Solent Sports- A knowledge management and Business Intelligence

Knowledge management system

Knowledge management deals with the management of the knowledge and it is a kind of
information technology (IT) system that can store knowledge which can be retrieves the
knowledge as well. With the help of the knowledge management system organizations and
knowledge management experts is able to improve the collaboration of knowledge and they will
be able to locate different resources of knowledge. Knowledge management process improve the
efficiency of a company and organizations become able to mines repositories for hidden
knowledge and also able to use the different sources of knowledge to improve the
communications among employees of the company. For better understanding among the
employees of the company and for their better performance enhancement organizations are using
various tools and techniques of knowledge management.
As the world is now become a global village which increase the competition between
different organizations doing business in different countries. With this globalization, customers
are now able to access different quality products and services because they have different
alternatives in the market. This sense of globalization changes the way of thinking for businesses
and for organizations and allows them to adopt new technologies and with the help of this
advancement in technology allows them to perform well and to compete in the market. In this
situation, the companies using advance technologies and improve their business policies and
practices are considered as the leading businesses in the market and their core competencies
allows them to perform better than their rivals. The concept of globalization is also beneficial for
the companies as well because, with the help of globalization companies are able to expand their
business in different countries and they can also acquire resources from all around the world to
improve their performance and efficiency. The resources can be in terms material, technology
and it can be in terms of human resources. Companies are now able to acquire services of skillful
and efficient labor from different counties that helps the organizations to differentiate their
business operations from other companies. For a better performance of the company it is
necessary to manage all of its resources from raw material to finish goods, from inbound

logistics to the end user of the company. Proper management of business activities, management
of human resources, management of knowledge and management of material of the company are
key elements for a company to differentiate its business from its competitors.
From past few years the concept of knowledge management enhanced a quality
improvement in the operations of the company which in terms, a key to success of a company.
This advancement of technology changes the pattern of thinking of the companies and now they
are more concerned with the knowledge management. In 2007 James Robertson argued that with
the enhancement of technology companies will be able to improve business activities and with
the proper technological advancement and its usage in knowledge management also necessary to
survive in the market. He further argued that companies should take a part in the development of
IT system because the competition is increasing every day and firms must perform specific
activities to minimize the chances of errors by improving its knowledge management system. All
these prior changes in industries and consumer behavior have a significant impact on
organizational performance and to cope up with these changes some experts develop new
techniques in the development of knowledge management system. In knowledge management
system there was a set of new activities were formed that leads the business towards success and
by doing those activities companies the efficient and effective performance can be achieved.
For knowledge management system there are two complementary set of activities or
knowledge activities required to implement and design a quality and effective knowledge
management system (Newell et al., 2000). The activities are:
1. Technical programming and technical designing is the fundamental need for the system
that helps the organizations to improve their performance and also helps the organizations
to implement an effective knowledge management system within the company.
2. Flow of knowledge and organizational know how is also important for the knowledge
management system. In this, if the management of the company has proper and sound
knowledge about the organizational culture, organizational activities and understand the
flow of organizational knowledge then they will be able to implement a good and
effective knowledge management system.
The understanding of knowledge management system and proper implication of the system is
very important for organizations. Most of the organizations are unable to implement a successful

knowledge management system into their business activities or into their resources and due to
which they are not able to perform well. Knowledge sharing technologies is also considered a
key to success of the overall system but it is not only limited with the fact that only experts will
share knowledge in this system rather there are other factors are also important for a successful
knowledge management system Botha et al (2008). The organizations are failed to apply such
techniques along with the knowledge management system and Akhavan identifies some factors
that become a reason for a failure in the system in 2005. The factors are:
1. Top management of the companies are not performing their active role in this system and
due to the lack of top management support the companies are not able to implement an
efficient and successful knowledge management system.
2. Organizational culture and values become a resistance in the implication of knowledge
management system.
3. Knowledge management system requires a separate budget clause in organizations and
most of the organizations report it combined with other sections rather than separate
budget section for knowledge management system.
4. Some organizations want to continue its business activities and operations by following
the previous trends and previous culture and they did not prefer changes into the system.
The resistance to change in organizational activities and operations is also a reason for
failure.
The incorporated failure elements of knowledge management system are as follows:

For the implementation of knowledge management system in organizations the support of

top management is very important because the top management provides guidelines and
directions to the subordinates and if inadequate information and inadequate support is
given to the subordinates then the system will not generate quality results.

In many organizations the lack of good management become a reason for failure in
knowledge management system and due to which the managers are unable to understand

the actual needs of the companies. They are not able to identify the required activities
either in technology or in resources and due to which they are unable to apply a good
knowledge management system.

Each function and system has its own specifications and limitations and most of the times
managers are unable to understand these specifications and limitations of the system that
become a reason for failure of knowledge management system.

The tools that are used to measure the performance of the system are not that much
efficient to provide accurate results and due to the lack of these measuring tools firms are
not able to apply an efficient knowledge management system.

Lack of organizational, departmental and functional activities of the company is also a

reason for failure.

Knowledge Management System for Solent Sports

Keeping in mind the end goal to execute a knowledge management system, Solent Sports need a
solid IT-based framework. IT selection of KMS can be entirely mind boggling since it can be
seen from numerous points of view and ought to work with different parts. Part of IT includes
assembling, putting away, and exchanging learning, for example, best practice. It is likewise a
procedure to give learning system and connection among wellsprings of information to make
more extensive broadness and profundity of information streams; to give viable quest and
recovery instruments for finding applicable data; to upgrade scholarly capital by supporting
advancement of individual and authoritative abilities (Alavi and Leidner, 2001). Thusly, the IT
foundation in Solent Sports should be enhancing to bolster the proposed KMS.
At the point when commonly outlining a KMS for SMEs, certain preparatory
configuration necessities will guarantee its adequacy, for example, reasonableness, ease of use,
procedure separation and adaptability (Lin et al., 2013). To actualize a KMS in Solent Sports, a
structure of KM procedure will be taken after likewise. The system begins with learning ID,

procurement, application, sharing, creation and protection (Yip et al., 2013). The kind of
information should be bridle and enhance in Solent Sports is both unequivocal and inferred
learning. Generally SMEs favor the personalization methodology of learning rather than
codification technique (Lin et al., 2013). Be that as it may, since Solent Sports is quickly
developing, it is imperative to adjust both of the systems and utilizing a half and half of both
process and practice approach. The objectives of Solent Sports' KMS are to build up a more
organized, exact and of value databases administration frameworks that will give forward stock
and execution observing; besides, supporting perplexing and key basic leadership through
business savvy investigation. Its objective is additionally to make steady culture and encourage
better inner correspondence and sharing of unequivocal and inferred learning for improving
Solent Sports general element and execution.

Challenges Faced
Solent Sports faces many challenges that prevent the effectiveness of its current
operations and ambitions in order to expend in future. These challenges are
1. Solent Sports implemented the accounting and distribution systems 15 years ago
and they didn't upgrade their system according to requirement of the era.
2. Point of sale systems is not fully integrated with the accounting system that
doesn't allow them to monitor the inventory levels.
3. The reports are prepared on monthly basis in which the branch managers collect
data from different sources or from different systems by using basic word
processing and spreadsheet software and those reports are not efficient for the
management to make future findings on the basis of those reports.
4. The branch managers and employees from the others branches are not aware of
the status of the others branches.
5. Training is one of the major challenges that Solent Sports is facing because the
sales persons must know the qualities of the products, attributes of the products
but also know how the people use their products in their regions.

Proposed Knowledge Management System

Following is proposed knowledge management system for Solent Sports

people

Knolwedge
Management
Acquire
create
Share
utilize

process

capture

knowledg
e

Knowledge
Technology

retrieve

Knowledge
strategy

KM
engineering

knowledge
culture

KM
process

Knowledge management is created by the following process

Acquire (obtaining knowledge from different sources)

Create
Share
Utilize
Capture
Retrieve

There are people in the organization and they share knowledge with them and the knowledge is
processed, stored and knowledge bank is created.

Knowledge strategy
All these elements are considered as a core function for the organization in which each and every
element has its own impact on the performance of the company. These core functions are
managed by the senior managers or the top management of the company and in this way the
knowledge management becomes a knowledge strategy for the company. The knowledge
strategy further helps the organization to achieve its short term and long term strategic goals.

Knowledge Culture
The employees of the company should be encourage to work together and share knowledge and
expertise with each other because shared knowledge increases the organizational performance. In
this case the goal of each employee should be defined and it is the responsibility of top
management of the company to provide valuable and adequate information to its employees.
Once the resources and adequate information is given to the employees then they will be able to
work efficiently and to achieve its long term goals.

KM Process
Knowledge management is a combination of processes. The processes facilitate the
organizational knowledge that helps the organization to perform well and to improve its
performance level. These processes also help the companies to increase its competitive advance
and also played a vital role in the development of the knowledge management applications. The
firms can increase or sustain its competitive advantage in three dimensions.
1. Strategic Dimension
2. Managerial Dimension

3. Operational Dimension

KM Engineering
Engineering Knowledge Management is a strategy to capture explicit and tacit design knowledge
for reuse in product development. Knowledge management engineering is considered as the most
technical and important aspect of knowledge management system.

KM Technology
The advancement in technology allows the organizations to perform well and better than
competitors and the advancement in the knowledge management system also improve the
efficiency of the companies. If the companies want to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of
their knowledge management system then adopting new techniques and technologies are the
most important factors.

Problems Faced:
The current problem in the organization is that reports which are the base for the decision
making are made on the authentic data and the sales point of the organization are not connected
with each other, so they are not aware of the challenges of the other sales point and neither they
can give any suggestion for the improvement. The company is using the old technologies that
can be easily imitate by its competitors and due to these old techniques they are not efficient to
achieve its long term goal and to increase the profitability of the company. The company should
adopt new technologies of knowledge management system to improve its business operations
and for this group decision support system (GDSS) is the best system to adopt and overcome the
challenges.

Group Decision Support System

The Solent Sport should adopt the "Group Decision Support System" because the time
management is very important for the companies. In current situation each and every company
wants to improve its business activities and as a result they will be able to generate good profit
for the company. Now a day the organizations are adopting enterprise information systems that
help them to support their business activities and business processes. They conduct business
meeting in which they discuss different aspects of the companys products or services and share
knowledge with each other. The knowledge further, transform to the subordinates of the
company so they can perform their duties efficiently for the success of the companies. Group
decision support system is efficient in terms of time management, creative and innovate ideas
regarding the products and the services of the company and also beneficial for the performance
of the company. Solent sport also facing a challenge of inadequate information flow among all
the employees of the company. The employees working of different franchises do not have good
knowledge about the products of the company due to which they are not able to facilitate the
customer in a good way that creates a bad impression of the company in front of customers. In
this case group decision support system is beneficial for Solent Sport because it improves the
communication among all the employees of the company and this way they know can
understand the specifications of each product of the company and at the end the customer will
be facilitated. Group decision support system has following requirement in a company:

The data should be collected through different sources of the company and should be
presented in the group meeting. The data can be collected from sales data of the company,
from the inventory report or from inventory data of the company and it can be collected

from the market research data which is called as secondary data.

The data should be present in a proper format so it will be easy to understand and should

be easy to explain to the group members.

There must be an appropriate and suitable database location along with a proper format in
which the data can be analyzed for support and decision making purpose.

The Solent Sport should take following types of decision while adopting the group decision
support system (GDSS)
Decision Network:

In decision network there must be a centralized location or hub through which the members of
the company should communicate with each other and share knowledge with each other.
Decision network can be in the form of centralized database.

Decision Room:
The top managers of the company or the decision makers of the company are located at one
place and share knowledge and ideas with each other. In this way the participants or members of
the company interact with each other and present their ideas on the basis of their experience and
share it with other members so they will be able to make good decisions in specific time period.
Teleconferencing:
For large organizations having offices in different countries and having large number of products
or services teleconferencing is beneficial because it provides a connection of two or more than
two decision rooms. In this form the members of the companies are composed on the basis of
geographically dispersed and they will be able to interconnect with each other through
teleconferencing.
The GDSS system could be integrated in the present infrastructure of the Solent Sports
but the company has to face certain challenges like the company has to update the system
according to requirement. The company has to increase the budget and hire the professionals of
IT who are responsible to run the system and maintain it.

An Expert System
The 2nd proposed system which the Solent Sports should adopt the Expert System because it is a
good system to deal with the uncertainty and also implemented in most of the companies as well.
It is very common system because it is not limited with the organizational activities rather it is
helpful for the consumers too. Lets take an example, there is an expert system which is designed
for the customers to identify or choose a product or services that describes the overall needs of
the customer. The product design, quality and inputs best describe the user requirements and has

a perfect match with customer demand. Expert systems can, however, call up information from
databases, which allow new information such as prices changes to be reflected in the decision
without changing the rules. In this case the proper understanding of the expert system is
important for the companies and the management must know about the usage of this system. An
Expert System can be defined as:
"Expert system is refers to an ideal system through which the knowledge can be converted into
an easy form that can be understandable for organizations and for users as well. The knowledge
can be tacit knowledge or explicit knowledge and this system has the ability to convert both
these two knowledge and it is a key process in knowledge management.
A set of systematic and well established procedures are involved in the implementation of
expert system because it require information about the products of the company and the
implementation phase of this system is important. The process which is involved in the
representation of knowledge of expert is called knowledge engineering and which is already
discussed in this paper. From now, knowledge management is facing a challenge of documenting
and eliciting the tacit knowledge. The valuable sources of information including the data
warehouses, a mainstay of knowledge management are also not efficiently utilized in expert
systems which are also a challenge for this system. Currently the information is not being
collected in effective manner and resources are not being used efficiently. The system is not up to
date according to market requirement.