Intellectual assets with knowledge as the core are increasingly becoming the decisive factor of the core competitiveness of enterprises in western developed countries. Therefore, managers pay more and more attention to the knowledge hidden inside and outside the company and how to manage it. At the same time, the rapid development of IT industry makes the coding, storage and * * * of knowledge more convenient and cheaper. Although knowledge management has been put on the agenda of managers for less than 10 years, different management modes have emerged and become increasingly mature, which makes it possible to deeply analyze the operation mode, cost-effectiveness and applicable environment of these modes. There have also been related studies in China. For example, Fang Nan and Wu Chunyou divided the knowledge management modes into integration mode, cooperation mode, transaction mode and expert mode, and made a reasonable classification and in-depth analysis. However, this paper believes that their analysis lacks practical guiding significance and does not reflect the development status and trend of knowledge management model in western enterprises. Now, two models have emerged gradually and proved to be successful. This paper will take American enterprises as an example to compare and analyze the operation mode, cost-effectiveness and applicable environment of the two knowledge management models.
I. Examples
The enterprises in the example all take knowledge as their core assets, such as consulting companies, medical companies and high-tech companies. There are two groups of enterprises in Example 1, Example 2 and Example 3, which have implemented different knowledge management models, but they are all successful. Compared with the first three examples, Example 4 is a failed example.
Example (1). Al: Anderson Consulting and Ernst & Young Consulting. They invested heavily in the development of advanced electronic file system, which can quickly encode and store the knowledge of company members and the knowledge they collected from outside, and become a document database. This knowledge can be directly called by all personnel of the company through computers, regardless of the source of this knowledge. The company employs people who are good at collecting knowledge, applying knowledge and implementing decisions, especially college graduates. Accordingly, the compensation for employees is also based on how much knowledge they add to the file database and how much knowledge they use from it. Through the reuse of this knowledge, the company provides customers with standardized, high-quality and fast consulting services. BL: consulting companies such as BASIN, Boson and Mckiy. They only invest a small amount of money in information technology, aiming at establishing systems such as "missing persons database" in order to quickly find out who has rich knowledge in this field. The knowledge of these people is spread through brainstorming meetings or one-on-one communication. They employ people who are knowledgeable, good at sharing knowledge and solving problems, especially MBA students from top schools. Correspondingly, the rewards for employees are also based on how much knowledge they share directly with others. The company provides highly personalized and creative consulting services for major decisions.
Example (2). A2: Get healthy. The company has developed a clinical decision-making framework covering more than 500 disease symptoms and treatment items. Some patients can immediately learn about family treatment and first aid measures by telephone at home, and ask what doctors to see, what to buy (over-the-counter drugs) and psychotherapy at any time. Company employees are committed to collecting and disseminating medical knowledge. B2: M.S.K Cancer Center. The center has the authority of first-class researchers, clinical experts, psychologists and related basic disciplines in the field of cancer at home and abroad. They hold regular or irregular meetings to discuss new breakthroughs in basic disciplines, new clinical phenomena and the impact of new progress in cancer treatment research. These meetings intersect in patients' consultation, so that patients can always get first-class treatment.
Example (3). A3: Dell. The computers provided by the company to customers are not only cheap, but also assembled according to the parts specified by customers in the order. According to statistics, there are as many as 40,000 kinds of components in customer orders. Different combinations need different knowledge to install computers, so it is impossible for every producer to master them. To this end, Dell has invested a lot of money to develop a knowledge management system. The manufacturer only needs to input the combination required by the customer into the system, and the assembly method of these components will be displayed immediately. B3: Hewlett Packard Company. The company has invested heavily in R&D and continuously developed new technologies and products. In order to make these technical knowledge spread rapidly in branches all over the world, the manager encourages technicians to use the company plane to teach the technology directly to the branches face to face to prevent technical distortion. Recently, the company has developed an electronic oscilloscope with Windows operating system and interface, and its manufacturing method has been promoted throughout the company in this way.
Example (4). CSC index consultation (CSC index consultation). This company is one of the creators of knowledge reengineering. After the company achieved great success in this field, it tried to expand its business and enter the field of strategic consulting, so it began to hire a large number of MBA graduates from top business schools. In this way, the company not only has employees who tend to collect and use knowledge, but also has another kind of creative and innovative personnel. Their goals conflict, which makes CSC unable to provide fast and cheap knowledge reorganization solutions like Anderson and Anyang, nor can it provide in-depth strategic consultation like McKinsey and Bourne.
Second, the economic analysis of two knowledge management models
The knowledge management modes adopted by A 1, A2, A3 and B 1, B2 and B3 in the above examples have the following characteristics: the former, knowledge is encoded and stored in the database, and anyone in the company can directly call it through the computer network; In the latter, knowledge is not divorced from the owner of knowledge, and his knowledge is spread and shared through direct communication between people. Harvard professors Hansen and Roglia call them coding mode and personalized mode respectively. The two models show great differences in input and output. The coding mode emphasizes investing in information technology in order to develop a management system that can quickly collect and disseminate knowledge, and then gain benefits through the reuse of these knowledge. The knowledge in this mode can be reused very quickly and infinitely, which saves working time and reduces the cost of information exchange, making the cost of products and services very low and realizing remarkable economies of scale. For example, although Dell has spent a huge sum of money to develop a knowledge management system containing 40,000 assembly technologies (the competitor is 100), its sales volume is very large, for example, 1 1 10,000 units in 1997, which means that each combination method is on average 1. 1999, the company's sales revenue was 411900,000 USD. In recent years, the company's profits have increased by 83% every year. The comprehensive outpatient decision-making system developed by Axe Company is quite similar. According to statistics, each record of this system is used as many as 8000 times in 1 year, which makes the telephone consultation fee very low and attracts many customers. The company occupies 50% of the call health care market, and its profit is increasing at a rate of 40% every year. The profits of Anderson and Anyang also increase by 20% every year because of the reuse of knowledge. Personalized mode emphasizes investing in human resources, introducing a large number of domestic and even world-class experts and scholars, and actively investing huge sums of money to encourage them to communicate directly with other employees and customers of the company to spread knowledge. Their knowledge is very complicated and profound, and their stock in the whole society is not much, which is extremely scarce compared with social needs. Therefore, it is reasonable to ask high prices to provide customers with opportunities to enjoy this knowledge. This can be seen clearly in McKinsey & Company. McKinsey & Company often helps customers to expand their business in regional and international scope. In order to demonstrate the feasibility of the expansion plan, McKinsey invited first-class experts and scholars. These people mainly include: experienced production line development experts; A visionary veteran who is very familiar with the history, present situation and development trend of related industries; People and writers who have a deep understanding of the expanding culture, customs and values; Lawyers who are familiar with local laws and regulations; And world-class regional economists. With these people's thoughtful and careful argumentation, it is obvious that the risk of expanding the plan has been greatly reduced. Of course, their asking price is not bad. For example, 1997, McKinsey consultants charge an average of $200 a day, while Anderson's related data is $600. The input-output model of M.S.K, the most advanced cancer research and treatment center in the United States, is similar.
These two models have created different values for customers. The coding management mode aims to save the time for customers to collect knowledge and reduce the cost for customers to enjoy knowledge. In today's society, the types of knowledge are vast, the stock is huge, and the update speed is fast. It is unimaginable for consumers and manufacturers to collect the knowledge needed for learning. Because of its large scale and advanced technology, knowledge coding has obvious comparative advantages, which greatly saves acquisition time and reduces acquisition cost. For example, the cooperative enterprises of Anyang Company generally do not do it independently, but seek Anyang's help, because Anyang often helps other enterprises to establish such systems, has experience and lessons in this field, and is familiar with the costs and benefits of this system. With the help of Anyang, the company established such a system within six months, which saved nearly 1 year compared with the usual situation and was very successful. It is also obvious that Axe reduces the cost for customers to enjoy knowledge. Imagine that if there is no such service, customers will have to go to the hospital. Not only does he have to pay the transportation fee, but more importantly, he may also pay a high opportunity cost for it-he can use this time to work or relax. If the coding management mode is to create value for customers from the perspective of cost, then the personalized management mode is mainly to achieve this goal from the perspective of utility. Some clients, such as patients in the M. S.K Cancer Center and the cooperative enterprises of McKinsey & Company, often need to use the latest knowledge with complex and interdisciplinary contents. However, on the one hand, there are generally few people who have this knowledge, and if they are employed by individuals instead of relying on organizations, it will greatly increase the cost and be unrealistic; On the other hand, because of information asymmetry, they don't know who really owns this knowledge, which may lead to adverse selection, and they don't know whether these "knowledge monopolists" will use the relevant knowledge completely and correctly, which may lead to moral hazard. In addition, there is another possibility that customers simply don't know what knowledge services they need. For example, a cancer patient may not know what a new breakthrough in basic disciplines means to his treatment. These aspects are the main direction, core content and advantages of personalized knowledge management mode, which provide these customers with opportunities to enjoy the scarce knowledge in society. In addition, some customers want the products they buy to use different knowledge from other products to meet their personalized requirements, and personalized management mode also has obvious advantages in this respect.
Third, how to choose the knowledge management mode.
Choosing the right knowledge management model, managers should be very clear about why customers want to buy their own products and services, rather than those of other companies. He should also be very clear about what value our knowledge has created for customers, what customers expect from our company, and so on. It is impossible to make a correct choice by being vague about these basic issues. Suppose the manager is well aware of the company's basic competitive strategy, but he must also answer the following questions.
First, does our company mainly rely on explicit knowledge or tacit knowledge? External knowledge refers to formal and standardized knowledge that can be coded, stored and conveyed in a systematic way without distortion. For example, the archives database of Anyang Company, the outpatient decision-making integrated system of Axe Company, and the knowledge in the knowledge management system of Dell Company. If a company mainly relies on such knowledge to provide products and services, it should adopt the coding knowledge management model. Tacit knowledge refers to highly personalized knowledge that is difficult to communicate in a stylized way and enjoy indirectly. The knowledge of experts and scholars from McKinsey & Company and M.S.K Cancer Center mentioned above is such knowledge. If a company mainly relies on such knowledge to provide products and services, it should adopt a personalized knowledge management model.
Second, does our company provide standardized or personalized products and services? Standardized products have not changed much, and the knowledge content used is the same. The mass production of such products means the reuse of knowledge, which should be coded and stored. On the contrary, personalized products need personalized knowledge management model.
Third, does our company provide mature products or innovative products? The maturity of products means that the knowledge components and the structure of these knowledge tend to be clear and stable, which makes coding possible; Innovative products are often the result of a person's different knowledge, or the result of people with different knowledge communicating with each other. Personalized management mode provides opportunities for this kind of integration and communication. Therefore, the above two products should correspond to the coding management mode and personalized management mode respectively.
Answering these questions correctly can basically make a wise choice in the knowledge management mode. However, in practice, we should also pay attention to the following points: first, the company should not pay equal attention to the two management modes, but should either focus on the coding mode and supplement the personalized mode; Personalization mode is still the main mode, supplemented by coding mode. If they are equally important, they can neither reduce the cost of knowledge enjoyment for customers like coding mode, nor provide customers with complicated knowledge like personalized mode. The CSC index consulting company in Example (4) violated this principle. Under the background that the profit of consulting industry increased by 20% every year on average from 1994- 1996, its income dropped from $200 million to1500,000, and finally it had to be merged into other companies because of its declining performance. But in practice, we can't rely entirely on one mode. Bourne Company is troubled by this extreme practice. They used to manage all the knowledge by coding, but in the course of business, the company staff found that they urgently needed to know the causes and internal logic of some knowledge, but they could not touch the source of these knowledge. Other companies that rely entirely on personalized models find that their senior experts and scholars are often asked to answer some very basic questions, but the knowledge related to these questions can be completely coded. The research by Hanson and Royali shows that the ratio of primary mode to secondary mode is 80: 20, which is reasonable.
Second, if different departments of a company use different knowledge, provide different products and services and have different human resources, they should adopt corresponding knowledge management models respectively. Thirdly, if the tacit knowledge of the company gradually becomes explicit knowledge, it should be transformed into coding management in time.