240 Part II • Information Technology
posts. Typical calendar items include face-to-face meetings
held by part or all of the community, seminars and work-
shops offered by members of community, and more formal
presentations likely to be of interest to the community.
FIELD SALES KMS A different KM team was formed to
lead the development of the field sales KMS. Unlike the
corporate KMS, this KMS team’s mission was to design
and build boththe content and the structure of the KMS.
Therefore, a knowledge taxonomy was developed so that
knowledge about each of the drugs sold by the firm was
organized separately. Sales representatives would have
access to knowledge only about the drugs they sold.
Sales operations and brand management would
develop initial drafts of the knowledge content, which they
would provide to the KM team. The KM team would
format the documents and put them in the proper locations
in the KMS according to the taxonomy. The system was
designed to be the primary knowledge repository used by
the field sales representatives and the sales managers. In
addition, all knowledge communication with the field sales
representatives was expected to be conducted through the
field sales KMS. Instead of mailing paper marketing
materials and advisories, for example, managers would
now create them in Word and PowerPoint and post them
into the field sales KMS.
The KM team also realized that it was important to
enable the field sales representatives themselves to
contribute sales tips and practical advice for use by other
sales representatives. However, because of strict govern-
ment regulatory control over communication with the
physicians, all such tips needed first to be approved by the
firm’s legal department. A formal four-step process was
therefore developed for validating all content sent in from
the field sales representatives. Tips were first vetted by the
KM team itself to make sure the content was coherent and
complete. Next, the tip was submitted to the legal group to
ensure that the content was consistent with all rules, regu-
lations, and good promotional practice guidelines. Then
the tip was sent to the brand management team to ensure
that it was consistent with the marketing strategy for the
drug. Last, the tip was sent to the sales operations group
for peer review by a panel of five sales representatives to
ensure that the contribution had real value. Finally, once
the tip had been approved, it was entered into the field
sales KMS. Although this sounds like a lengthy process,
most tips were processed within two weeks of receipt.
Field sales representatives were rewarded by receiving
sales points for each tip that was ultimately accepted (these
points were part of the usual commission structure
received by all sales representatives; the points received
for each tip were equivalent to approximately $60).
Although there were several iterations of user inter-
faces to best align with changing taxonomies, the knowl-
edge structure for the current system was designed in what
the team called a “T-structure,” which had two distinct
parts. Across the top of the “T” (and presented horizontally
near the top of the Lotus Notes screen) was the general
sales knowledge designed to be pertinent to all sales
divisions. This contained knowledge on topics such as
rules and guidelines for sales promotions, templates for
sales processes, forms for sales functions, and directories
with phone numbers of key experts within the U.S.
business unit. Down the middle of the “T” (and presented
vertically near the left edge of the Lotus Notes screen) was
the division-specific knowledge, which typically pertained
to drugs sold by that division. This contained information
such as fundamental sales information on the drugs sold by
the sales representatives, competitive analyses, results in
recent drug trials, and letters from expert physicians. Tips
and best practices submitted by the field sales representa-
tives would either fit across the top or down the side of the
screen depending on whether they focused on general sales
knowledge or on product-specific knowledge.KMS Success
What does it take for a KMS to be a success? One stream
of research suggests that both the supply (i.e., knowledge
contribution) and the demand (i.e., knowledge reuse) sides
of KM must be considered simultaneously. In other words,
organizational support factors on the supply side—
involving leadership commitment, manager and peer
support for KM initiatives, and knowledge quality
control—and on the demand side—involving incentives
and reward systems, relevance of knowledge, ease of using
the KMS, and satisfaction with the use of the KMS—are as
important as the KMS itself and that these factors must be
managed carefully and concurrently (Kulkarni, Ravindran,
and Freeze, 2006–2007).
A second stream of research suggests the importance
of social capital in determining whether benefits can be
realized. KMS success occurs when individuals are
motivated to participate in the KM initiative, when individ-
uals have the cognitive capability to understand and apply
the knowledge, and when individuals have strong relation-
ships with one another (Wasko and Faraj, 2005). Yet
another stream of research suggests the importance of time
andexperiencein realizing benefits from KM and KMSs.
More experienced individuals have the absorptive capacity
to benefit right away from KMS use. However, over time,
experience played a diminishing role in terms of perform-
ance gains from KMS use—that is, less experienced
individuals eventually derived similar performance