Valuing Intellectual Capital

People transform information after going through a long process of learning and understanding. Because much of that knowledge is so personal, it becomes difficult to capture, organise, access and re-use. The challenge of the future is to research innovative ways to contain the knowledge drain that is typically the result of natural staff turnover, latency or employee mobility.

MITTS Ltd recognises the value of its people and the value of the knowledge they give to the enterprise. Its employees carry their own professional capital and experience which they have gained both within the company and without. It therefore understands the need to preserve this knowledge and provide an environment that is conducive to its dissemination. After all, the company itself represents the embodiment of its employees’ individual experiences. Any new skills and competences gained by an employee automatically become part of the organisation’s institutional identity and knowledge pool. MITTS Ltd believes that this knowledge pool represents its intellectual capital - nothing less than the organisation’s collective knowledge, experience, skills, competences and the ability to acquire more of them.

Because the company believes there is an intrinsic value in knowledge management and that it is a valuable asset for further growth, it has achieved the first of a series of important milestones aimed to develop this concept.

A Cultural Transformation

In April 2004 the first phase of the MITTS Ltd portal was launched. Far from being a mere revamp of its website and intranet, it is a customisable credentials-based portal where relevant information can all be found in one place. Visitors to the portal are recognised upon log-in and given personalised access to the Employee Portal, Client Portal and soon the Supplier Portal. Placing special emphasis on communication, collaboration and personalisation, the Employee Portal offers myriads of services such as articles, reports, news, updates on internal initiatives, corporate communications, access to the Quality Management System, policies, templates, documents, software tools, links, even a To Do list and a projects status dashboard. Undoubtedly the most distinct feature of the portal is the centrality of access and customisability of certain information resources. From the portal, an employee can gain direct access to email, calendaring, time recording, and the most frequently used documents. But apart from the tangible benefits of the services available on the Employee Portal, it is the cultural transformation that was undertaken that is the real success of this initiative. Corporate communications sent via email have long become a thing of the past, not to mention the exchange of published documents. “It’s on the portal” is the usual reply one gets when asking for a published document such as a business plan, article or procedure.

A Knowledge-Based Enterprise

Decidedly, the Employee Portal and the new ethos it has instilled among employees, will serve as the logical springboard for enhancing its collaborative potential and nurturing the transition to a truly knowledge-based enterprise. Plans are in place for prototyping an Electronic Records and Document Management System (ERDMS) in 2005. Research is also planned for developing the concept of lower level portal personalisation and collaboration through the adoption of mini-portals, “wikies” and “blogs”.

The concept of knowledge management was also introduced at an operational level when the legacy Support System was replaced by a new Service Management System. The incident management module of this system features functionality that allows support staff to build upon the knowledge acquired through the process of problem analysis. Once an incident becomes a known problem, adequate parametrisations are carried out to the system so that support officers seeing to a particular customer call, are given direct on-line access to Check Lists, FAQs, a list of known errors and advice related to that particular incident. The introduction of this very innovative concept has actually permitted a quantum leap in the level and quality of service to customers.

But there is more to the immediate tangible gains that stem from the knowledge management undertones of the Employee Portal, the ERDMS and the Service Management Programme. We believe that in today’s rapidly evolving and highly competitive business environment, intellectual capital is the real engine of growth and innovation. It is the sum value of any enterprise’s collective knowledge, experience and competences. Ensuring that appropriate investments are made to manage, develop and nurture this human asset, is for us a logical conclusion. No enterprise of some calibre can afford to overlook this factor.