Running Head: KM’S EFFECT ON CORPORATE SUCCESS Quesada 1

Knowledge Management's Effect on Corporate Success

Raymond R. Quesada III

College of Integrative Sciences and Arts, Arizona State University

OGL 365: Module 4 Draft Research Paper

February 5, 2021
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Abstract

Knowledge Management is now a crucial part of an Organization’s success and

is a combination of many skills that help companies stay relevant and innovative.

Knowledge Management is a combination of Awareness, Framework, Processes, and

training all working together to make sure that we are getting the right information to the

right people at the right moments (Serrat). When these aspects work together you can

have a successful knowledge management routine. A deeper dive into these processes

proves that corporations are investing more than ever into knowledge management

systems to promote success and the security of their futures.

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Knowledge Management Effect On Corporate Success

Knowledge Management is all applying the knowledge that an organization has

to improve its overall performance; it’s all about getting the right knowledge to the right

people at the right time. Organizations must have a good understanding and make use

of good Knowledge Management to ensure their longevity and success. Organizations

put a lot of work into knowledge creation which comes with many different steps. Many

conditions promote knowledge creation in organizations that must begin with the

intention of creating knowledge which moves on to the autonomy and creative chaos of

the knowledge creation process. Management and other systems of an organization

must then move on to practicing redundancy and requisite variety. Managers and the

organization as a whole must be able to create an environment where these types of

conversations and ideas can flow. “Managers must be committed to accumulating,

exploiting, and renewing the knowledge base within the organization and be able to

create management systems that will facilitate the process” (Serrat), and this all takes

not only effort and resources but also time and experience so it is quickly being looked

like more of an asset to an organization. It is critical to not only understand how you do

your job in an organization but that your organization also expands and looks towards

the future. The longer an organization is around the more experience it has gained and

this is what leads to knowledge and relevance so knowledge must be not only

encouraged but protected. No one can take knowledge away from an organization but it

can be lost when employees move on if good knowledge management policies and

protocols are in place.

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Knowledge is being as an organizational asset that must be protected and

maintain it is looked at as being cared for in the same way as any other asset the

company must be producing such as making sure that it is delivered on time available at

the right place being able to be presented in the right shape and obtained at the lowest

cost but still at the required quality so this is where Knowledge Management is applied

to make sure that an organization is getting the right knowledge to the right people at

the right time.

The protection of knowledge integration of knowledge sharing comes also with

the issue of information overload. Not only is Knowledge Management critical for

protecting the knowledge that we do have but it is also important for managing all the

information and knowledge that an organization can have. With the use of technology

today in instant messaging in organizations, information overload is something I can

bury easily overworked staff. As we've seen “ managing knowledge is important to a

company’s success: 1.) Facilitates decision-making capabilities, 2.) Builds learning

organizations by making learning routine, and, 3.) Stimulates cultural change and

innovation” (Quast). We can see even from Fortune 500 companies that failing to share

knowledge can cost roughly 30.5 billion dollars a year. Besides now benefiting from all

of the changes that Knowledge Management can bring some things are losing more

and more money by not implementing good Knowledge Management Systems. As put

by Forbes, “Change is inevitable, growth is optional” to “Change is inevitable, growth is

intentional” (Quast).

Great Knowledge Management is supported and strengthened by four pillars that

need to be balanced. These pillars begin with leadership and move on to technology
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learning and the organization as a whole. These four pillars need to be in unison and

balance for an organization to be a Playa strong Knowledge Management Skills.

Knowledge Management releases Parts by capturing all of the information and

analyzing what an organization knows to begin with. It then moves on to managing the

content and making sure that it is well protected. Well-protected knowledge doesn't

benefit anyone also if it can move on to sharing between individuals and the

organization. Organizations must use the experience to collaborate on past knowledge

and information and expand on what they know. Finally one of the most critical steps is

that everyone understands how to access and reach this knowledge. If the systems are

not simple and quick to use it doesn't benefit anyone if no one can access the

information (Wahl).

Awareness is the first step on the path to Knowledge Management, it is critical to

make sure to be aware of what knowledge you know and where the gaps are. To fix this

they must create frameworks and processes that make it easy for members to find

information when needed and make sure that they are fully trained in these systems. As

organizations begin to enforce these Knowledge Management strategies it will be

viewed as change management that will lead an organization for a brighter future

because Knowledge Management has been shown to lead to the right decisions. As

companies have been along for more and more years with that comes experience.

Experience in the market is what keeps the company relevant. By harnessing the power

of Knowledge Management and using their experience to boost their relevance in the

market organizations or companies can stay successful and productive (Leeb).

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As Knowledge Management becomes a driving factor in an organization it will be

critical that an organization’s strategies on knowledge management bring solutions to

the questions you ask of your organization. Creating a culture of knowledge sharing and

a safe environment for these strategies to play in line with their business strategies will

help you connect on a deeper level with your customers and create customer intimacy.

The strategies of your organization the optimal success should be inline with

understanding the market, understanding customer intimacy by understanding what

they want and need, and making sure that you have operational effectiveness (Leeb).

When it comes to the benefits of and the reasoning to invest in knowledge

management the list is long but wildly worth it. To begin it helps with faster and better

decision-making skills with a reduction in making the same mistakes twice while also

making it easier to find information and resources to make your decisions. As an

organization, it also helps you reuse and expand on your ideas and expertise and

improve upon your standards and procedures. It gives your organization a sense of

structure by providing methods, tools, templates, and techniques all while making

expertise wildly available. It benefits your customers as they can accelerate the delivery

of information or services to your customers and definitely will be putting your

organization's expertise and knowledge to its benefit. Even more important than

anything it stimulates innovation and growth in a company while letting you expand on

what the organization already knows (Garfield). As more organizations start

implementing Knowledge Management Programs how does one measure return on

investments for these kinds of programs? While these programs do seem to be

beneficial it depends on what you are asking of your Knowledge Management Programs
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to evaluate what is benefiting you. Whether you are evaluating customer satisfaction,

employee satisfaction, collaborative projects, or innovation and growth, “ Knowing what

you’re striving for with your knowledge management makes it much easier to determine

whether you’re getting value for the money spent—even if the ROI never shows up on a

balance sheet” (Cohen).

Case Study

“Starbucks has strived to build its brand identity by offering customers a relaxing

and enjoyable experience. From the very beginning, the experiential aspect of the brand

has been consistently and effectively implemented in all its stores across the world”

(Roll), This comes with being consistent and globally expanded. Starbucks has created

success with its Global expansion and its consistency between stores. Being able to

make sure all of their Starbucks Baristas are well-grounded in coffee knowledge and

customer service provides a unique and welcoming experience in any store across the

nation or better yet the globe. “ The company has invested significantly in creating a

standardized look and feel of its stores, merchandise, and food and drinks” (Roll);

Knowledge Management has played a huge role in this, not only is it important that all

stores are educated in the same way to provide this standard unique experience. It has

also been critical that the knowledge is maintained and expanded upon. Everyone that

works for the company must understand how to access materials when they no longer

remember how to make a beverage or handle the situation, to keep up with the ever-

changing recipes and new routine standards.

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Starbucks is invested in their Knowledge Management through the company

Oracle as mentioned by the Vice President of Analytics and Insight, “ Our Oracle

Exadata-based database warehouse and Oracle Business Intelligence environment

deliver detailed insight into point-of-sale data that allows us to innovate and offer our

customers better services” (Manzano). Starbucks has “Used Oracle Exadata Database

Machine and Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition to create a high-

performance enterprise data warehouse and business intelligence environment that

provides analysts and managers at the branch, field, and corporate levels with timely

and actionable insight into the store and product performance, as well as supply chain

operations” (Information systems at Starbucks) and this is let them develop their

uniformed POS programs, customer loyalty programs, understand their growth and

Innovation, all while analyzing their own business. Starbucks has been using Oracle for

not only analyzing their data but also storing their information. Starbucks has been

growing exponentially and while these kinds of systems can benefit them their biggest

downfall right now in their information systems is their size. As successful and as

profitable as they have become there are limitations to what these information systems

and Knowledge Management policies can benefit them. Starbucks needs to invest more

in creating a new uniform private information system so they can benefit from having

information system specialists and be fully in control of their data and systems.

The knowledge management systems that Starbucks has created have been

very successful but as a company should stop and start l be looking at the quality of not

only the service and their stores but of their products and knowledge at the moment

before continuing to expand exponentially. Every year with their exponential growth
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plans they have drastically been following the ideas of quantity over quality. Also, more

and more employees are having to be hired, and with the extensive knowledge that

Starbucks employees are required to know, and with less and less time to make sure

everyone is trained a lot of the training has been cut down. It has lately become more

important for employees to know the bare minimum than you to take the time to make

sure employees learn all of this material. Remodels in extra knowledge courses such as

the coffee master program has also been very minimum in stores to continue to fund

our ever-growing expansion. It would be very beneficial to invest more of the money

from expansion into the company itself to get the quality of knowledge and products

back into what we do.

Conclusion

As more and more light comes to shine on knowledge management the more it is

noticed that it is tied to improving organizational performance. Knowledge Management

has become all about, “ getting the right knowledge to the right people at the right time,

and helping them (with incentives) to apply it in ways that strive to improve

organizational performance. (Serrat). The longer an organization has been around the

more knowledge it accumulates and it becomes more and more critical to make sure

that this knowledge is being protected secure its future. It harder to fight against seeing

that “To be fully effective, we must also consciously and actively blend knowledge with

financing. We will focus on developing, capturing, and sharing knowledge in all our

work” (Serrat), as we invest in our companies and we create assets with our knowledge

is it not becoming knowledge versus the company he must become one together. The

two must always work together for success and survival.

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References

Cohen, D. (2014, August 01). What's your return on knowledge? Retrieved February 22,

2021, from https://hbr.org/2006/12/whats-your-return-on-knowledge

Garfield, S. (2014, April 11). 15 knowledge management benefits. Retrieved February

22, 2021, from https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/20140811204044-2500783-15-

knowledge-management-benefits

Information Systems at Starbucks. (2014, November 10). Retrieved February 22, 2021,

from http://starbucksinformationsystem.blogspot.com/2014/11/starbucks_10.html

Leeb, S., MD (Director). (2014, November 7). How knowledge management drives

enterprise strategy [Video file]. Retrieved February 1, 2021, from

https://youtu.be/SvEcTEB9aj

Manzano, M. (2014). Information Systems at Starbucks. Retrieved February 24, 2021,

from

http://starbucksinformationsystem.blogspot.com/2014/11/starbucks_10.htmlhttp://

starbucksinformationsystem.blogspot.com/2014/11/starbucks_10.html

Quast, L. (2015, July 01). Why knowledge management is important to the

success of your company. Retrieved February 11, 2021, from

https://www.forbes.com/sites/lisaquast/2012/08/20/why-knowledge-management-

is-important-to-the-success-of-your-company/?sh=498625ca3681
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Roll, M. (2021, February 09). The secret to Starbucks' Brand Success. Retrieved

February 24, 2021, from https://martinroll.com/resources/articles/strategy/secret-

starbucks-brand-success/

Serrat, O. (2017, May 23). Enhancing Knowledge Management Strategies.

Retrieved February 24, 2021, from https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-

981-10-0983-9_14

Serrat, O. (2017, May 23). Notions of Knowledge Management. Retrieved February 2,

2021, from https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-981-10-0983-9_30

Wahl, Z. (2018, April 03). What is knowledge management and Why is it important?

Retrieved February 14, 2021, from https://www.kminstitute.org/blog/what-

knowledge-management-and-why-it-import