CASE STUDY ON MARITZ
KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT
BY May 2003
According to Nonaka, I. & Takeuchi, H. (1995 )[1]
“Enterprises are realising how important it is to "know
what they know" and be able to make maximum use of the
knowledge”. Knowledge is found in many different places
such as databases, knowledge bases, filing cabinets and peoples
within the organisation. Used properly, knowledge is an asset
to the organisation and how the management will use the information
will determine the success of the firm Robinson M (2000)[2]
. Maritz has realised the importance of knowledge and this
is clearly seen from the case study. “Maritz has invested
years and billions in acquiring industry and business knowledge.
Most of our corporate intelligence is embodied in such things
as presentations, white papers, case reports, graphics, and
individual client custom designed programs. [3]”
Lucas, H. (1979)[4]
further points out that most traditional company policies
and controls focus on the tangible assets of the company and
leaves unmanaged their important knowledge assets. He argues
that the success in an increasingly competitive marketplace
depends critically on the quality of knowledge, which organisations
apply to their key business processes. This is more important
for a knowledge-based company such as Maritz Inc. Knowledge
is very important as the supply chain depends on knowledge
of diverse areas including raw materials, planning, manufacturing
and distribution. Likewise product development requires knowledge
of consumer requirements, new science, new technology, and
marketing.
Therefore Knowledge management involves the identification
and analysis of available required knowledge assets and the
subsequent planning and control of actions to develop both
the assets and the processes so as to fulfil organisational
objectives.
One of the key of having good knowledge share management is
due to the fact that the more information a company has about
it’s consumers, the more likely they are to meet consumer
needs and the more they are likely to return consumers (Mittal
V and Dawhney M 1998)[5]
. Furthermore getting consumer feed backs is important because
the company will be able to make and supply products, which
meet consumer need. “Gathering intelligence, designing
alternative solutions, choosing a solution, and considering
the choice once deployed (feedback). The problem phase needing
the most attention for creating unique programs at Maritz
is intelligence gathering ”.[6]
By using the information through knowledge sharing Maritz
will be able to developing a right strategy. The company can
work and make sure a business has conceived its strategic
intent; it will determine the capabilities of success. This
will allow a company such as Maritz, to be the number one
providing certain customer benefits; delivering products with
the best performance and delighting stakeholders beyond their
wildest expectations (King D, Chung H.M & Turban E 2000)
.[7]
By becoming more innovative through the use of knowledge sharing,
a company will respond to customers and adapt to change. This
is clearly seen at Maritz, “We solve business problems
relating to people who either make, buy or sell their products
[8]” Furthermore
leading organizations have learnt how to learn from high numbers
of knowledgeable people, by means of sharing know-how.
When customers, suppliers and staff willingly share expertise
and experiences with one another everyone wins and business
advantage is undeniable (Nonaka, I. & Takeuchi, H. 1995)
“… Let’s Talk! allows access to subject
matter experts’ full breath of ideas and thoughts. Every
employee is being able to access any idea, anywhere, anytime.
We have already collected and stored over 8,000 documents.
The completed site will have over 28,000 documents and require
daily updates by over 500 Maritz experts ”.[9]
One can argue that many organizations with up-to-date knowledge
of what is relevant and important to customers distinguish
their offerings (Nonaka, I. 1991)[10]
. The challenge is to assimilate this rapidly changing knowledge
about markets and individual customers quickly and distribute
it rapidly to be acted upon immediately in order to leverage
it for improved performance. This means finding all of the
knowledge which is embedded in and accessed through technologies
and processes, stored in data bases or embodied as enhanced
staff capabilities and sharing it fast. Knowledge sharing
will help a great deal in finding the information quicker
and cheaper. Strategy is the process of defining the medium
to long-term objective of the business and how it seeks to
achieve their objectives (Harris N 1996) [11].
From the definition of business strategy, one can argue that
Knowledge management is related to the business strategy to
a large extent and is itself part of the strategy. Firstly
at the core of knowledge management and strategy is the norm
of changing with the external environment as shown in the
figure below. This is very much at the core of Maritz, as
the companies’ new strategy is based on the changing
environment. “The Internet and its corporate counterpart,
intranet have provided an opportunity to achieve an alignment
of technology with a business need making a difference on
how Maritz competes ”.[12]
Figure 2: Adopting to the external environment (Doyle 1994) [13]
Perhaps the most important aspect of any business is developing
relationship that last long or loyal consumer. This is very
important as a business will be able to retain consumers.
This process is known as Consumers relationship marketing
(CRM).
Relationship marketing is the process of creating, maintaining
and enhancing strong, value-laden relationship with customers
and other stakeholder (Kolter P, Armstrong G, Saunders J &
Wang V 1998) [14].
The goal of relationship marketing is to deliver long-term
value and measure of long-term customers satisfaction. In
relation to Maritz this involve collecting information about
how often their clients visit the data base, what information
they use and so on. By so doing the Maritz can try to deliver
the information system which the clients are likely to need.
Increasing, marketing is moving away from the focus on individual
transaction towards a focus on building a relationship with
consumers and knowledge sharing is one of the ways in which
this is done. “The Internet will provide Maritz, as
well as other service businesses, the opportunity to capture
intelligence everything that’s in employee file cabinets
plus the ability to search for a single word or thought. The
limitation of one person’s ability to interpret a client
need and apply a Maritz solution, is being replaced by providing
access to all 7,000 individuals’ experiences, and 100
plus years of history and knowledge ”. [15]
Gaining a better understanding using knowledge management
will give a better understanding. This is, vital especially
when adoption to new segmentation practices. The primary approach
of 'needs analysis’ provides insight into how different
customer groups are (Mittal V and Dawhney M 1998). This may
often reveal where the organization needs to make service
improvements, or where it can achieve differentiation. Therefore
knowledge sharing using the information gathered would be
vitally important in understanding the consumer needs, which
play a big part to play in of the strategic plain to achieve
better CRM.
There is no question of the importance of relationship marketing
the e-commerce, and to the company as a whole. The fact that
relationship marketing depends a great deal on knowledge management
underline that the fact that knowledge sharing is part business
strategy if not business strategy.
While it is clear that there are benefits of knowledge sharing
for a knowledge-based company like Maritz Inc there are also
drew-backs. The increase in complexity will result in problems
resulting during installing the new system to Maritz Inc.
As time frames of markets are getting ever shorter. There
is great need to be able to connect the market, sense changes
sooner and identify emerging opportunities faster. This is
not an easy task, as not all the companies involved in knowledge
sharing with Maritz Inc will have enough resource. The company
will need up-to-date technical knowledge to be able to adapt
to the changing market environment. This could prove very
hard the more the Maritz Inc expands into new markets and
grow in size. The fact that Maritz Inc is still working on
updating the current histories shows how hard the task of
updating the database. “While the system is ready to
accept case histories, and the search capability is in place;
our marketing group has encountered problems such as: most
of the paper based case histories have not been kept up to
date, everyone seems to have used a different format, the
type fonts are all different and we have several “version”
control problems. Our marketing group is working on these
issues ”. [16]
The multi channel access where clients demand accesses to
information 24 hours a day means that there must be around
the clock help for those consumers. Support systems will need
to get even smarter a sample Q&A will not be enough.
Language problem when installing the system in countries
where English is not a native language could prove problematic.
There is no single knowledge representation that is best for
all problems. Thus, sharing and using knowledge will involve
translating from one representation to another. Tools will
be needed that can help automate the translation process.
Other problems will involve social and cultural factors. For
Maritz Inc to overcome these problems, the company must work
together with their partners in the international markets.
One could argue that “lets talk” was a success
due to the way in which the strategy was developed and the
dynamic elements in place. The key to any successful strategy
is adapting to the changing environment and putting consumers
at the core of the strategy (Doyle 1994). Without question
this is what has been the key elements of lets talk. Moreover
the user friendly concept shows the fact that Maritz place
great emphasis at consumer needs “…Recently, we
heard a new definition for “User Friendly”: instantaneous
response time, all information was no more than three mouse
clicks away, and no instruction manual. With these thoughts
in mind, we designed the home page with minimal text, meaningful
graphics and eight major categories ”.[17]
The electronic file cabinet and case histories, which allow
clients and other business partners of Maritz, is a great
tool in knowledge sharing in order to assess and access information.
The ease of accessing information, freedom to print the information
by all the member of the team at any time is a get advantage.
Sales brochures, power point presentation to teach clients
ad well as using case histories are all great modern tools
of educating. However despite the likely success of “lets
talk” questions remain to be asked about the issues
of consumer privacy and how the often information will be
updated and the issue of security.
The rapid growth of IT and e-commerce is very lightening
which means that knowledge will lose it value very quickly.
How will Maritz deal with the old knowledge in the files and
how will they chose which one to dispose? Training and developing
is another key area which is vital for a company to be competitive`
Moreover, over the years the issue of consumer privacy has
been a great concern. How will Maritz address this issue?
What is the security system in place? Furthermore to what
extent will knowledge be shared? It is true knowledge sharing
is beneficial however knowledge is expansive and companies
are not willing to give it out so cheaply.
The general implications for the future of organisations
derived from this case study is that Knowledge is an asset,
but its effective management requires investment of other
assets. But while knowledge management is expensive, what
is the cost of ignorance and stupidity? How much does it cost
an organization to forget what key employees know, to not
be able to answer customer questions quickly or at all, or
to make poor decisions based on faulty knowledge? Just as
organizations attempting to determine the value of quality
determined the cost of poor quality products and services,
if companies wish to assess the worth of knowledge they can
try to measure the cost of not knowing (Nonaka, I. & Takeuchi,
H. 1995).
The other implications for the future of organisations from
this case study is that Knowledge management never ends. Knowledge
managers may feel that if they could only get their organization's
knowledge under control, their work would be done. However,
the tasks of knowledge management are never-ending. Like human
resource management or financial management, there is never
a time when knowledge has been fully managed. One reason that
knowledge management never ends is that the categories of
required knowledge are always changing. New technologies,
management approaches, regulatory issues, and customer concerns
are always emerging. Companies change their strategies, organizational
structures, and product and service emphases. New managers
and professionals have new needs for knowledge.
This rapid change in knowledge environments means that firms
should not take considerable time in mapping or modelling
a particular knowledge environment. By the time they finished,
the environment would no longer exist. Instead, descriptions
of knowledge environments should be quick. It is this quickness,
which makes it a hard task to adopt a framework which will
has not technical hardship.
The message therefore from the case study about Maritz Inc
clear, companies must use knowledge management as a competitive
advantage. However this will involve being up-to-date with
the in terms of IT as well as using knowledge sharing as part
of the strategy in meeting changing consumer needs as well
as adopting to the changing environment.
- Taken from: Nonaka, I. &
Takeuchi, H. (1995) The Knowledge-Creating Company. London:
Oxford University Press[Return]
- Taken from: Robinson M (2000)
E-business second edition; London; Addison-Wesley[Return]
- Taken from: Case study[Return]
- Taken from: Lucas, H. (1979)
Information Systems Concepts for Management McGraw Hill[Return]
- Taken from: Mittal V and Dawhney
M (1998), Mastering marketing (managing learning to lock
in consumers) FT publishing.[Return]
- Taken from: Case study[Return]
- Taken from: King D, Chung H.M
& Turban E (2000) Electronic Commerce; London prentice
Publishing[Return]
- Taken from Case study[Return]
- Taken from Case study[Return]
- Taken from: Nonaka, I. (1991)
The Knowledge-Creating Company. Harvard Business Review
November – December: 96-104[Return]
- Taken from: Harris N (1996)
European business, London, Macmillan Press[Return]
- Taken from Case study[Return]
- Taken from: Doyle (1994) International
Management & Strategy, London: Pitman Publishing[Return]
- Taken from: Kolter P, Armstrong
G, Saunders J & Wang V 1998 Principles of Marketing,
second edition London; prentice publishing.[Return]
- Taken from: Case Study[Return]
- Taken from: Case study[Return]
- Taken from: Case study[Return]
- REFERENCES
- Doyle (1994) International Management & Strategy,
London: Pitman Publishing
- Harris N (1996) European business, London, Macmillan
Press
- Kolter P, Armstrong G, Saunders J & Wang V
1998 Principles of Marketing, second edition London; prentice
publishing.
- King D, Chung H.M & Turban E (2000) Electronic
Commerce; London prentice Publishing
Lucas, H. (1979) Information Systems Concepts for Management
McGraw Hill
- Mittal V and Dawhney M (1998), Mastering marketing
(managing learning to lock in consumers) FT publishing
- Nonaka, I. & Takeuchi, H. (1995) The Knowledge-Creating
Company. London: Oxford University Press
- Nonaka, I. (1991) The Knowledge-Creating Company.
Harvard Business Review November – December: 96-104
- Robinson M (2000) E-business second edition; London;
Addison-Wesley
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