KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT AND COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE

FINAL PAPER

KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT

AT PT. BERLIAN KREASI ANEKA TEKNIK

Created by:

ANNISA NURRACHMAN (1040002023)

GRADUATE PROGRAM

MASTER OF MANAGEMENT IN BUSINESS MANAGEMENT

 BINUS UNIVERSITY

JAKARTA

2011

1. Identify & Respond to emerging local & global business opportunities

1.1. Executive Summary
PT. BT (BT) is IT Consulting Company that has been successful in its IT

Infrastructure / Hardware business line. In 2006, BT started its new business line

in Software, and got the opportunity to develop the National Harbor of Indonesia

(NHI) application system software project in Makassar, which then continuing into

the NHI branches.

1.2. Introduction

PT. BT (BT) is IT Consulting Company located in North Jakarta, DKI

Jakarta. The company was established in around 1980’s. At first, this Company’s

main business was in IT Infrastructure / Hardware specialization which running

under the Hardware Division. BT has been successfully growing through this line

of business, and it has been implementing a lot of Government-related projects

as its major clients.

Inspired by its success BT interested to enter new other area in IT field,

Software Development. In 2006, BT participated in and won the tender of another

Government project, the National Harbor of Indonesia (NHI) in out of Jakarta

city, which in fact is out of Java Island. The project was to develop new

application system software for the harbor operational management.

 This project was started to be developed in 2007, and it took about three

years to finishing it. The project was developed initially in NHI headquarter which

is located in Makassar. This NHI application system software is integrating

some of the office divisions and field areas, from Finance Division (Divisi

Keuangan / Akuntansi Biaya), Ship Guides and Shipment Services (Pandu Kapal

/ Pelayanan Kapal), Tool Renting (Penyewaan Alat), Goods Services and Goods

Storage (Pelayanan dan Penumpukan Barang). This harbor integrated

application system software is namely as Integrated Harbor Information System

Management (Sistem Informasi Manajemen Pelabuhan Terpadu / SIMPAT).

After this SIMPAT project development was done in Makassar, and then

NHI also needs to implement SIMPAT in all its branches which are located in

Bitung, Ambon, Balikpapan, and Samarinda.

1.3. Analysis on External Environment

Politic:
In Indonesia as an islands country, the national logistic system become

very important to ensure each area is growing and moving forward in

synchronize. From the global supply system side, Indonesia has potential as

supplier of its natural resources and its processed material to international and

domestic market. Unfortunately, the logistics capability in Indonesia (based on

Logistics Performance Index, World Bank) has decreasing, from 2007 Indonesia

is in the 43rd position of 150 countries and in 2010 Indonesia become in the 75 th

position of 155 countries (lower than Vietnam, Philippine, Thailand, Malaysia, and

Singapore)[1].
Economic
 In general, the economic condition in Indonesia has been improving in

recent years, and at the same time the global trading is even more occurred in

many ways within many industries. If in 1950’s, many industries was relying on

mass production system to gain competitive advantage, then in 1990’s the

innovation has shifted the competition through producing new products, cheaper

cost, quality service, speediness, maintain the relationship with customers. But

now in 2000’s, the reliable Supply Chain Management (SCM) takes the main

role, where logistics become part of it [1].

In managing supply chain, the products move from producers to

consumers is expected to be accurate and on-time delivery. This efficient and

effective way can cause the final product price become cheap. Absolutely, inside

this logistic system, there are integrated transportation network and

infrastructure, include the harbor services, storage warehouse to serve the speed
[1]
and dynamic of goods movement . Thus, the availability of supporting access

transportation like sea transportation, as well as the regulation from the

government that enabling this trading can be realized within more rapidly time

duration than ever before.

Socio – Culture
As the time being, in individual segment, the lifestyle of huge amount of

population in Indonesia becomes more technology-conscious that integrate into

their daily lives. This phenomenon also occurs in the enterprise segment, where

almost any company within any industry needs to enhance its business process

through the investment in its IT system.

Technology
Certainly, the indication in such Socio – Culture is perceived as the

potential target market for many IT companies in Indonesia to develop their

qualified IT system for end-user companies. This one of the reasons many

partnership established between world-class IT companies and local IT

companies.
However, the role of information technology is important to supporting the

logistic system as well. This condition will continuously open up many new

opportunities for IT industry to take the role in enhancing the logistic

performance, including harbor operational management, by providing reliable IT

system. Now it has been indicated that several IT consulting companies emerge

to compete each other in providing IT solution to fit in the related industry.

1.4. Industry Analysis

The margin in the distribution business in year-to-year is declining due to

increasing technology development at the same time there are even more

players entering the industry, it makes this business competition become harder

and market share of one player cannot be more than certain limit.

Nowadays is the era where people like using technology the most. The

development of Information Technology now is felt being convergent and

integrating with the telecommunication and consumer electronics technology.

Then in delivering content to customers can be done anytime, anywhere, through

any device. The trend of this technology convergence is enabling people who

have high mobility to access the content they need, such as:

- In entertainment area, people can watch movie via their hand-phones with

video streaming technology.

- In business area, professionals can do teleconference meeting by using their

hand-phones, access business data in ERP system by their hand-phone.

 Here are the kinds of IT services that can be offered by IT Provider Company:

 Technical Support (database administration, messaging, network

management, security)

 Infrastructure outsourcing (desktop & printer management, helpdesk,

asset management, call center, server & storage maintenance)

 Business Process (application development, application managed

services, application service provider)

 Operation Support (data center management, back up & recovery)

2. Systematic Approach & Integrative Thinking in Related to Knowledge Resources

to Promote Organizational Growth

2.1 Analysis on Target Company’s:
At this time, BT has regular meeting for its employees to do knowledge

sharing. Even though the system is still simple, but the knowledge flow is

relatively fair disseminated. The meetings can be done in the meeting room of BT

office, and sometimes for the employees in hardware and software division, like

the NHI project team is invited to the gathering in outside the office, such as in

mall or restaurant to discuss and report the project progress.

The NHI project team is separated into two places, some of the members

are staying in the office to do the job remotely, and some other members includes

the team leader are in the on-site which is in Makassar who are staying there

during the project development. As SIMPAT application is divided into several

modules, so each module is developed by two up to four employees within the

team. Therefore, to keep synchronizing and integrating the software development

progress, the communication among the team members is conducted through

on-line communication. They use the instant messengers, such as: Google Talk,

Yahoo! Messenger and use email, such as: Gmail, Yahoo! Mail. For the tools like

installers needed for the project, user manual / documentations, software user

interface design template, previous version of developed SIMPAT software

program are all stored in one server that can be accessed by the team members.

One server put in on-site and one server put in BT office. Moreover, these two

servers are routinely synchronized monthly.

In every three months, the team leader goes back to the BT office to meet

up with the top management and the rest of the team members. In this case, the

knowledge exchange occurred among them. The feedback, input and

suggestions are often discussed in here, because in handling IT project there is

continuously the user requirements changing over time, then this should be

adjusted with the company’s policy to respond it. The parties that are involved in

it are not only the related IT project team, but is also including the employees

from finance and business division.

After the project is finished, the whole team is expected to do After Action

Review (AAR). This thing is very important, recalling that the SIMPAT

implementation is continued to the other branches / areas (Bitung, Ambon,

Balikpapan, and Samarinda). Through this AAR, can help the team as specifically

and also BT as generally to figure out which parts are the mistakes and which

parts are the success factors. By knowing the mistakes, the team can find the

solution to avoid these happened again in the next project, and by knowing the

success factors, the team can keep maintain it to enhance the software project

development performance in the future.

 BT do not apply certain reward system to motivate its employees do the

knowledge sharing, but the leaders in BT has their own way to motivate the

employees to have maximum effort to their duties / jobs. This way is done

through providing the worthy overtime pay for those who actively working

overtime on the project, providing significant bonus every time the project is

finished for each employee involved in the project, and give attention for the

employees who have children in primary-secondary school by giving them the

school equipment in every the beginning year when the school started.
The organizational culture in BT viewed from there is very strong bond

between the employees, either within the same team, division, or across

divisions. Nevertheless, the competition among the employees still exist,

especially happened for the team members who stay on-site and those who stay

in the office. Many of them get envy with those who stay in the office due to the

reward they get in both places is relatively the same.

2.2 Review of Target Company’s:

PT. BT is a group of companies in Indonesia that consists of:
 PT. Berlian Kreasi Aneka Teknik
 PT. Sarana Gigatek Internusa
 PT. Gigasindo Sukses
BT develops customized application and provides many other popular application

software, such as: Dashboard, SIMPAT, ICR, Government Administration

System. BT is also a leading System Integrator and Value Added Reseller of

Computer Servers, LAN & WAN, such as:

 Networking and Security  Intelligent Router, Core Switch, Wireless LAN,

IP Camera, Fiber Optic, and Firewall

 Server and PC  Server (Hp, IBM), Storage Server (Sun Microsystems),

Blade Server (Hp BladeSystem, IBM)

BT provides a totally integrated services, including intensive training course for

its clients to increase the utilization of the computer system. BT has partners with

Hp, Cisco, IBM, and Oracle [2].

[2]
BT wants to expand its business with IT outsourcing services , through

creating the innovation products, synergize with the other industry, reading the

opportunities and challenges more aggressively. Thus, BT can grab larger market

share in this tight competitiveness in technology industry. On the other hand,

many end-user companies will require the IT solution to be more accurate, faster,

and much better handling, and those jobs will be specifically controlled by the IT

company that have focus on this field. Thus, the end-user companies do not

have to spend an extra cost on health insurance premium, company’s bonus and

allowance of its IT employees, because all those things are going to be handled

by the IT outsourcing company. The end-user company only needs to pay the

fixed package of contract with the IT outsourcing company. The contract model

that can be implemented in this IT outsourcing services is as follow [3]:

 Dedicated Outsource: the contract is dedicated during full of one month,

the IT professional fully assigned to manage IT tasks and jobs in the

company that need this service.

 On Demand Outsource: the contract to outsource the IT services based on

demand / on call. It means that the professionals will come anytime or on

call to overcome the IT problems / services in the company that pays for

the contract.

However, this should be complemented with the IT experts that have variety of

capacity and skills. This IT support service should be in fully support for 24 hours.
 The team leader in this SIMPAT project called as FR, can manage well on

his duties and has high level of responsibility to his team toward the top

management, yet he still had poor ability in manage the people itself. It was

clearly showed through:

o The problems occurred in the software program structural changes in

project development process

o The way how FR dealing with the project disorder
o The way FR dealing with the male and female members in a team
o The negotiation about reward system for the team is done by FR due to

his responsibility to the team

3. Demonstrate Effective Business Communication, Leadership & Teamwork to

Lead Superior Knowledge Management

3.1 Review of Target Company’s:
Know-How Transfer
The process of knowledge transfer in BT is still conducted very simply.

There is no formal process to facilitate this. The only way to do this know-how

transfer is through mentoring and couching from senior employees to the junior

employees. The duration depends on the employees themselves how fast they

understand the learning material, then after this step, the employees are

encouraged to learn by doing. The employees do the job / practice straight away

while guided by their mentors for certain period of time, until the employees are

approved as being capable in handling the job.

Systemic Strategy-Knowledge Gap

The expansion strategy that has been planned by BT is being towards

totally IT outsourcing company. To satisfy this, there are many factors that have

to be pursued, whereas at this time BT still lack of some factors, such as:
 Lack of IT people with highly qualified certification in IT field
 Lack of SOP to operate the working processes
 Lack of Benchmark to other more advance IT companies
  Lack of workshops conducted for the employees
 Lack of the innovation works
 Lack of the training modules

4. Create and Appraise Strategic Innovations, New Services and Effective Business

Models as the Foundation of Knowledge Growth Strategies

4.1 Proposed Improvements on New:
Business Model Development
BT should reorganize its business model to create new market. I propose

some ways to develop this BT new business model, such as:

 In BT website that is published for external public (customers) should be

modified. What I mean in here is not merely the user-interface design, but

more in the features that can be provided. Especially for the application

software that will be developed. BT can put the prototype demo (dummy)

of the application software in its website with basic functional, so anyone

who visit BT website can experience how to utilize the application

software, try the step by step process like input the data, find the data,

save the data, and so on. This way is more attractive for the customers

before they decide to purchase the software.

 BT should add more another types of information system application

software beside SIMPAT, such as: hospital, hotel, school, supermarket,

etc. because those have similar basic functional and the business

processes actually can be customized based on clients’ requirements

Reinventing Customer Value Proposition

In order to prevent reinventing the customer value proposition, BT should

keep the best practice of its IT products that can be used in the future needs. For

example, in the case of SIMPAT application software that has been successfully

implemented in Makassar, then to save the project development and

implementation time in other areas of harbor branches, BT can deploy that

SIMPAT application software with some customizations in harbors in Bitung,

Ambon, Balikpapan, and Samarinda.

4.2 Proposed Improvements on:

Customer Knowledge Management
Every BT customers are very important and have potential to support the

company’s growth. Therefore BT should do the survey on its customers’ opinion

and satisfaction about the products delivered by BT. From this survey, BT will

know what makes its customers satisfied with the product they purchase and

what problems that dissatisfying them.

Knowledge Creation
To increase the process of knowledge creation, I suggest that every team

leader who has already finish at least on project is expected to capture all of

his/her knowledge and experiences that is obtained during the project to be

written into a book. So, everyone in the company can read it, even though the

person is not always available to be contacted or if the person has resigned from

the company.
Other than that, BT should have a library that store the soft copy files and

hard copy files (e.g those books created internally) to support the employees to

enhance their knowledge. This library can be built in a physical form or made on-

line through internal website (via intranet).

Knowledge Management System

I would like to propose BT to have Knowledge Management System

(KMS) Portal. This KMS portal can be accessed internally by the employees from

anywhere they are and anytime they need, through the company’s virtual private

network. This KMS should contain these following:

  The webpage to be a forum for Community of practice (CoP) do the

knowledge sharing
 The webpage to publish the new innovation created by the employees, so

other employees in the company can be triggered to create another

innovation that useful for company’s growth

 The webpage of Wiki & FAQ, as a place to ask questions around related

issues within the company, and any employee who understand the issue

can respond and answer to it

 The webpage of on-line library, to help the employees finding the

documents they need or to check whether the certain physical book they

need is available in the physical library room

 The webpage to show the contributors of the employees who do the

knowledge sharing in this KMS

 The webpage that showing the employee’s profile who has contribution in

knowledge sharing

4.3 Potential Implementation Issues in Relation to Corporate Culture

Regarding to BT does not have oo much employees, its total number of

employees now is around thirty five employees. Therefore, the knowledge

management implementation issues relating to the corporate culture is going to

be easy to be socialized, and supported by the strong bond among the

employees, and most of them have worked in BT for more than ten years, they

all have already built trust each other like a family. Thus, this knowledge

management strategy will help them a lot to share their knowledge in order to

support their daily work to be easier and faster.

References:
[1]. http://niamchomsky.wordpress.com/tag/ekonomi-politik-indonesia/
[2] http://www.berkatweb.com/
[3]. http://rahard.wordpress.com/2007/12/06/mengusung-it-

outsourcing/#comment-66200