KM and Strategy Article [2]

Before i explain Knowledge Management and Knowledge Management Strategies [KMS] I'll try to explain what is Knowledge..?

Knowledge Management is a very broad topic and their is no widespread agreement about the definition of KM (Haggie., Kingston., 2002)

Knowledge is nothing but collection of useful information
"Information might consist of facts, opinions, ideas, theories, principles, and models" (Barclay.,Murray., 1997)

Knowledge in simple words is nothing but a definition of some information acquired by any means. Knowledge according to me is nothing but experience in life and it is not restricted to work place.

My initial understanding about knowledge was, Knowledge can be acquired by talking to different people about their experiences in life.
If you Understand the information they said, then you have acquired the knowledge... and if you share that knowledge with others and give them the right information at right time which will in turn help them to take right decision now i consider that as knowledge management.. because you could process right information at right time..

And if you can manage to take right decision on the basis of experiences and do the right thing then that i consider as a KM strategy

But one thing is for sure if you want to make a point or suggest something at your workplace you must have formal experience - to be taken seriously, no matter how knowledgeable you are...

Strategy from a organization's point is making major decisions that will affect the company's progress for a long term. "Major Business Decisions are by their very nature Strategic" (Drummond.,Ensor., 1999) and organizations need to anticipate and adapt to environmental changes . Strategy just reflects the intent of a organization to gain competitive advantage over its peers. One must not confuse strategy to strategic plan as strategic plan involves the selection,sequence,timing and specific objectives to achieve the strategy.

According to the authors bob and ron (Wit.,Meyer., 2004) strategy can be classified into four levels and they are
• Functional Level Strategy
• Business Level Strategy
• Corporate Level Strategy
• Network Level Strategy
Apart from these traditional strategies one must adapt the current new forms of strategies i.e promotional strategy (Engel., et al 2000) and strategic advertising (Percy.,Elliott., 2001) which are other types of strategies and which will give organization an edge or to be recognized in the market. Creating promotion or advertising a product that already exists in the market is much easier in comparison to launching a new product or a new brand in the market because one must analyze the market carefully. The strategies must differ for different cultures; organization must change their strategies according to the local culture where they plan to launch the product.


As I mentioned about VOSAPA Inc in my previous article which is the mobile phone retailer in UK and that we do market research or surveys every quarter to know the people’s requirement and as per this survey we mould our business strategy, if suppose there is a new handset that is in great demand even before its launch, we will bid for that phone and make sure that we alone get the rights to sell that phone in UK. We can also keep track of the prices of handsets and if they are competitive in the market. If any of the handsets are not sold then we would use promotional strategy and tie it with some other popular products in the market like Xbox, play station or slash the prices so that we do not have dead stock.


There was a case/ issue in India against the soft drinks giants coke and Pepsi in mid 2006 (Gentleman 2006) that they had excess pesticide contamination in their drinks and both the companies thought that they can handle the situation like they did earlier in 2003 but to their surprise government started to ban the drinks to be sold in schools and public areas. When they had faced the same issue in 2003 they had used the usual strategy used by most companies i.e sign up some big movie/sport star as their brand ambassadors and ask them to recommend it to the public and in turn gain public confidence, and these companies knew they couldn't use the same strategy as the situation was much worse and none of the stars would come forward to recommend their products so they changed their strategy they stopped all the advertisements and instead they had tie ups with all the multiplexes, KFCs, Pizza Hut/Corner and started promoting their drinks with the respective products i.e popcorns / burgers / pizzas. Initially people refused to take but slowly it changed and they are still recovering and still not gained full confidence. Read more about this issue here.

And this is how Strategies are changed according to the market/environment.I personally stopped drinking coke and Pepsi after this incident.

References:

1. Rebecca O.Barclay, Philip C.Murray., Knowledge Praxis
Website: http://www.media-access.com/whatis.html

2. Knox Haggie, John Kingston., Choosing your Knowledge management strategy
Website: http://www.inf.ed.ac.uk/publications/online/0258.pdf

3. Graeme Drummond and John Ensor., Strategic Marketing planning & Control 1999

4. Bob De Wit, Ron Meyer., Strategy - Process, Content, Context 3rd Edition 2004

5. Engel, Warshaw, Kinnear., Promotional Strategy 2000

6. Larry Percy, Richard Elliott., Strategic Advertising Management Oxford University Press 2001

7. Amelia gentleman IHT.com 2006
Website : http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/08/22/business/coke.php