Methodology
The SAP is a multinational German application software company. The company has been the one of the largest enterprise software providing the companies and to the business to enterprise the resources, business related information and client support. The company was facing some challenges quiet a time before regarding unstructured information. The company had to create a lot of repository to store unstructured information and data. Various repositories made tough to access information on time (Geisler and Wickramasinghe 2015). It occupied a large amount of space for storing a large number of files. This cause a barrier in interlinking of the software and information as it was hard to look for the information. In order to overcome the information, the SAP adopted the Strategic Knowledge Management.
The procedural knowledge that provides the overall knowledge that could interlink most of the concepts to solve a problem in an efficient way is known as strategic knowledge management. This strategic knowledge management requires five P process. Thefive P process includes the planning, people, processes, product and performance. The management builds the overall strategy to run the organization in a profitable manner. The strategic knowledge management helped the company to search, disseminate and access the information whenever required and across the repository boundaries. The strategic management helps the organisation to increase the conceptual framework to business process in order to create benefits. This report will mainly discuss about the frameworks that are used under strategic knowledge management to benefit the business of the organisation.
Figure 1: Financial Accounting Process Flow
(Source: Martín-de Castro 2015)
The report mainly focuses on achieving the business benefits for the company SAP using strategic management framework and models.
The main objective of the report is to clarify the overall knowledge management in sap revolved around these 3 points.
- The searching and accessing of the relevant information.
- The creation and dissemination of the problem.
- Integration of the information into business process and benefit its profitability.
The SAP was facing the problem in handling the unstructured data and information, in order to access the unstructured random information from the central environment the company started using Knowledge management tools to centralise these unstructured information to retrieve from a single source. The knowledge management helps in accessing of the information to all the authorised personnel of the organization (Gold and Holodynski 2015). The SAP integrated its Knowledge management Tactics to enhance its business outputs that includes initial configuration and system administration. The other tools and techniques regarding the management system will be given in the next section.
The knowledge management tools in SAP Net Weaver Enterprise Portal iView. In order to implement the knowledge management tools we need portal I views and standalone engine search (TREX). The knowledge management includes function like integrating repository, search, navigation of folders, taxonomy and classification, management services and creation of documents and publishing.
The Enterprise Portal Technology provides the important feature to Knowledge Management of Sap. The Sap has always been under stress regarding the difficulty that it has been facing in handling the information that was unstructured. The creation of storage for information occupies a lot of space and is very difficult to handle. With the proposition of the portal technology, it was much easy to implement varied information from a single storage as it was arranged under the role-based categories of the data. The Meta data can be also accessed through the portal technology.
Objective
Figure 2: Enterprise Portal
(Source: Ogiela 2015)
The Enterprise Portal technology 5.0 releases have made the access of the data much easier for the companies using this system. The Portal system is licensed under Microsoft and IBM, which had been even approved by the several software vendors. The Sap has tried to create a better interface by implying the portal integration components iView. The organisation wanted to collaborate with other software Meta data models to implement a portal system (Gold and Holodynski 2015). This model included a SAP, Siebel System, Baan, and IBM to enable the various systems to overcome the problem of accessibility. The access system through this portal system can now link and relate the portal system. The portal system will allow the system to correlate enables drag and relate functionality. It will also enhance the function of the data management, enables data management features, include collaboration and other knowledge functions. The portal system will enable the following function.
Integrate repository:
The repository of the system provides the centred access to the unstructured information and with the diverse data that could be semantically related to one point. The KM repository bookmarks every detail and stores information according to the date the work it can be accessed. The integrated repository helps the system to relate similar data just from one place rather than creating each folder for each work (Cabrilo and Dahms 2018). The repository integration provides the systematic arrangement of the information so that it could be accessed easily. The systematic feel will help to search the information easily and will save time. The integration of the repository will provide the consistent structure of storage of the information regarding the system. It makes the search of any information very easy and involve the better way of accessing the data according to the system provided. The integration of the repository can relate to the required document that is needed to be accessed at the same time.
The integrated repository can be accessed through the SAP Net Weaver Portal. This is an enterprise portal system, which is licensed under the IBM and Microsoft. The enterprise portal system can be collaborate with other Meta data models and can facilitate data access. The repository helps in interlinking of the information and access data according to the relation of the information. The integrated repository can help in also help in the better accessibility by high collaboration with metadata models that had been helpful to the system by the centralizing each data or information in one single environment and the information are structured under the one document centric services. The Meta data model helps in carrying unstructured information and break them in following categories according to role based system (Cabrilo and Dahms 2018).
Figure 3: Integrate Repository Portal
(Source: Ogiela 2015)
The connectors of the repository helps in the integration of the information are as follows in third party planning:
- KM repository
- Web server
- Web DAV
- Lotus domino
The repository can be ensuring the better credibility, less hassle and right amount of access to the system. Through integrated repository, there is a lot of further function that could aid the organization through knowledge management.
- Navigation of data:The navigation that allows in accessing of the data through repository, it helps the portal user to customise the presentation according to the required user. It extends the role and allows making the modification in the project.
- Searching:The searching aids to find the issues in the organization and helps in including the contents to the websites using web crawlers.
- Taxonomies and Classification:The taxonomy allows the project to be identified according to the data that have been merged in it. It promotes heterogeneous storage of information in the system
- Knowledge management services:Allows external access of the data in the system
- Document creation and publishing:The document creation enables permission to ensure workflow of the organisation.
Discussion
Every organization may face challenges in some way or the other. The issues that are faced by the company can be solved under the knowledge management adopted by the company. The project of the company will help the organisation to fulfil their loopholes in the organisation. The situations that are faced by the company are as follows and the strategies are given to cover the lagging of the company (Dess, Lumpkin, and Eisner 2014). The knowledge management strategies help in the management of the organization by the systematic research of the organization. The present issue that are faced by the company are as follows:
The governance of SAP projects are quite dis oriented regarding the system, the organization are facing problem as there is a lack of governance in some stage which create a loophole and also affect the business of the company. If the governance is lost, there could be the negligence that could hamper of output in the company. The proper supervision of all the departments and the data can be ensured if there is a proper schematic plan that addresses the role of each employee gradually. This can be done by the knowledge management as it allows the proper research arrange and sorts the information from structured to unstructured according to relation and the role based categories that decides which of the departments is not under supervision of the system (Pablo, Guadamillas,. and González 2017). The proper research from the start helps the organization to thrive in a better manner. The research will help to assign the steering committees to assign the governance from very beginning which could decrease the chances of mismanagement in any step of the project or the task that has been carried out in the organization. The right governance can provide a better progress and in return provide risk management and helps to minimise the future risk that could be faced in the organization.
The communication is one of the problems that were faced under SAP; the company had very less interaction with the client and stakeholders, which was led in the organisation to be a reason of huge concern. The communication that are faced under the organization can be taken under consideration by the process of searching that is done under the organization to know what are the customer requirements from the organization. The right communication will aid the growth of the organization in many ways (Fidel, Schlesinger and Cervera 2015). The right communication will help the organization to link with its clients. This can be done by agreeing on the plan under all the stages. The organization can gain better communication if they have a proper knowledge about the expectation or the requirement of the stakeholders. The communication can be generated with the proper knowledge about the topic. The knowledge management enhance the better understanding between the stakeholders and organisation. The searching technique will help in getting in the knowledge about the system interface (Geisler and Wickramasinghe 2015).
The management of resources in case of SAP is quite a negligent problem but it could create some sort of barrier in the case of progress that the company can achieve on its own. The resource management is shattered in the case of SAP because there are chances of information being misplaced or scattered. The misplacing of the information or disarrangement can lead to scarcity of the resources. The scarcity of resources can also be generated when the resources are randomly distributed (Girard 2015). Not only can the information collection be blamed on the case of resource scarcity but also the governance. The problem can be resolved through proper study and research of the existing data and information in the existing organization. The management of the information can be aided by integration repository and the searching will help to know the lagging of the resources and meet the requirements accordingly ( Ashi, Reda and Zafar2017).
KM Functions
The business management is quite outdated for the company. The company have faced a lot of mismanagement in the past. The mismanagement can disorient the organizational growth and can hamper the system very badly. This also helped the customers the scattered organization cannot deliver the proper output for the organization. The profit of company can be hampered if there is no management from the starting point to the end (Castro 2015). Knowledge management can under control this kind of issue. Using knowledge management strategies, this can provide a better way to proceed the project. Under the supervision, the project can generate better profit than before. The business could be managed by the navigation, documentation approach and publishing proper rules for the company. The company following the systematic 5 P process can generate better revenues than before (Ogiela 2015). The SAP needs a proper management plan to work over the business management that has been discussed under the knowledge management of the organization.
The data migration was quite a challenge for SAP; the data migration is quite hard for the company because the sub-categorized data was not properly structured. The properly structured data will help in extracting the information in the better way. Since the unstructured data cause the problem in retrieving the data and using them later, a new enterprise portal system was; proposed in order to migrate the data or the information wherever required(Silva, Leal, Marques and Ferreira 2017). The high collaboration with the metadata model helps in high storage data access wherever possible. The enterprises portal system enhances the security of the data as the authorised personnel only can access its framework. The portable iView allows to access data from various system (Valmohammadi and Ahmadi 2015).
The SAP should follow little recommendation to help the growth of the organization in a better manner. For any industry to flourish it is quite important to work on their accounting information system which can be covered if the organisation is acquainted with its main resource problem. The good account information system can help the company to involve a better approach to solve a problem persisting in the organisation.
The organisation needs to be updated with the new online technology, which would aid the better user interface with the organisation. The organisation must utilize the upgraded software platform in order to have faster results and updated records of the data in the organisation. The organisation can imply the accounts information system that is built on an independent platform so that it could be accessed from various devices. The account information system in SAP must have a high security framework, as there are high chances of threat to the companies that follows ERP system. For example, Yahoo data breach affected more than half population of internet users in the world. The constant training about new technologies and advancement must be provided at all levels to the stakeholders of the company, without the proper knowledge it would not help the organisation to reach the place it desire. In addition, the employees will face problem in handling the account system. There must be constant surveillance of the work and data done through the supervisors or seniors to ensure that there is no by the internal data loss or misused within the organisation.
Conclusion
The report concludes the benefits of strategic knowledge management system in an ERP based company. The company that is taken here in consideration is SAP; a multinational company that deals with providing the enterprise software to the software vendors. The company was facing few problems in the organization a few years in the organisation, which was overcome by applying strategic knowledge management system. The aim and brief methodology provides the overview of the topic while the discussion provides all the techniques used in SAP under the knowledge management.
References
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