Thomas H. Davenport

Managing Customer Support Knowledge

The management of customer support knowledge is increasingly important to organizations because of rapid product change and the growing need for service-based differentiation. This article describes how organizations, particularly in high-technology industries, are both managing their own support knowledge and extending its use to customers for self-service. Among the issues addressed are the key attributes of customer support knowledge, the technologies most commonly used to manage support knowledge, and the management issues most frequently faced by customer support knowledge managers.

Enterprise systems and ongoing process change

Enterprise systems packages have long been associated with process change. However, it was assumed that most organizations would simultaneously design and implement process change while implementing the systems. A survey of 163 organizations and detailed interviews with 28 more suggests that enterprise systems were still being implemented even among early adopters of the technology, and that process change was being undertaken on an ongoing basis. After the prerequisites of time, critical mass of functionality, and significant expenditures were taken care of, the factors most associated with achieving value from enterprise systems were integration, process optimization, and use of enterprise‐systems data in decision making.

Enterprise systems and the supply chain

Early enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems or, more simply, enterprise systems (ES), were not primarily focused on the supply chain. Their initial focus was to execute and integrate such internally‐oriented applications that support finance, accounting, manufacturing, order entry, and human resources. Having got their internal operations somewhat integrated, many organizations have moved on to address the supply chain with their ES. The Internet has also brought about a revolution in supply chain thinking. Progress toward complete inter‐enterprise integration is measured in years and even decades. In this article, we discuss both the visions firms have for using enterprise systems for supply chain management, and the actual reality of current implementation. We conclude with projections of how enterprise systems will be used for supply chains in the future.

The rise of knowledge towards attention management

Knowledge management is the key success factor of today’s business leaders. Focuses on the rise of knowledge management. Provides a summary of useful concepts, different project types, supportive organizational structures, effective technologies and points out future knowledge management directions. Shows that currently, within knowledge management, attention management has become the most important success factor. In future the management of attention management is likely to decide which businesses will be among the leaders of the new economy.

Data to Knowledge to Results: Building an Analytic Capability

Data remains one of our most abundant yet under-utilized resources. This article provides a holistic framework that will help companies maximize this resource. It outlines the elements necessary to transform data into knowledge and then into business results. Managers must understand that human elements—strategy, skills, culture—need to be attended to in addition to technology. This article examines the experiences of over 20 companies that were successful in their data-to-knowledge efforts. It identifies the critical success factors that must be present in any data-toknowledge initiative and offers advice for companies seeking to build a robust analytic capability.

The Attention economy

Will reading habit influence your life? Many say yes. Reading the attention economy is a good habit; you can develop this habit to be such interesting way. Yeah, reading habit will not only make you have any favourite activity. It will be one of guidance of your life. When reading has become a habit, you will not make it as disturbing activities or as boring activity. You can gain many benefits and importances of reading.

The Future of Enterprise System-Enabled Organizations

Companies are beginning to expect to gain strategic value from the implementation and operation of enterprise systems (ES). Currently dominating trends in business are sense-and-respond business models, globalization, corporate realignment, virtual organizations and accelerated product life-cycles. Available and evolving features of enterprise systems are summarized in a framework, concluding that present capabilities of enterprise systems correspond only to some extend to the new practices required to respond to these corporate challenges, and that ERP vendors strive to fill the gap. By integrating higher management functions enterprise systems will also impact on the practice of executives. The future work of an executive is illustrated by a fictitious example.

Managing information about processes

This study addresses the issue of how leading firms manage information about their business processes. The researchers interviewed twenty firms, many of which were Baldrige quality award winners, and conducted a detailed case study of one firm particularly advanced in process management. The paper suggests that a key aspect of success in process improvement is effective management of information about process performance, even independent of information technology. The concept of double-loop learning is applied to process information. A process model of how to manage process information is advanced, with many examples from interviews of leading practices. Challenges in moving toward increased use of process information are also described.

Process Management for Knowledge Work

In this chapter, the topic of using process improvement approaches to improve knowledge work is addressed. The effective performance of knowledge work is critical to contemporary sophisticated economies. It is suggested that traditional, engineering-based approaches to knowledge work are incompatible with the autonomy and work approaches of many knowledge workers. Therefore, a variety of alternative process-oriented approaches to knowledge work are described. Emphasis is placed on differentiating among different types of knowledge work and applying process interventions that are more behaviorally sensitive.

Business Intelligence and Organizational Decisions

The focus on transactional systems in the earlier decades of information management is beginning to shift toward decisions. In order to study the relationship between information and decisions, the author interviewed 32 managers in 27 organizations where an attempt to use information to support decision-making had been made. A framework involving three different relationships between information and decisions is introduced: loosely-coupled, structured human, and automated. It is suggested that loosely-coupled information and decision environments, while productive for information providers, may require too much knowledge on the part of information users to be effective. A four-step process for bringing information and decisions in closer alignment is also advanced.