My presentation at the conference: "Demonstrating the value of knowledge management" in London October 2007

1. Maximising Knowledge Sharing
Benefits Across Boundaries
Demonstrating the Value of Knowledge Management Conference
18 October 2007
Marc Aafjes, Global Head of Knowledge Management
Vodafone Group

2. Vodafone is a global organisation which leverages its unique
experiences and knowledge as a competitive advantage
• Vodafone Group is the largest mobile telecommunications company in the world:
– equity interests in 25 countries and partner Networks in a further 40 countries
– Vodafone has approx. 206.4 million proportionate customers worldwide (31/03/07)
– Total market capitalisation of approx. £84 billion at (26/05/07), making it the 4th largest company in
the FTSE 100 and the 21st largest company in the world
• Vodafone has the unique opportunity to leverage its large and diverse global
footprint to make knowledge a key competitive advantage:
– Operates in markets with different degrees of maturity – enabling opportunities to leverage knowledge– Operates in markets with different degrees of maturity – enabling opportunities to leverage knowledge
from mature markets in new and emerging ones
– Combines focus on increasing operational efficiency as markets mature with a focus on innovation to
become the leading total communications company
– Employs approx. 66,000 people with a wealth of experience and knowledge
• Our KM objective is to improve systematic transfer of knowledge and experience
across the organisation to deliver tangible benefits – by ‘connecting our people’
Maximising Knowledge Sharing Benefits Across Borders, 1810072
This presentation contains my personal and generic views which are not
necessarily the views of Vodafone.

3. In this presentation I’ll provide some practical tips to
maximise knowledge sharing benefits across boundaries
Key Messages
• Gain buy-in in the top and working level
by showing benefits – not claiming them
• Establish both management incentives &
peer recognition to encourage sharing
Key Challenges
• KM faces key challenges which can be
observed across any environment:
– Limited incentives to share knowledge
– No system or infrastructure
– Not open to learn – ‘not invented here’
• As organisations grow so do these issues
as ‘social ties’ amongst people change:
Maximising Knowledge Sharing Benefits Across Borders, 1810073
• Develop a ‘shadow-organisation’ to ‘make
the market’ and strengthen the network
• Create a supporting infrastructure that
emphasises virtual social networking
as ‘social ties’ amongst people change:
– Impossible to know everyone in the
organisation
– Specialisation often drives this further – i.e.
more interaction within the function
• Becoming an multinational company,
adds further issues:
– Language and cultural barriers make transfer
harder
– Increased risks of ‘silos’
This presentation emphasises challenges and tips that arise in large and
multinational companies .

4. Demonstrating the value of knowledge management to
top management is a crucial prerequisite
• As with any other business initiative, KM will firstly need to demonstrate its value
to top management – without their support, execution will be hard…
• Justify KM initially by establishing the value of knowledge in the organisation and
market – KM costs are pale in comparison:
– Draw parallels with the value created by other companies and determine potential value for yours
– Highlight available internal success stories and determine the total value if these were multiplied
– Employs approx. 66,000 people with a wealth of experience and knowledge
• Determine and track your own metrics that demonstrate the benefits of the KM
programme for your organisation
– Measurement by proxy – e.g. P&G products to shelve
– ROI – e.g. Intec quantified cost reduction
– Balanced Score Card – showing lead and lag indicators from number of users/documents to social
network metrics
• Continuously stimulate and capture success stories – but don’t claim them
– The key aim is to continue to emphasise the tangible value – the cost can often be justified by
operational BSC metrics
Maximising Knowledge Sharing Benefits Across Borders, 1810074

5. Establishing the right incentives at both managerial and
working level is the essential foundation for execution
• Establish both Hard and soft incentives:
– Make it a formal part of performance evaluations and career advancement
– Drive comprehensive reward & (peer) recognition at individual and team level
– Senior leadership focus and showing desired behaviours
• Organise for collaboration:
– Provide cross-unit objectives to drive collaboration
– Right-size unit resources – making people more receptive to sharing
Maximising Knowledge Sharing Benefits Across Borders, 1810075
• Use targeted job rotation to drive ‘connectedness’ and ‘shortest path’ across the
organisation
• Create heroes and communicate success stories

6. A key element to drive the internal knowledge market is a
‘shadow organisation’ that makes the market
Functional KM Mgr,
Technology
Functional KM Mgr,
SPOC
Tech.
Business Unit
Central KM
Team
Delivery
StructureSPOC
Business Unit
SPOC
Business Unit
Functional
Champion*
Functional
Example Set-up of ‘Shadow Organisation’
Maximising Knowledge Sharing Benefits Across Borders, 1810076
Functional KM Mgr,
Other
Functional KM Mgr,
Marketing
Functional KM Mgr,
Finance
Functional KM Mgr,
HR
Marketing
HR
Finance
Other
Functional
Champion*
Functional
Champion*
Functional
Champion*
Functional
Champion*
= ‘Knowledge Brokers’

7. The emerging concepts from social software are a key
ingredient to providing a strong supporting infrastucture
Social
Networking
Social
Description & Benefit
• People create their profiles and can attach files and link to other people and
communities
• Improves index of expertise and activities of individuals and improves search
• Makes connections more visible an enables network analysis
• Builds trust in virtual environment and enables trusted referrals
• Enables people to describe /’tag’ content and knowledge and rank which they find most
helpful
Internet Examples
Maximising Knowledge Sharing Benefits Across Borders, 1810077
Social
Tagging &
Bookmarking
Collaborative
Document-
ation
• Improves classification of knowledge by using ‘common’ denominator and bridges
‘jargon’ of different groups – from taxonomy to folksonomy
• Improves search/navigation and creates prioritisation of documents – ‘this is a good
place to start’
• Documentation of experiences and opinions by individuals and groups
• Strengthens volume and quality of documented knowledge
• Makes it easier to form new communities around emerging topics
• Increases sense of collaboration and strenghtens relationships
In essence social software makes it easier (and more efficient) to connect people
across both organisational and country boundaries.

8. BACK-UP
Maximising Knowledge Sharing Benefits Across Borders, 1810078

9. Knowledge-sharing challenges arise from both ‘supply’ and
‘demand’ side issues in the internal knowledge market
Example Issues & Causes
‘Supply’-side:
• Not ‘capturing’ or ‘indexing’ knowledge or expertise
• Lack of time and/or incentives
• Lack of process, skills and/or tools
• Concerns around confidentiality
• Overestimating relevance and underestimating value of sharing
• Lack of trust in unknown ‘recipients’
• Lack of willingness to help:
Knowledge
‘Supply’
Ease of Searching &
Finding
Internal Knowledge Market
Maximising Knowledge Sharing Benefits Across Borders, 1810079
• Lack of time and/or incentives
• Lack of relationship with ‘requestor’ of knowledge
‘Demand’-side:
• ‘Not invented here’
• Available resource to ‘reinvent’
• Political and emotional elements
• Bad past experience:
• Inefficient infrastructure
• Irresponsive ‘supplier’
• Low quality of knowledge – hard to contextualise
Knowledge
‘Demand’
Knowledge Quality
Effectiveness of Transfer &
Learning
Promoting a knowledge-sharing requires a holistic perspective across the internal
knowledge market – both supply and demand, and across the full process.