Finalist KMWorld 2013 Reality Award: Deloitte

Deloitte

Deloitte is the largest private professional services provider in the world. We have over 190,000 people in 150 countries delivering audit, consulting, financial and risk advisory and tax services to our clients. Deloitte aspires to be the Standard of Excellence and the first choice of the most sought-after clients and talent. Together we deliver excellence in all of the services provided by the member firms through shared values of integrity, outstanding value to markets and clients, commitment to each other, and strength through diversity.

The landscape of professional services is relentlessly competitive, and successful knowledge management can be tremendously differentiating. Done properly, connecting professionals to each other and to key intellectual capital in a timely fashion can have important impacts in: helping our clients be successful through collective wisdom, improving win rates and operating margins, and crucially, keeping a large workforce connected and productive. Furthermore, professional services organizations are expansive and diverse with a wide range of service offerings. This environment presents a complex risk and legal landscape that makes forging knowledge connections difficult. In order to succeed in an increasingly competitive environment, Deloitte initiated formal knowledge management practices and teams in the mid-1990s across various member firms and service areas. In 2008 recognizing the need to better transcend borders and boundaries we refreshed our approach to knowledge sharing.

Deloitte's 2008 knowledge strategy created competitive advantage via improved speed to market, quality service to clients, and the productivity and experience of our people. The strategy centered on three key components:

• Focused investment in technology
• Realignment of knowledge resources
• Individual and leadership accountability for knowledge sharing

Specifically, the following improvements came to fruition in 2012-13:

• Seamless, unified search, with improved taxonomy
• Integrated global profiling system which fosters expertise location
• Global content repository
• Collaboration and innovation across Deloitte's global network with the rollout of global communities
• Enterprise-wide micro-blogging
• Global Knowledge Management Committee which includes engaged executives across member firms and business units with comprehensive governance and individual product boards
• Realigned knowledge resources to shared vision and streamlined organizational responsibilities

Our KM strategies and projects have executive and business leader support from many areas of the business. Key Chief Knowledge Officers assigned at the global, country, and business level partner closely with strategy, talent, and technology leaders across our network of member firms. KM governance committees have been created to drive executive consensus, maintain engagement with key business units, and ensure coordination between KM teams.

We measure success by how we help our clients be successful, improve our win rates and operating margins, and keep our workforce connected and productive. Metrics are difficult to tie directly to knowledge management, so instead we measure usage and user satisfaction. For individual products we track adoption, engagement, user experience, and systems integration. With our 2013 strategy, we are exploring hypotheses around how engagement with knowledge systems is directly tied to individual utilization and productivity.

Our knowledge strategy has become a critical business driver and creates competitive advantage for Deloitte every single day.

Deloitte
30 Rockefeller Plaza
New York NY 10112-0015
Phone: +1 212 492 4000
www.deloitte.com

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