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Knowledge Management Strategy Beyond Change Management

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Knowledge Management (KM) is a relatively young concept, having been introduced less than 30 years ago. For many business management practitioners, KM is evolving into a proven strategy for their organizational success. But there are still many leaders out there that are struggling to understand the power of KM.

In order to clarify this ongoing struggle, it’s important to define what KM means in today’s business setting. An extremely important question is: What is Knowledge Management and how can it help my organization?

There are many definitions for knowledge management, including Wikipedia’s that states KM comprises of a range of practices used in an organization to identify, create, represent, distribute and enable adoption of insights and experiences. I’m partial to a definition I found in a thesis paper written by Dr. Michael Kull that simply defines KM as a business model for which companies can move from an industrial age of running a business into the information age. I don’t know which one of Dr Kull’s interviewees stated this definition, but for me, it sums up my feelings on how KM is changing the way businesses ought to be run today and into the future.

KM is a relatively new model and has only been around since the mid 1980s. There have been may pioneers who have written and spoken about KM, and Peter Drucker,a business management expert and author, has been on of the most influential and prolific thinkers about the KM movement.

The pioneers describe KM as having three phases from its inception. The approximate phase dates reflect the first phase occurring from 1985 to 1994. This phase was centered on collaboration and information sharing. The second phase, from 1994 to 2002, centered on information management and software advancements. The third phase, from 2002 to the present, centers knowledge innovation and the management of intellectual capital and intellectual assets as the primary business strategy.

Phase three will continue to impact how leaders conduct business processes such as customer management, marketing management, information management and performance management. For example, with the advancement of Web 2.0 technologies, workers are able to communicate and share in multiple formats like the popular social media sites or in company blogs, wikis or private web portals known as intranets.

The KM movement is shifting from the old school process of team meetings and water cooler discussions to the online world of instant messaging, emails, twitter (a micro blogging platform), Facebook and online virtual meetings. It is a larger model than just implementing change management initiatives seen during the total quality movement and six sigma days.

As workers and business processes continue to evolve with these technology enablers,leaders are being challenged to re-tool how they lead knowledge workers. The old management process of building organization charts in a hierarchy fashion is being enveloped by empowered workers who don’t want to be controlled, but rather allowed to be innovative and creative to build customer value. The 20th century business leadership curriculum is in conflict with how 21st century workers expect to be lead. KM is at the heart of this leadership evolution being witnessed today. KM as a management strategy is definitely gaining traction and is here to stay.

Career Opportunities with a Food and Nutrition Management Diploma

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What was earlier referred to as home science is now a well designed food and nutrition management program. With this, the scope of the course has also increased multiple folds. It’s no longer restricted to studying how to ensure good health of your family or how to cook food in order to retain all its essential nutrients or how to effectively run a food establishment of your own.

The program opens doors to numerous attractive career options for graduates in forever growing healthcare and food service industry. Food and nutrition management graduates can work with hospitals, nursing homes, extended care facilities, senior residences, high volume catering services, airline food services, industrial cafeterias, food manufacturers, community agencies, public health nutrition and international food organizations.

Nowadays even schools, colleges and other childcare organizations have requirements for food and nutrition experts. Employers are keen in hiring graduates with well rounded knowledge and strong interpersonal skills, who could apply their knowledge of normal and clinical nutrition and business skills in a variety of settings.

About Food Service Program

You need to have a diploma in food and nutrition, in order to begin with a career in food service or manufacturing industry. A food service program prepares you to pursue challenging careers as managers in healthcare, fitness and food industry. You gain knowledge and skills related to
Sanitation, safety and hygiene
Kitchen production
Food services
Nutrition
Food properties analysis
Food service management
Aging and society
Purchasing for food services industry
Medical nutrition therapy
Supervision practices
HRM in food services
Recipe development and costing
Labour cost control
Healthcare menu planning

The course also familiarizes you with financial management and marketing and merchandising for food services operations. You also learn about practical aspects of quantity food preparation and service.

In addition to attending theory classes, you are also required to conduct various experiments from time to time to learn the physical properties of food.

Once you complete this two-year diploma course, you can either begin with private practice or choose to work with food manufacturing and service companies. You are expected to operate in accordance with the code of ethics set by the Canadian Society of Nutrition Management.

You will be equipped to pursue challenging careers in the fields of
Food and nutrition counselling for weight management, healthy eating, diabetics management, eating disorders
Food service
Food and nutrition management at spas, hotels, schools, culinary schools, etc
Food and nutrition consultancy for cookbooks, newspapers, magazines and other educational programs
Sales and marketing
Public relations for hospitals, food businesses, fitness centers, etc
Research and development
Community service
Healthcare reforms with NGOs or government organizations
Menu planning at hotels, restaurants, nursing homes, seniors’ residences
Procurement of goods and services with food businesses
Food production procedures standardization
Food distribution

Of late, fitness has become the buzz word. Food and nutrition planning cannot be separated from physical fitness and mental well being. You are what you eat. Besides, the career options associated with nutrition planning have made it one of the most sought after areas.

black Kids Don’t Read Last Words Before Retail Graveyard

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Certain principles of life and business never change. Like with the law of gravity, for example, its just plain better to know how it works even if youre not sure why.

I was reminded of this last week when the mens fashion clothing trade magazine Daily News Record (DNR) ran a story (Retail Graveyard, October 29) about a guy named Peter Divietro in Sloatsburg, N.Y., who annually for Halloween decorates his front yard with tombstones to commemorate dead retail stores.

That in turn reminded me of a failed chain of hip-hop clothing stores in Chicago called The Lark. Do you remember The Lark?

The owner was Lenny Rothschild. I met him on a sales visit at his suburban Chicago office one summer day in 2003 while my company was still making Black Fives throwback jerseys for wholesale distribution to stores. The Lark was an important account because it commanded the urban fashion retail market in Chicago.

FLYING HIGH; WITH AN UPSCALE APPROACH TO MERCHANDISING AND CUSTOMER SERVICE, THE LARK SOARS IN CHICAGOS URBAN MARKET, read a headline in DNR earlier that year. As Lenny Rothschild pilots his silver Mercedes-Benz coupe around Chicago, his love for the city is obvious, is how that article began (DNR, February 10, 2003).

If you wanted your goods in Chicago, you had to sell Lenny. All the biggest streetwear brands loved him, and Lenny was the gatekeeper who could make or break small, upcoming apparel brands like Black Fives. And he knew it.

Lenny was smart, and he wanted people to know it. His Harvard diploma hung prominently on the wall. Lenny delighted in explaining how to introduce new merchandise to coincide with welfare check and tax refund arrival dates, to maximize sales to his most faithful customer base, low-income inner-city residents. His stores were concentrated in those areas.

I showed and pitched my unique, attractive, high-quality, economically priced jerseys and matching fitted hats. Lenny looked them over and shrugged, and asked me how I expected anyone to know about the history of these Black Fives teams and players. I showed him some big press clippings and also explained that each jersey comes with its own informative hang tag, reminiscent of a collectible vintage basketball card, with images on one side and history text on the other. I handed him one of the cards.

This wont matter because black kids dont read, said Lenny.

Today, when I think of the immutable principles that work in life and in business, I think of two of them that applied to Lenny that day. One is that how you do anything is how you do everything. The other is that what you focus on expands. The trick is that these principles work the same whether in the negative or in the positive realm.

Lenny gave me an $8,000 order that afternoon. I shipped it, but what he didnt realize is that his loyal customers had already begun a quiet revolt. Instead of buying $300 retro jerseys like the kind The Lark was selling, his clientele had flipped the script, now buying plain white tee shirts to make the same fashion statement at three for $10. It was the revenge of the lowly urban consumer. It happened across the country. It was swift and it was bloody. Many urban retailers didnt make it.

Within two weeks, Lenny returned his Black Fives order unopened.

Whenever I shopped at The Lark, customer service didnt exist. Young African American employees were distant and resentful, usually the sign of low wages, cheap thinking, and lack of appreciation by management.

Not to pick on Lenny, because he wasnt alone in this approach to the so-called loyal inner-city consumer, but didnt you have that experience too, nearly everywhere you shopped?

By 2005, The Lark lay buried in the retail graveyard. AFTER THE LARK: MORE HIP, NO HOP; CLOSING HIS HIP-HOP APPAREL CHAIN, RETAILER OPENS ESSEX5, DEVOTED TO PREMIUM DENIM, SPORTSWEAR, read the DNR headline this time. The Lark is grounded, the article began. Lenny Rothschild has closed all 10 of The Lark stores he owned and operated, making the once-high-flying hip-hop apparel specialty chain a thing of the past (DNR, December 19, 2005).

What Ill always remember about The Lark are Lenny Rothschilds famous (last) words: black kids dont read.

The principles of life and business always work the same. Beliefs do become reality. Thoughts lead to feelings lead to actions lead to results. This works both ways, in this case to the advantage of the consumer and to the dismay of the retailer. Lenny couldve avoided it all if there had been any books like T. Harv Ekers brilliant Secrets of the Millionaire Mind available for him to read at the time. But there werent. And he didnt.

Thus, the Larks tombstone might have the epitaph, Gee, I guess black kids read after all.

Was Lenny right? Or do all kids read less? Or is it only online reading they do? Or something else? Whats your opinion?

Video Game Industry Stocks Why Is Electronic Arts More Expensive Than Activision

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I was looking through gaming stocks and noticed that shares of Electronic Arts (ERTS) are trading at a much higher valuation than Activision Blizzard (ATVI). That made me wonder, Does Electronic Arts deserve to trade at a premium to Activision?

Electronic Arts is trading just under $20 per share. EPS estimates for 2010 are 43 cents per share and 62 cents for 2011. That equates to a 46 multiple on current years earnings and a 32 multiple for 2011. The 5 year growth rate is 12.8%, which is pretty optimistic considering the negative earnings growth of the past five years. Its tough to have faith in Electronics Arts management considering the poor operating efficiency. Management has graced us with a negative ROE and ROA over the past few quarters.

One of the bright spots for Electronic Arts is the companys storied brand name and solid balance sheet. Electronic Arts has cash cow franchises Madden NFL, The Sims, Battlefield, Rock Band, etc. The software developer has $1.78 billion in cash and no debt. The stock looks expensive using any valuation method including price to book and price to sales. Shares of Electronic Arts appear to be benefitting from improving trends in the video game industry. Video game sales rose 10% last month.

Activision Blizzard is trading just under $12.00 and has a expected EPS of 73 cents for 2010 and 82 cents for 2011. 2010s PE ratio is 16 and 2011s is 14.5. Earnings growth is estimated at 14.6%. Activision raised 1st quarter guidance last week due to strong sales from Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. While ROA and ROE are not very impressive, at least both numbers are positive for Activision. The management team has done a qualitative job at Activision with its acquisitions and ability to consistently grow the bottom line.

Compare this with Electronic Arts who has been trying to fix its internal problems for years. Activision has no debt and $3.25 billion in cash on its balance sheet. Shares are currently trading less than 1.5 times book value. Activision has a popular lineup of games including World of Warcraft, Call of Duty, Guitar Hero, and Starcraft.

Marketing And Sales What’s The Difference

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Marketing and sales are one of the most important elements of the firms survival in the market. Although both are dependent on each other many people confuse marketing with sales and vice-versa, which is a big mistake. Marketing to design a product according to market needs and customers, promote the product through advertising etc. and creating a competitive price for the product. Marketing is a platform that sales of Cd’s. While on the other hand, the sales process is what we are doing to carry out a product to sell and get a contract. Sales and marketing as a whole is part of a sale and you can not do without the other. They are also known as the activities. The success of an enterprise is critical to the success of these two important activities.

Marketing is the backbone of a company’s future and launching pad for sales. While the process of marketing includes product design, advertising etc. the sales process is the implementation of all efforts that involve direct interaction with the customer, either in person or assembly of cold calling or making network. But there is always a rivalry between the two, on an application Dominance others. The marketing people say they have an advantage because I think that is what the product design, strategy and also provides essential tools for sale. They say that sales are the result of marketing and therefore must follow their instructions. Sales staff May not agree with this view and can be completely opposite to his trial. They believe that the sales staff who actually sells a product and the money to the company.

However, many experts believe that marketing should play a key role between the two. A successful marketing campaign makes sales easy and people believe it is the sales staff, who are the main leaders. The most important function of marketing department is to create opportunities for the sales department. Unit sales and marketing companies selling units of success. Marketing is like a life support for sales, which continues to save the sales department and the success that allows them to deliver the final product. It should not be a race to gain supremacy over another department but a race to win the market and customers working together.

Many companies selling and marketing combine together, but in reality they have different objectives. Although the sales department to meet the requirements of what the client is the marketing department is actually busy studying what the market demands. The objective of the marketing department is to predict how the market in the future. Must provide their products to market needs in the years ahead and be prepared to make changes to design their products accordingly.

It is very important that the company integrates the sales and marketing fashionable way. It is the successful integration of these two entities that fuels business growth. Sales people should not be regarded simply as the collection box. Each department has its own function and must go hand in hand in the sale of the company and should be the main criterion.