Question

Martin Sorrell, chairman of WPP Group PLC, the huge $15 billion advertising and public relations firm, is a strong believer in the use of email. He emails all of his employees once a month to discuss how the company is doing, address specific issues, and offer his perspectives on hot issues, such as new business models for the Internet. He believes that it keeps people abreast of what he is working on. Technology can also enable much more sophisticated forms of communication in addition to knowledge sharing. Cisco, for example, launched Integrated Workforce Experience (IWE) in 2010.109 It is a social business platform designed to facilitate internal and external collaboration and decentralize decision making. It functions much like a Facebook “wall”: A real-time news feed provides updates on employees’ status and activities as well as information about relevant communities, business projects, and customer and partner interactions. (350words)

1. Explain how technology can enable sophisticated forms of communication to be used for knowledge sharing within an organization.
2. Critically discuss why “electronic” or “virtual” teams are critical in combining and leveraging knowledge in organizations and how they can be made more effective

Answer 1

A. Technology can enable sophisticated forms of communication to be used for knowledge sharing within an organisation with help of common platforms to share information in various categories. It can give information about employees experience and projects undertaken. The solution provided by such platforms is accessible to everyone and faster to share. Automation is another way of technology sharing within an organisation with content for training and other routine tasks like submission of reports can be based on automated alerts. Software platforms customised to an organisation's needs in different formats and languages for sharing regular communication are effective means enabled by sophisticatied forms of communication. Video and audio conferencing, instant messaging, round the clock communication are some of the advantages that allow knowledge sharing instantly.

B. 'Electronic' or ' virtual ' teams are critical in combining and leveraging knowledge in organisations as most of the businesses communicate through electronic and digital means of communication. With increasing organisational sizes, business expansion and partnerships, virtual and electronic communications have become critical to an organisation and their sharing of knowledge. They can be made more effective with sharing similar formats and ensuring correspondence from both sides for any clarifications. Defining a framework for such communication can provide guidelines related to such communication that can help in effective management.