Knowledge management at Accenture

Richard Ivey School of Business

20090770 Jongsung Lee
Accenture
A well known global firm that became a public
company with a successful initial public offering on the
New York Stock Exchange in July 2001.
Great revenue increment in 2001, 2004(two digit
increment)
Embarked upon a new strategyHigh Performance
Delivered
Substantially increase companys focus on outsourcing
Oriented to improving shareholder value for its clients
Emphasizing the creation and application of intellectual and
technological assets to apply in work with clients
organizational structure also evolved
5 operating groups 18 industry groups which made up the
five operating groups, eight capability groups

Knowledge Management
In 90s
Adopted a knowledge-oriented strategy: build a knowledge management organization
under the chief information officer
By the mid-1990s, the firm built thousands of knowledge repositories on the Lotus
Notes platform: Knowledge Exchange

From 2000 to 2002
Responsibility for KM was shifted from CIO to the training and learning organization at
Accenture
Learning & knowledge management were combined into a single new group called
capability development in 2001
In 2002, the toughening fiscal conditions, training budgets had been cut substantially
for Accenture employees
Knowledge Management
Substantial budget pressures on both the training and knowledge
management groups
Several of the most senior knowledge managers left Accenture
30% of all the knowledge managers left or were laid off
Cost reduction by moving knowledge management functions offshore
Capability Development organization had developed a KM staffing model in which
decentralized groups would employ a few onshore knowledge managers with high domain
expertise and a high need for contact with their internal client; the rest would move offshore
Although the learning and KM activities remained largely separate and decentralized
within Accentures business units, there were some joint initiatives
Developed a personalized learning management system called myLearning

As the content of KM proliferate, information finding problems happened
Accenture employees dedicated to developing new content often remarked that they
found it more and more difficult to get the attention of partners and employees
KNOLEDGE MANAGEMENT TECHNOLOGY
The problems for managing existing KM system
The KM system was being replaced or augmented with Web-based portals
Most major Accenture groups had their own portals
Despite one central Accenture Portal that contained links to many decentralized portals,
it could be confusing to find the information one needed
Duplication of documents throughout the organization was very high
The local optimization done by each local company, didnt seem to work well
It was very important that there be a clear governance structure for the new Knowledge
Exchange to improve the consistency of the experience

Target for the new KM system
Barfield who was in charge of KM strategy, decided to develop a governance
structure that incorporated senior representatives from each part of the organization
The new knowledge exchange
Accenture changed the foundation of the Knowledge Exchange, from
Lotus Notes to Microsofts Sharepoint
Design of the new Knowledge Exchange were
to leverage existing and packaged software
to extend SharePoint only to support critical requirements
The solution was designed
to be simple, cost efficient and effective without an attempt to recreate all existing Lotus
Notes functionality
to contain all high-value content
Opposed to trying to get everything working from the beginning
from an end-user perspective
user
Internal Content














Accenture Portal:
Knowledge &
Resources
Search
(find.accenture.com)
Job Aid / Topic page/
Community of Practice
Collaboration:
Submit question
to experts/CoPs
Direct link via
browser favorite
Contributions/Accenture
developed content
Accenture purchased
content(Research)
Browse to other topic
pages/COP
myLearning courses
method
Answer from
Accenture experts
Accenture
Discussions
The new knowledge exchange(contd)
The strategy identified key insights that drove the overall design:
Search quality is the most important aspect of the infrastructure
Topic pages are very important for providing context to users who do not immediately
find what they need or who are seeking a broader range of content about a subject
While collaboration capabilities are not as widely used, this is a required capability for
those who cant find what they need or are working in an area that requires expertise

LEARNING AND KNOWLEDGE
MANAGEMENT
Training is an investment, not a cost: Vanthourrnout(later Chief Learning
Officer)
Training function at Accenture was revitalized
Accenture employees were again rating training as one of the areas that most drove
their satisfaction on the companys annual employee satisfaction survey

STRATEGY SESSION
20 people critical to the delivery of Accentures KM capability came
together to meet and discuss the future direction of KM
There was a general feeling that the new Knowledge Exchange would provide a strong
technical foundation for a renewed contribution from KM to Accentures corporate
goals

Knowledge Management Mission
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
Issues
The way in which content was added to the system had to be designed
Using SharePoint templates
An initial typology for documents had been developed
Focused on business processes, so that it was easy for people to find relevant
documents

Users be represented properly in the management and future
development of the Knowledge Exchange
KM would support, as completely as possible, the entire business cycle within
Accenture from initial sales proposal to final client delivery

Document obsolescence

How can integrate learning and knowledge management?
Too tightly integrating them might focus knowledge management on reuse and training
and reduce its impact on innovation and collaboration

Knowledge Management Vision(contd)
Five critical goals for KM
Fostering and sustaining a knowledge sharing culture
Improving the time to competency for new hires
Enabling and enhancing Accentures sales capability
Ensuring and improving the ROI for KM
Improving margins and delivered quality on client engagements such as outsourcing
and large consulting commitments through speed to capability, use of best practices,
etc.
Five forces






Competitive
Rivalry


Entrants


Supplier


Buyers


Substitution
-Making the knowledge available to
the employees Accenture can make
entrance barriers high
-Can analyze customers based
on the customer information in
KM system
-Can acquire the experts
techniques to customers
-Can help delivery(finding the
information of suppliers can be
a help)
-There are plenty of
information of substitution of
products/services
Discussion Issues
Which one do you think the most important among people, process, and
platform to implement KM system? Justify your answer.

How can you improve the ownership of employees for KM?