A plan for introducing the recommended system to the employees and promoting its continual usage.
Where do you find all the bits and pieces that comprise your business intelligence? Some of the more interesting snippets are probably trapped in thousands of e-mails languishing in cluttered inboxes or in archived instant messages that no one will ever bother to access again. And no doubt there’s a lot of useful information stuck in stagnant documents or databases, moldering away on the intranet. … To qualify as intelligence, information must be both used and renewed. Easy and informal, e-mail and IM remain the knowledge-sharing tools of choice for many employees. But after a message has been sent and read, it often drops into the network netherworld never to be seen or used again.“ [1]

Mark is the CEO of Bright Idea Flashlights. His company sells and repairs flashlights for commercial customers in a variety of industries ranging from construction to healthcare. Recently, Bright Idea Flashlights was awarded a five-year government contract to repair flashlights for the military. As a result of this contract, Mark predicts the number of flashlights for repair each week will double from 250 to 500. To meet the demand, an additional 12 employees will be hired. These new employees will augment his existing staff of 7, most of which have been employed by Bright Idea Flashlights since its inception nearly 10 years ago. The employees all work at desks and use the Internet to search for answers when fixing flashlights. Sometimes they will email this information to each other, but more often then not, they share their solutions through informal discussions, or not at all.

Mark is concerned that the new employees will take a long time getting up to speed on the nuances of the repair process and learning the tricks of the trade perfected by the senior employees. Always an advocate of technology, he has hired you as a consultant to help establish the guidelines for establishing a knowledge management system. He is convinced that a technical solution will provide a way for his employees to collaborate.

Create a report for Mark on his options for the creation of a knowledge management system.