Knowledge Management @ Accenture

Team

Dhruv Agrawal

DeepakArora

Accenture has long been seen as a leader in knowledge management, having received awards for many years. Over the years though, islands of knowledge have developed throughout the organization and the delivery infrastructure has become progressively more expensive. In 2004, the global knowledge management lead has been given the mandate to lead a revitalization of knowledge management. Outlines governance challenges in the global firm, the transition to a new IT infrastructure, and the strategic challenges and opportunities facing knowledge management within Accenture.

Introduction

Accenture had a long history of focusing on Knowledge Management (KM). Company was facing budget cutting and headcount reductions. So demand rose for KM So KM launch was prepared under T. Barfields recommendations.

What is Knowledge Management?

KM comprises a range of practices used by organizations to identify, create and distribute knowledge.
Knowledge consists of: personal knowledge and experience published material specific material

What's the need and importance of KM?

Helpful in knowledge retention. Helps in prevention of mistakes and repeat success for organizations. In todays world the information is widely available. So the one who juices out this asset becomes the bigger player.

KM - IT tools

E-Mail. Internet. Intranet.

Document Management.
Imaging. Information retrieval systems. Electronic publishing systems. Data Mining & Data Warehousing.

Company Background

The company came up as a feasibility study for General Electric in 1953 Automated payroll processing was implemented by Arthur Andersen. Then it was formed as Anderson Consulting in 1989. Finally, Accenture went public in 2001.

Need for KM in Accenture

The economic slowdown in 2002 resulted in a budgetary pressure on the KM dept. Many senior managers left; 30% of all KM managers left or were laid off. Outsourcing was required to reduce costs. This time, focus was on short term as compared to long term.

KM @ Accenture

KM was focused strongly. Company adopted formal KM strategy in 1990. By mid 90s, thousands of knowledge repositories had been built using Lotus Notes Bt there was inefficiency in the KM system.

KM Strategy formulation
A strategy session was held in 2004 Goal was to determine the future of KM at Accenture Knowledge Management Strategy:

Drive

value from knowledge to enhance revenue, reduce cost, and foster innovation

Knowledge Management Vision:

To

create a world class knowledge-sharing culture and environment that contributes to Accentures success

Knowledge Management Framework

KM technology @ Accenture before 2004

Use of Lotus Notes across the organization:

Individual database

existed for every business unit. Responsibility for managing and updating content was a units own task. Web-based access was enabled during late 90s.

Weakness of the KM system before 2004

Lack of usability. Lack of awareness of system capabilities and content. Less User friendly. Duplication of documents resulted due to inefficient search methods. There was inconsistency in document templates. The responsibility for the documents was not clearly defined-Decentralization.

The New KM Technology

The new architecture is based on MS Sharepoint technology. New system provides consistency across organization. It saves time and money for managing the system. The new tech eliminated the decentralized Lotus notes environment.

New Architecture
Accenture Portal
Knowledge & Resources channel Search Browse Collaborate Email

Managed topic pages

Intention pages

Single centralized knowledge content store (from end user perspective)

Content from other sources (myLearning, MethodologyFinder, Marketing Credentials, etc.)

Current KM Technology @ Accenture

Addresses specific business goals

There

is a single point of entry for a user; a Web Portal. experience is easy.

End-User Concept

of Metadata is used to improve search and browse features. development and operations of the Accenture Knowledge and Simplify content management .

Centralizes

Advantage of the new KM tech

Major enhancements
Enhanced

search results. Elimination of content duplication (caused by decentralized applications). Improved visibility to innovations across all groups. Increased usability (because of a consistent user experience).

Consistent archival process (that is no longer manual intensive) .