Creating Collaborative Partnerships CHAPTER 15 Creating Collaborative Partnerships

LEARNING OUTCOMES 15.1 Identify the different ways in which companies collaborate using technology 15.2 Compare the different categories of collaboration technologies 15.3 Define the fundamental concepts of a knowledge management system

LEARNING OUTCOMES 15.4 Provide an examples of a content management system along with its business purpose 15.5 Evaluate the advantages of using a workflow management system 15.6 Explain how groupware can benefit a business

TEAMS, PARTNERSHIPS, AND ALLIANCES Organizations create and use teams, partnerships, and alliances to: Undertake new initiatives Address both minor and major problems Capitalize on significant opportunities Organizations create teams, partnerships, and alliances both internally with employees and externally with other organizations

TEAMS, PARTNERSHIPS, AND ALLIANCES Collaboration system – supports the work of teams by facilitating the sharing and flow of information

TEAMS, PARTNERSHIPS, AND ALLIANCES Organizations form alliances and partnerships with other organizations based on their core competency Core competency – an organization’s key strength, a business function that it does better than any of its competitors Core competency strategy – organization chooses to focus specifically on its core competency and forms partnerships with other organizations to handle nonstrategic business processes

TEAMS, PARTNERSHIPS, AND ALLIANCES Information technology can make a business partnership easier to establish and manage Information partnership – occurs when two or more organizations cooperate by integrating their IT systems, thereby providing customers with the best of what each can offer The Internet has dramatically increased the ease and availability for IT-enabled organizational alliances and partnerships

COLLABORATION SYSTEMS Collaboration solves specific business tasks such as telecommuting, online meetings, deploying applications, and remote project and sales management Collaboration system – an IT-based set of tools that supports the work of teams by facilitating the sharing and flow of information

COLLABORATION SYSTEMS Two categories of collaboration Unstructured collaboration (information collaboration) - includes document exchange, shared whiteboards, discussion forums, and email Structured collaboration (process collaboration) - involves shared participation in business processes such as workflow in which knowledge is hardcoded as rules

COLLABORATION SYSTEMS Collaborative business functions

COLLABORATION SYSTEMS Collaboration systems include: Knowledge management systems Content management systems Workflow management systems Groupware systems

KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS Knowledge management (KM) – involves capturing, classifying, evaluating, retrieving, and sharing information assets in a way that provides context for effective decisions and actions Knowledge management system – supports the capturing and use of an organization’s “know-how”

Explicit and Tacit Knowledge Intellectual and knowledge-based assets fall into two categories Explicit knowledge – consists of anything that can be documented, archived, and codified, often with the help of IT Tacit knowledge - knowledge contained in people’s heads

Explicit and Tacit Knowledge The following are two best practices for transferring or recreating tacit knowledge Shadowing – less experienced staff observe more experienced staff to learn how their more experienced counterparts approach their work Joint problem solving – a novice and expert work together on a project

Explicit and Tacit Knowledge Reasons why organizations launch knowledge management programs

CONTENT MANAGEMENT Content management system (CMS) – provides tools to manage the creation, storage, editing, and publication of information in a collaborative environment CMS marketplace includes: Document management system (DMS) Digital asset management system (DAM) Web content management system (WCM)

CONTENT MANAGEMENT Content management system vendor overview

Working Wikis Wikis - web-based tools that make it easy for users to add, remove, and change online content Business wikis - collaborative web pages that allow users to edit documents, share ideas, or monitor the status of a project

WORKFLOW MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS Work activities can be performed in series or in parallel that involves people and automated computer systems Workflow – defines all the steps or business rules, from beginning to end, required for a business process Workflow management system – facilitates the automation and management of business processes and controls the movement of work through the business process

WORKFLOW MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS Messaging-based workflow system – sends work assignments through an email system Database-based workflow system – stores documents in a central location and automatically asks the team members to access the document when it is their turn to edit the document

GROUPWARE SYSTEMS Groupware technologies

GROUPWARE SYSTEMS Groupware – software that supports team interaction and dynamics including calendaring, scheduling, and videoconferencing

Videoconferencing Videoconference - a set of interactive telecommunication technologies that allow two or more locations to interact via two-way video and audio transmissions simultaneously

Web Conferencing Web conferencing - blends audio, video, and document-sharing technologies to create virtual meeting rooms where people “gather” at a password-protected website

Instant Messaging Email is the dominant form of collaboration application, but real-time collaboration tools like instant messaging are creating a new communication dynamic Instant messaging - type of communications service that enables someone to create a kind of private chat room with another individual to communicate in real-time over the Internet

Instant Messaging Instant messaging application

CHAPTER FIFTEEN Opening Case Study Questions Identify which systems WTC could use to collaborate internally Explain which Internet technologies have facilitated the way in which WTC collaborates with both its participants and business partners List the four collaboration systems discussed in this chapter and rank them in order of importance to WTC’s business Describe how WTC could leverage the power of a knowledge management system for its employees and for its participants

CHAPTER FIFTEEN CASE Enterprise Content Management at Statoil Why do you think content management is such a critical part of Statoil’s strategy? Comment on the utility and importance of Statoil’s use of an information portal to promote enterprisewide content management?

CHAPTER FIFTEEN CASE Enterprise Content Management at Statoil To what extent do you think Statoil’s predicament of information overload is typical for organizations? What lessons learned and insights from the chapter’s discussion on collaboration tools could help promote Statoil’s adoption and use of its content management initiative?