Question: The PPX organisation provides news and information services to a variety of clients from one central head office and eight regional offices. The information provided varies from local weather reports to details on competing companies and product developments. The senior management of PPX consider that the current provision of information within the organisation is acceptable; there is no sign of sales decreasing in the short term so they consider that there is no need to change the overall structure of the organisation. Many managers also share this view; they have built up their own client base over the last few years, and this provides them with a significant amount of commission over and above the normal salary. Managers in each of the eight locations have been allowed to build and maintain their own information systems.
Within each location information provision is adequate, although the systems have been purchased from different suppliers to meet the requirements of that individual branch. IT systems within PPX are fairly well integrated in terms of e-mail provision and viewing corporate information such as training manuals and suggested price lists on a corporate database located on an Intranet. The bandwidth on the WAN is currently sufficient for information transfer requirements. Some of the major competitors of PPX have recently implemented systems to allow information to be shared across their organisations. Initial reports show that their clients are viewing this facility favourably, with additional information being available on demand in each location. A few of PPX's clients have requested a similar facility, although no clients have actually been lost due to lack of provision of information.
(a) Explain the steps necessary to implement an appropriate knowledge strategy in an organisation, discussing the specific problems that may be found in PPX regarding this implementation.