Indiana University: codification works better. Market Line: "Although knowledge management has been a much-ballyhooed buzzword for years, the bloom has faded from the rose of late as firms have struggled to pinpoint the bottom-line value such systems bring to a firm. Adding to the confusion is the debate over whether to implement 'personalization' systems that are initially cheaper to set up, but have proven unwieldy for large firms, or the 'codification' systems that often are given short shrift by top knowledge management gurus. As it turns out, codification-based systems are much better. Two professors at IU's Kelley School of Business, chronicling and analyzing how 1,500 sales representatives at a major pharmaceutical firm used a knowledge management system, have empirically linked well-run codification-based knowledge management systems to dramatic sales increases. 'Over a two-year period, we found that the increase in sales due to knowledge management use was about 4 percent,' said Alan Dennis, the John T. Chambers Chair of Internet Systems. 'We also found new sales reps with less than one year of experience experienced about a 2 percent increase in sales from knowledge management use, whereas very experienced reps, e.g., more than five years, gained about a 6 percent increase in sales.' Dennis and Dong-Gil Ko, assistant professor of information systems, say their study is the first to catalogue the bottom-line impact of a knowledge management system. Alan Dennis can be reached at 812-855-2691 or ardennis@indiana.edu. Dong-Gil Ko can be reached at 812-855-9978 or dgko@indiana.edu."  ¶ 09:20