or service line—and to connect people to content and share knowledge and best practices locally, regionally, nationally, globally and externally. The company insists knowledge management is the key foundational element that ties together everything it does—whether that is serving a client, mentoring its staff or creating IT solutions for its service lines.

Idaho National Laboratory (INL)—is one of the U.S. Department of Energy’s 10 multiprogram national laboratories. INL developed Needle, a federated search engine that enables its scientists and researchers to simultaneously search multiple sources through a single, unified Web-based interface. Needle has integrated the concepts of Web, e-mail and knowledge repository findability; data federation; search algorithms; customization; facets; taxonomies; enriched Web search tools; Web indexing; Internet and intranet integration; and other leading edge technologies into a single knowledge management search solution to address research and business objectives.

iGATE Global Solutions—is recognized as the first outsourcing solutions provider to offer a business outcome-based pricing model through fully integrated technology and operations. iGATE acknowledged it was important to launch an initiative that could connect the entire organization to the right person or group for any help, expertise, reference, etc. In 2009, it launched a series of KM events called “Smart Minds.” Those events were being driven by identified experts from cross-functional teams in the organization, who participated as panelists, moderators and quizmasters. The analysis was shared with the Delivery Leadership, to take forward what was learned. Contests followed by an open discussion and facilitated by an expert panel paved way for healthy discussions and debates, giving participants an opportunity to learn through practical scenarios.

Kodak—is a longtime innovator in imaging technology. In 2000, it created Technical Knowledge Management (TKM) to initially handle the increasing demands and complexities of creating, managing and deploying worldwide localized content. Key results and objectives spanned many disciplines including reduced localization spend per translated word, improved content management, faster cycle time through automated workflows, structured XML content creation to enable multiple outputs, leveraged design for reuse and ongoing productivity savings.

Nexus Pharmaceuticals—is a specialty generic pharmaceutical company. As are all life sciences companies, Nexus is mandated to electronically file its new product applications to the FDA. It is of utmost importance that the company file accurate product applications so that they are approved in a timely manner. Prompt FDA approval frequently can mean first-to-market advantage. Nexus currently uses Virtify Electronic Common Technical Document (eCTD) and structured product labeling (SPL) products to help it create, view and manage eCTD submissions and labeling in a collaborative, Web-based environment. Because Virtify ensures that Nexus complies with FDA regulations, as well as other countries’ regulations, the company has been able to get swift approval for its drug applications, which is critical in the competitive generic market.