CobbleSoft Releases COIGN Enterprise Version 3 CRM Today: CobbleSoft Releases COIGN Enterprise Version 3: "CobbleSoftTM International Ltd.announced the availability of Version 3 for COIGN Enterprise, its web-based helpdesk and service management software solution. Offering an extensive collection of new and enhanced collaboration capabilities, Version 3 strengthens the product%u2019s focus on Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) best practices for internal and business-to-business (B2B) support.

An industry first, COIGN%u2019s 'User Footprints' capability enables a full transactional user audit trail. Technicians can track the details of end-user self-service sessions to see what searches and downloads were tried before a ticket was logged. Armed with this knowledge, technicians can easily provide informed and pro-active support, resulting in greater speed and accuracy of resolution. "  ¶ 07:33 0 comments

  NewHeights Software brings to market Desktop Assistant 90 Canada NewsWire Group: "NewHeights Software, a leading
provider of next-gen soft-client solutions, brings to market Desktop
Assistant 90 (DA-90) and Desktop Assistant 15 (DA-15). These clients provide
users with a superior end-user interface at the desktop, enabling
point-and-click management over their IP Telephony, presence and multimedia
collaboration services. The Desktop Assistant(R) clients support both
proprietary and open protocol signaling, including Session Initiation Protocol
(SIP), and integrate seamlessly with offerings from carriers, CPE vendors and
softswitch vendors. The Desktop Assistant clients offer default integration
with applications such as Microsoft Office and Lotus Notes. Custom integration
with other enterprise applications is available.
NewHeights DA-15 enables users to manage their call handling and routing
features directly from their desktop, launch calls, emails and instant
messages with one or two clicks, and access real-time presence information for
corporate directory and buddy list contacts. Additionally, DA-15 enables
solution providers to dynamically provision and market new IP services
directly to customers. Using the client's Web-window, an e-promotion tool that
comes with every client, service providers can initiate upgrades, billing and
new services."  ¶ 07:32 0 comments

  Peregrine Systems(R) Recognized by the Consortium for Service Innovation(TM) for Knowledge Management Best Practices Peregrine Systems(R) Recognized by the Consortium for Service Innovation(TM) for Knowledge Management Best Practices: "Peregrine Systems Inc.
(OTC: PRGN - News), a leading provider of asset and service management software,
announced today that its Get-Answers knowledge management solution has been
KCS Verified. Peregrine's Get-Answers 4.2 is one of the first products to be
KCS Verified, aligning it with the emerging KCS industry standard and best
practice for knowledge and incident management."  ¶ 10:11 0 comments

  Consumer insight isn't knowledge management
The Hindu Business Line : Consumer insight isn't knowledge management
: "HOW to use data and market research to get closer to your customer? To answer this question, you may need to get closer to Consumer Insight by Merlin Stone, Alison Bond and Bryan Foss, from Kogan Page (www.vivagroupindia.com) .

First, some insight into insight: Insights are 'flashes of inspiration, or penetrating discoveries that can lead to specific opportunities,' and insight is 'the ability to perceive clearly or deeply.' Consumer insight or 'a deep, embedded knowledge about consumers and markets' to help structure thinking and decision-making, is what companies need today, explain the authors.

Perhaps you are already measuring customer satisfaction in some way, and even tailoring staff performance appraisal based on such measures. In which case, the book can shock you with a bombshell: '`If you can measure it, you can manage it' has spread like a cancer. This has led to large-scale customer satisfaction surveys, targets and league tables %u2014 and a fall in customer loyalty and overall satisfaction.'

The authors give the example of healthcare: 'A health service's reason for being is about helping new humans be born, keeping people as healthy as possible, and, where this fails, healing and sustaining them and, in the end, helping them die with dignity and minimum pain.' Disappointingly, measures for many health workers aren't related to these goals, point out the authors. 'Rather, measures are process and transaction-based, counting beds, people on trolleys, queue lengths, waiting times and costs to serve, all important in achieving efficiencies, but not delivering the service people need.' Healthy thought, that is.

Is consumer insight the same as knowledge management? No, it is just the opposite, explains the book. KM aims to make tacit knowledge explicit, 'helping organisations capture and secure as an asset knowledge in the heads of their people.' The emphasis in consumer insight is the other way round. 'Most information is explicit already %u2014 in the form of research reports, statistics, and presentations %u2014 and the issue is that of making it tacit. The goal is to communicate it widely and to get it into the heads of all those who should be using it.'

The book has an elaborate discussion of `database marketing' - defined as the planned implementation, recording, analysis and tracking of consumers' direct response behaviour over time to derive future marketing strategies, for developing long-term consumer loyalty and ensuring continued business growth. You'd also learn how database marketers use consumer insight, and the meaning of `customer care.'

If, as a customer, CRM has been a bugbear for you, the authors suggest how companies can describe CRM to consumers: 'CRM is how we find you, get to know you, keep in touch with you, try to ensure that you get what you want from us in every aspect of our dealings with you, and check that you are getting what we promised you.' But CRM can act as a mask for problems, caution the authors. 'Many businesses feel that as long as they retain enough customers, they must be doing something right. However, a retention statistic might conceal consumers who are gradually finding the company's proposition less appropriate, because it is moving away from their `halo'.'

View consumers as longer-term valuable assets, and not just as prospects for the next contact list from which to make the next sale, exhort the authors in a chapter titled `analysing computer data to get insight.' This, I'd suggest you to read jointly with your systems chap, because of the emphasis on data mining. Another such chapter is `consumer insight systems' where the authors state that warehousing (coupled with mining of consumer data) is most effective 'when it is enterprise-wide, along the company to gain a single view of the consumer and business profitability.'

Incites interest in insight!"  ¶ 07:35 0 comments

  The balanced scorecard and knowledge management The balanced scorecard and knowledge management - Deccan Herald - Internet Edition: "The concept of %u2018Balance Scorecard%u2019 provides a more accurate measure of an organisation%u2019s performance. S Muralidhar delves into this new tool of strategic management.

In recent years there has been a renewed interest in %u201Chuman resources%u201D and %u201Ccollaboration%u201D under the term %u201Cknowledge management%u201D. In this article the focus is on the relationship between the Balanced Scorecard and knowledge management.
Balanced Scorecard is a framework of strategic measurement based management. In fact Harvard Business Review considered Balanced Scorecard as one of the most important management factors. The Balanced Scorecard concept was conceived by Robert S Kaplan and David P Norton in their book %u2018The Balanced Scorecard -Translating Strategy Into Action.%u2019

According to them the Balanced Scorecard is a multi-dimensional work for describing, implementing and managing change at all levels in an organisation by linking objectives, initiatives, and appropriate measures through an organisation%u2019s strategy. The traditional financial accounting measures like return on investment (RoI), and earnings per share (EPS) may give misleading signals for continuous improvement and innovation. Today, the competitive business environment demands continuous improvement and innovations. Progressive organisations are able to quickly gain from the Balanced Scorecard concept of performance management. "  ¶ 07:36 0 comments

  L'Europa piace agli imprenditori emiliano-romagnoli EMILIANET - ECONOMIA: "Forse �una sorpresa, ma gli imprenditori emiliano romagnoli, in controtendenza con gli ultimi pronunciamenti, promuovono a pieni voti la Costituzione Europea, dimostrandosi 'euro-convinti' in grandissima maggioranza: se si fosse votato anche in Italia, 7 imprenditori su 10 avrebbero detto s�. E' quanto emerge dal sondaggio realizzato per CNA Emilia Romagna dall'Istituto Freni di Firenze su un campione di imprese associate, i cui risultati sono stati presentati oggi nel corso di una conferenza stampa.

Francesi e olandesi hanno avuto torto a votare contro il Trattato europeo per il 76% degli intervistati. Gli imprenditori associati a CNA non si allineano, dunque, con gli 'euroscettici'; anzi, il loro atteggiamento nei confronti della Costituzione europea, evidenzia una diffusa adesione all'unificazione, ritenuta inevitabile e necessaria, spiega la ricerca. Alla domanda: 'Se in Italia ci fosse il referendum per la ratifica della Costituzione europea come avrebbe votato?' Il 72,3% degli intervistati ha risposto a favore; l'11,8% si sarebbe dichiarato contrario e il 7,6% si sarebbe astenuto (non ha risposto l'8,4%). Un esito dunque largamente positivo. Il perch�del s� %u2013 spiega la ricerca %u2013 sta nella convinzione che solo un'integrazione politica pu�rendere completa ed irreversibile l'integrazione economica gi�in atto e rappresenta, pertanto, ancora pi�che una necessit�, un'inevitabilit�. L'integrazione europea �, d'altra parte, ritenuta assolutamente indispensabile proprio all'Italia, considerata vaso di coccio in mezzo a vasi d'acciaio. Le riserve della minoranza di imprenditori che, nell'ipotetico referendum avrebbero scelto il 'no', riguardano soprattutto la procedura con la quale si �arrivati al testo della Costituzione Europea, senza cio�consultare i cittadini. "  ¶ 15:40 0 comments

  Empowering Users: The Coming Transformation of Knowledge Management Environments Empowering Users: The Coming Transformation of Knowledge Management Environments : "The day is long gone when an enterprise could afford the disconnectedness, incompatibility and non-interoperability that were characteristic of its information systems in recent decades. Whether in the marketplace, the battlefield, the public services or their support environments, every single knowledge worker%u2014and we are all knowledge workers%u2014must pull in the same direction so that an organization moves forward in close alignment towards the fulfillment of its mission and achievement of its objectives. The key to this lies in a flexible and powerful knowledge management environment operating seamlessly within a robust enterprise IT architecture. That means an environment where business intelligence is extracted easily and purposefully from bits and bytes. Moreover, this vision must be shared and championed by the enterprise%u2019s leadership, enabled by its architects and ultimately adopted and supported by its users.

Ultimately, we must provide a knowledge management environment consisting of:
A set of tools and processes;
Used by knowledge workers;
In an architected environment;
Created through an enterprise initiative;
To obtain maximum returns; and
In extracting knowledge from bits and bytes.�
In launching an initiative to provide the enterprise with a robust knowledge management environment one has to note that this includes more than just the hardware and the software; it covers the technological, social and cultural setting and the physical surroundings that allow knowledge to be created, accessed and shared effectively throughout the enterprise. Intelligence must be extracted from the zeros and ones and it must be fed to anyone that needs it, whenever they need it.
There are many ways to construct such an environment, but ultimately it must provide users with the capability to�perform whatever tasks they need to do in order to function efficiently and effectively in a world increasingly characterized by complexity, uncertainty and change. There are at least a dozen types of activities that this environment must enable. Collectively, they catalyze the organization into the creation of a robust knowledge management environment where maximum sharing and flow can take place. This is crucial, because at its core lies the capacity of that environment to help someone with a question connect it to a corresponding answer.�
The user must be able to easily and effectively:
Access knowledge about his or her job, including captured tacit knowledge from previous workers and lessons learned from past experiences;
Connect and collaborate with other members of his or her communities of practice;
Find and disseminate best practices;
Locate desired experts and expertise;
Access and apply, openly or transparently, taxonomies for major knowledge domains;
Use enterprise portals as gateways to knowledge spaces;
Search all sources of unstructured data and facilitate its collection and navigation;
Access and exploit business intelligence from structured data through data warehousing and data mining;
Facilitate customer service through personalization and better information;
Harness narratives and success stories as a springboard to action; and
Take advantage of learning and e-learning opportunities.
But the linchpin behind the transformation is the concept of the %u201Cknowledge space.%u201D
A knowledge space is a collection of documents%u2014accessible content%u2014that comprise the working environment. This is the mine that a miner must work in order to extract its embedded value. It will surely include documents from internal and external sources, in multiple media, comprised of both structured and unstructured data. There will be both real and virtual aspects of this knowledge space. In it should be all the documents that might help us in getting an answer to anything we might ever want to know about a particular knowledge domain.� We can pick a broad domain such as healthcare, or warfare or law enforcement and create corresponding knowledge spaces. But these can become somewhat large and unwieldy. More than likely, our interest will be in more focused knowledge domains that will surely lead us to develop narrower knowledge spaces on, say, pancreatic cancer, dialysis processes or Ebola virus outbreaks instead of healthcare; infantry training, guerrilla tactics or ordnance disposal instead of warfare; and riot control, criminal investigation or interrogation tactics instead of law enforcement.��
Ultimately the knowledge space should be created as a starting point for the knowledge worker. As the needs require it, that knowledge space will grow and expand to encompass whatever might be needed to answer questions and connect the dotted lines.
Then we will need a workbench of tools to navigate, explore and operate on the content in the knowledge space. We will provide much more detail on the workbench in our next column.
In conclusion, we have introduced the important thesis that there is a transformation coming to the world of analytics, hence to business intelligence, and that at the heart of said transformation is the concept of a knowledge space and the workbench of tools that will allow us to navigate and explore these knowledge spaces.�"  ¶ 20:57 0 comments