Brait SA, the international investment and merchant banking group listed on the Luxembourg, London and Johannesburg stock exchanges, recently implemented a collaborative knowledge management application from leading applied knowledge management solutions company, e-Knowledge, a member of the MB Worksoft Group.
Brait`s decision to implement such a solution stemmed from the need to document and share information within the organisation.
Says Mark Beekhuizen, Group IT Systems Consultant at Brait: "Leveraging individual intellectual capital is any organisation`s greatest challenge. To combat this, we invested in e-Knowledge`s collaborative knowledge management application - Common Knowledge - which allows us to leverage our investment in human capital and obtain a complete view of our company.
"Knowledge management is what ties relationships and relates to people and information in a contextual manner, and ultimately, this is what business is all about. With Common Knowledge, we can manage relationships with our client and supplier base, and furnish them with the information they require."
Explains Daniel Segal, Product Specialist at e-Knowledge: "To enable successful knowledge management and to build a corporate knowledge web, people need to contribute, there needs to be a mind change within an organisation. Common Knowledge allows a company to involve everyone via its ability to share information across the organisation and follow interaction, as well as to trap individual intellectual capital within the organisation.
"We can thus help Brait retain and share individual knowledge, assisting them in becoming a transparent organisation by allowing staff to observe how others work and encouraging simulation. By avoiding duplication of work and documents, work efficiency is increased and client reference and communication is simplified."
Common Knowledge`s functionality and its price performance in the market were great factors in Brait`s decision to implement it. The decisive factor was, however, "its ability to offer us a mixture of CRM and knowledge management capabilities - which was exactly what we needed," says Beekhuizen.
Beekhuizen anticipates that Brait will see significant business benefits with an almost immediate return on investment. "e-Knowledge has provided us with a tool to gain a real competitive advantage. By tracking our company history and past documentation - without being intrusive or invasive - we now have the resources for informed and innovative decision-making, which will ultimately lead to excelled business speed.
"I believe it will also lead to increased client and supplier satisfaction, better intellectual capital management, greater productivity and incomparable profits."
According to Segal, the working relationship between Brait and e-Knowledge was a driving factor in the successful implementation of the solution. Beekhuizen confirms: "To ensure the success of such an endeavour, a certain amount of commitment is needed. e-Knowledge has been very supportive throughout. They are definitely the leaders in the implementation of collaborative knowledge management solutions - offering superb service delivery. Our relationship started out good, and turned out great."
Although it is still a new application, Beekhuizen believes that its value within Brait will continue to grow as usage increases.
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