Develop A Knowledge Management Strategy For Nestle Information Technology Essay

incur A companionship Management dodge For near Information Technology EssayThe purpose of this report is to damp a know conductge commission system for nestle. Secondary sources of study such(prenominal) as internet, journals and articles were apply to find the intimacy gap in the companionship. The rate of flow fellowship solicitude strategy being utilize has been menti championd, and what the confederation wants to arrive at has also been specifies in the report. The gild has several atomic number 18as that induce been criticized due to inadequacy of companionship transfer in the community and these atomic number 18as apply been identified and recommendations are master copy personvided in the report. Background nuzzle is known as nutrition, health and wellness caller, it is one of the elephantinest fodder and drink company in the land and has dominated the food industry since virtually 150 years. The Nestle Company was founded in Vevey, Switzerl and in the year 1866 by Henri Nestle with the Main aim of producing broad(prenominal) timbre milk food for babies and is today the worlds leading food and beverage company. The Nestle Company had aimed to build a business as the worlds leading nutrition, health and wellness based on human levers and principles. This determination was achieved through various well known carrys that come under Nestle. The company has grown signifi whoremongertly and has achieved quite a respect and trust by its consumers in the mart. The companys convergences are growing through innovation while manageing a balance between geographic activities and return lines. The company prioritizes in producing and distributing the outgo intersections to its customers.Objectives The company has certain purposes to the following Business Principles One of the objectives of Nestle is to commence better food for their customers. at that place is a very clear human relationship between the objectives and the company logo. As the company strives to provide there consumers with food that would be safe, of gritty quality and has optimal nutrition. Nestles corporate objective is to be the worlds largest and best branded food manufacturer, whilst ensuring that the Nestle name is synonymous with crossings of the highest quality (Nestle Corporate Objective, 2009). It shows that Nestle has al name achieved a part of objective that is to be the largest food production company. This objective is related to another objective of Nestle which is the company wants to make sure that the product creates value that can be sustained over the long term for shareholders, employees, consumers, business partners and the national economies in which Nestle operates. Nestle main objective is to follow and respect each(prenominal) applicable local laws in each of its trades. The company aims to be as decentralized as possible within the framework imposed. Nestles objective is to maintain the squad wor k and the take aims of com situational culture where net on the job(p) and talk shall be encouraged. social structureNestle has over 500 factories in 76 countries, and sells its products in 193 nations. The company employs around 280 000 people and have factories or operations in almost every country in the world. The following is Nestles administrational chart, as of January 2010. This is organic lawal chart at the Executive Level. Nestle Organization Structure 2010Nestle Corporation 2010,General Organizational Chart January 2010MethodologyThe method of fellowship oversight approach is Zacks approach proposed by Michael Zack in which he suggests that the framework which dishs an ecesis make an explicit connection between its competitive situation and a knowledge management strategy to help the organisation maintain or (re-)establish its competitive advantage. (Zack, 1999) This would help to find the link between knowledge and strategy. In this approach, analysis is done with the help of SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats) that helps identifying the gaps in an organizations knowledge. This would help the organization to find out where the knowledge which can be used and where can it be used to improve its competitive position. This is achieved by analysing the organisations knowledge position along two dimensions Exploration vs. ExploitationIt refers to the area where the organization inescapably to improve and bugger off its knowledge in vs. the fortune it may have to use the unused knowledge unexploited resources. Internal vs. External KnowledgeThis refers to if the knowledge is within the organization or outside. Some organisations are more extraneously-oriented, drawing on publications, universities, consultants, customers, etc. Others are more internally-oriented, building up unique knowledge and experience which is difficult for competitors to imitate.The information collected for the seek was done with the help of an employee at Nestle Middle East (UAE) as well as literature canvas based on inessential resources that were found on the internet, journals, case studies and articles.SWOT digestGap Analysis Strategic Gap Lack of direction in Marketing strategy (Overdiversification)of General Mill (a Nestle based product) which was self-assertingly marketed by the Nestle group in almost all the celestial spheres. Over diversion led to unclear organizational mission and poor financial result. Prioritize markets and mark competition localise. For instance, the introduction product LC-1(pro biotic yogurt) in the market where pro biotic food was already popular and the consumers knew the health benefits of it such as European countries like Ger some and France. Instead the product was introduced in Latin the States where there was no much knowledge amongst public. Another issue was the product was introduced as a individual scientific product, which should have been introduced through Nestles D airy. To develop attack over competitors weaknesses. It is always beneficial to launch a product as offset or second movers where Nestle made many mistakes. In case of releasing products, it should make quick move and autograph the market as quickly as possible to gain the market share. For example when Nestle released its cereals much later after Kellogs was already reigning the market. Deception and ForeknowledgeNestles first step should be to educate its consumers closely the product to be introduced and its benefits sooner launching. The education campaign should be okay by scientific support and with example of success from the market situation. To focus on the Right market The company focuses on it big market such as Americas and European country, whereas it should have a wider focus on emerging markets in Asian countries such as China, Russia and India as they were unappealing to foreign market in the past because of their political systems.Knowledge Gaps The objecti ve of food being safe is not very clear to management. There were certain failures with regards to the safety of the food products such as the Food pollution of Pet food in 2007 and Tolls Cookie dough food contamination case that took place in 2009. This led to recalling of products from the market Nestle has been asseverate of breaking the local law, in case of cutting down of rain forest. This shows lack of External knowledge in the company. The organization has polar levels of management and follows a formal culture. Hence there is not much conversation between the levels which leads to lack of knowledge sharing within the departments of the company. For instance A fewer years ago Nestle UK realized the gap of knowledge was the teams of lean experts, there was often a express mail lean knowledge base that retained their knowledge within factory management levels. duration other managers, such as those in accountancy and engineering, came with a specializer body of know ledge close to the fundamentals of their discipline that was gained from their initial professional education and on-going development, the operations and manufacturing managers often did not have the same cogitate training structure. As a result, many had just not had the opportunity to develop a detailed grounding in modern manufacturing tools, techniques and practices. The company has not been able to achieve its goal with of being a whole decentralized organization where delegating decisions and giving authorities to lower levels are considered. People People are the most important assets in a company. Members at all levels of the organization are concerned to add value to the organization. The company has a Hierarchical culture, where there are a few levels of management but has broad spans of control and is rule based and formal. Hence, confabulation and cooperation is restricted to the respective level to which the employee belongs to.Process -In an large organization li ke Nestle, a process is a chain of actions taken before presenting something to customer. It first starts at the Nestle Headquarters in Switzerland, which plays an important role in development of new food product. Experts are invited from all over the world to perform the following steps based on their knowledgeDevelop products that are reliable and profitableDevelop and process the business precedent that will support the new product to avoid minimum commercial-grade risk. seeking and analyzing consumer preferences and trends.Launch the product (in a single region at first) and aggressive marketing to build a customer demand.The further process First, the review of the product from the market is studied. After ensuring that the product is doing well in the market, the brand definition and further development begins. Finally comprehensive market query is carried out for making the final changes with the productTechnology Technologies that are presently used by Nestle are the E RP ( Enterprise Resource Planning), it is a computer based system that is used to manage internal and impertinent resources which includes tangible assets, financial resources, materials and human resources. The main purpose of the software is to help the flow of information between all business functions within the organization and also manage connections outside stake holders. Businesses use a large number of softwares and processes and introducing an ERP system which is usually complicated impose some expert changes in the staff work. SAP is the kind of ERP system Nestle uses. In fact, Nestle uses five modules of SAP namely, purchasing, financials, sales and distribution, accounts payable and accounts receivable. SAP systems are used for accessing, distributing and sorting the information. Manugistics Supply Chain system is currently used by Nestle for automating its fork up chain operations. Intranet is widely used applied science by almost all the organizations in the world . Sharing information amongst different departments is easier with the help of intranet. It is used in Nestle for delivering tools and applications, e.g. collaboration (to facilitate working on groups or teleconferencing)Or corporate directories, sales and CRM tools, project management etc. to improve the productivity.CRM (Customer Relationship Management) Nestle Food service have adopted CRM. It is a tool that is designed to help the customers to get at hand(predicate) to them WANT People While maintaining the formal culture of the organization networking and communication shoul be encouraged. The organizations structure should be assuring operational speed along with personal responsibilities with higher focus on results. Communication amongst different levels of the organization should be encouraged. Clear levels of responsibility and well findd objectives are a essential to know by the companys employees. Process After the development process, research on the product should be done not only by preference and trends but also by using the preceding knowledge and comparing the previous trends and preferences used in the target market. Apart from this, before developing the product the nutritional value should be considered well, as the golf-club today getting more health conscious. The marketing for the product should be prioritized rather than aggressive marketing in areas the product would not be used. Technology The company is using Manugistics Supply chain system which is limited to work on the Java framework. The engineering science should be replaced by SAPs supply chain module, APO (Advance Planner and Optimizer). Since the company uses SAPs other modules it would be easier for Nestle to streamline and accelerate the entire development process at the same era support boosting productivity.RecommendationsPeople Training should be provided to the staff as a new technology is introduced by Nestles learnedness and sharing chopine. A schedule cal led manufacturing improvement techniques program (MITP) provided by Smallpeice Enterprises should be introduced to train the managers. This kind of program basically consists of softer management issues of change, how to handle resistance to change, planning and running projects, leadership, and team building and communication skills. This would help Nestle becoming a learning organization and would provide its staff the confidence to deal with the changes in technology taking place. The carry would also help improve the culture of the company, teamwork and high performance by the staff. Moreover, companies who have trained there staff with MITP course has seen significant and a wide development in the Knowledge sector of their respective companies such as IBM. Open communication and active cooperation must be encouraged where everyone in the department at any level would get a chance to contribute their suggestions and views to improve and enhance the company also result in person al development. Along with this it would lead to knowledge transfer. Enforce regular sharing views via blogs for the employees to stay connected and give their opinions about the technology introduced. Solutions and experiences based on the problems or changes in the organization stick on on the intranets for the employees to view at any time they want in need.ProcessAs the product development process starts in the organization, previous tacit and explicit knowledge should be used. As well as, external knowledge shall be well processed before the development of the product. Research should be carried out about the customer demands, also the region where the product is to be launched their cultural value should also be studied. It is necessary to represent the target market before developing the product. The nutritional value of the product should also be considered at the time of research, otherwise the product dexterity fail because of its low nutritional value and quality.Sever al quality checks should be done using Nestles Quality Assurance program to maintain the cast of Nestle before the product is brought to the market.Once the product is developed and is ready for distribution in the market, customers must be briefed about the product.Technologies Technologies that should be used for knowledge sharing should be entropy repositeries A informationbase warehouse is one large Data Repository of all business related information including all historical info of the business organization implementing the info warehouse. Data warehousing is a complex process of building a data repository in the form of a relational database so that the company can support web or text mining in order to leverage data and transform or aggregate them into reusable information.In all cases, organizations use data warehousing to gain a competitive advantage, support for decision making processes through comprehensive data analysis.Some of the key components of data warehousi ng are Decision encourage Systems (DSS) and Data Mining (DM).A content management system(CMS) is a prayer of procedures used to manage work flow in a cooperative environment. These procedures can be manual or computer-based. The procedures are designed to discontinue for a large number of people to contribute to and share stored data Control access to data, based on user roles. User roles define what information each user can view or rationalise Aid in easy storage and retrieval of data castrate repetitive duplicate input Improve the ease of report piece Improve communication between users