Knowledge Management Systems

Some of the newest and most interesting types of systems introduced to the telco organization are the knowledge management systems. They are usually based on Internet technology (html, xml, and others), and are developed to help the telco find newer and more efficient ways of dealing with its incredible volume of information and knowledge.

The Knowledge Gap

The amount of information of a technical, operational, and procedural nature that a typical telco employee must deal with is staggering! Telco technology today encompasses vast bodies of expertise that only a few years ago were considered academic and experimental. Even more importantly, the technical or operational "specialist" of the past is more and more being replaced by the generalist as telcos struggle to keep up with the incredible shortage of experienced, well trained, and technically qualified people they so desperately need.

Employee Turnover Challenges

Employee turnover is a big problem. It is simply getting more and more difficult to keep well trained resources. Sometimes, employees leave for better job opportunities elsewhere. Other times, they leave because they cannot tolerate the intense pace that modern telecommunications demands. Often,  employees are promoted and move on to other jobs. In all cases, a person doing a particular job is unlikely to be doing that same job a year from now. What the telco needs is a way to capture what that valuable person knows and make it available for the next generation of employees to learn from and leverage.

Inexperienced Employee Challenges

Coupled with high turnover problems is the fact that telcos are growing so quickly and in so many different directions that it is almost impossible to find candidates with the required skills and experience. Most telcos have no choice but to take on people who are under-qualified and try to give them tools that will make up for the knowledge and experience they lack. This is one of the more important reasons for creation and maintenance of knowledge management systems.

Managing the Operational Information Overload

Another serious problem for the telco is information overload. Telcos simply create too much new information too quickly to expect that information to be communicated through printed and verbal channels. Telcos create hundreds and thousands of new pricing plans, customer service policies, product offerings, promotional campaigns, and dozens of other categories of detailed information that hundreds or thousands of employees, channel partners, and customers may need to know about on very short notice. There is simply no way that all of this information can be efficiently cataloged and distributed without the help of knowledge management systems. 

How Telcos Use Knowledge Management Today

Telcos are harnessing knowledge management systems to help improve their operations and customer value management in several ways.

• Customer knowledge transfer applications (giving customers the information they need directly)

  • Customer product and services informational catalogs

  • Customer policies and procedures reference libraries

  • Customer interface and contact guides

• Employee policy and procedure reference libraries

  • Standards, policies, and procedures

  • Operations guides

  • Human resources management channels

• Product development research facilities

  • Providing product developers with information about available engineering solutions

  • Providing product developers with information about new offerings by competitors

• Market research facilities

  • Tracking market conditions and industry research

  • Tracking competitor activities

• Customer profiling

  • Centralizing, managing, and making customer profile and history information available to all parts of the telco

• Sales, marketing, and advertising support (campaign logging and broadcasting)

  • Central repository for storing information about campaigns offered, details of the ads, the offers, and the terms

• Service level agreement terms and conditions

  • Collection and dissemination of complex service level assurance agreements, terms, and conditions

   

Telco Knowledge Management Value Propositions

 TTA can help you to define, design, and deploy knowledge management systems that will:

• Reduce the costs of expensive and hard-to-manage manual (printed) knowledge management procedures

• Streamline processes

• Increase employee productivity

• Reduce wasted activity

• Increase customer satisfaction

• Speed sales cycles

• Increase employee satisfaction

• Assure compliance with standards and procedures

• Improve communications

• Reduce employee costs by using lower-skilled personnel for jobs enhanced by knowledge management systems

Telco Knowledge Management Offerings

TTA has experience, like few others, in the telco knowledge management space. As the author of one of the only books on modern, Web-based knowledge management ("Web Warehousing and Knowledge Management" published by McGraw-Hill),is uniquely qualified to provide support for knowledge management systems deployment from both a theoretical and a practical perspective. Our offerings in the telco knowledge management area include:

• Definition of knowledge management system requirements

• Knowledge management software selection

• Knowledge management organizational readiness analysis

• Knowledge management operational implementation roadmap development

• Knowledge management requirements development

• Knowledge management system specification development

• Knowledge management system cost justification (business case development)

• Knowledge management implementation planning

• Knowledge management organizational setup (creating departments, roles, procedures)

• Knowledge management budgeting and operations

• Knowledge management systems architecture

• Knowledge management skills assessment and staffing recommendations

• Training I/T staff in knowledge management development and design

• Training sales force and management staff in the use of knowledge management tools

directly for more information about how TTA can help you with your telco Knowledge management efforts.  

Knowledge Management Software Vendors

At TTA, we have experience working with many of the knowledge management software solutions you may be considering.