Airbnb has adopted knowledge management and digital strategies to support its continued growth. For knowledge management, Airbnb uses both codification and personalization approaches, such as creating an explicit knowledge repository and encouraging tacit knowledge sharing through meetings. Its digital strategy involves heavy social media promotion, a search algorithm that considers many factors, and using data to improve the customer experience and reputation system. Airbnb's strategies have helped drive financial and non-financial value for stakeholders.

1. Case Study
GROUP 5: KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT & DIGITAL STRATEGY

2. Outline
1 Introduction
4 Recommendations
2 Knowledge Management
● Strategy Adopted
● Critical Analysis
3 Digital Strategy
● Strategy Adopted
● Critical Analysis

3. Company Overview
3
Private company
that offers
hospitality services
Platform is on
application or
online
191+ countries,
with 7 million
Airbnb listings
Majority of revenues
from commission of
booking completed
by a host

4. History
4
2007
Two guys in San
Francisco rent out 3 air
mattresses in their loft to
make rent money.
2008
Airbed & Breakfast was
launched at SXSW and
got two bookings.
2009
Visited all their hosts in
NYC to write reviews and
take photos. Changed
name to ‘Airbnb’.
2011
Available in 89
countries and had hit 1
million nights booked.

5. The Growth Continues
5
2020
7M+ listings worldwide
100K+ cities in 191+
countries
500M all time guests
arrival
2M+ average number of
people staying per night

6. Growing Pains
As the company grows, there also comes the growth in the size
and complexity of the data:
200K tables in data warehouse
> 6,000 tableau workbooks and charts
> 1,500 knowledge posts
> 3,500 employees around the world
6

7. Airbnb Knowledge Management Strategy

8. Capital Model
8
Financial Capital:
Valuation (2018): $31billion
Annual revenue (2017): $2.6billion
Net income (2017): $93million
Physical Capital:
Office buildings
Properties listed on their
platform
Human Capital:
3,100 employees
(2017)
Host community
External Capital:
Customers (guests)
Hosts (property
owners)
Investors
Regulators
Travel partners
Insurance companies
Lawyers
Photographers
Organisational Capital:
Website and app
Brand
Content marketing
Digital ad campaigns

9. Explicit & Tacit Knowledge
9
TACIT KNOWLEDGE
● Competence
● Commitment
● Experience
● Expertise
● Thinking
● Deed
2
EXPLICIT KNOWLEDGE
● Data
● Documents
● Records
● File
● Business SOP
● Codes
1
5%
95%
● The growth of Airbnb
converts tacit knowledge
into a more explicit
knowledge.
● Hosts are a buffer to the
pressure of customer
service.
● Airbnb benefits from
overall experience given
from the host.

10. 10
Which one is Airbnb office?

11. 11
All of them!
San Francisco, USA
São Paulo, BRA
Gurgaon, IND
Dublin, IRL

12. Socialisation: Communication & Sharing Culture
12
● Open dialogue
● Bi-weekly world meeting
● Bringing the culture to life
● Make space for introverts
● One Airbnb
Source: https://weand.me
This culture explains how Airbnb strategies are in terms of
transferring from tacit to tacit knowledge (socialisation).

13. Data Education
● 400+ courses with 6k+
registrations
● Faculty of 55 employees
teaching 4k+ employees
+ Data Access
+ Data Tools
13
Internalisation: Learning Culture
Data Literacy
● More informed decisions
● Reduce feedback loop
● Increase business impact
This Airbnb learning culture can be applied not only for Data
University but also for all kinds of knowledge.

14. 14
Externalisation: Content Creation
Airbnb transfers from tacit to explicit knowledge
by focusing on content creation
● Community Centre
● Airbnb Engineering in
Medium website
● Content creation with
blogs & online magazine
● Customer & Host Review
Source:
Airbnb Community Centre: https://community.withairbnb.com/t5/Community-Center/ct-p/community-center
Airbnb Engineering & Data Science: https://medium.com/airbnb-engineering

15. CUSTOMERS HOSTS
Help Centre
● ‘Help’ page on airbnb website
● Customer Support
Resource Centre
● Hospitality standards
● Hosting guidelines
15
Combination: Standardisation & Guidelines
These strategies enabled Airbnb to
transform explicit to explicit knowledge to
set clear guidance, communicate policy
and standardisation of service
Source:
https://www.airbnb.co.uk/resources/hosting-homes

16. TACIT EXPLICIT
TACIT
Socialisation
● Meeting & brainstorming
● Knowledge sharing session
● Standalone meetups for hosts to
exchange information
● Global Q&As events
Externalisation
● Airbnb Community Centre
● Host groups integrated into host
application
● Airbnb Engineering & Data Science
articles at Medium
● Content creation (e.g. blogs)
EXPLICIT
Internalisation
● Access to codified knowledge
● Online class / e-learning system
● Employee education programme
(e.g. Airbnb Data University, ‘Data U
Intensive’ training)
● Airbnb updates: company news,
announcements, product updates
Combination
● Hospitality standards & guidelines
● Help centre (Help page on website)
● Open source tech
● Best practices
Spiral of Knowledge: SECI Model
16
to
from

17. 17
Codification & Personalisation Strategy
Explicit knowledge (rules, processes):
Internalisation & Combination
CODIFICATION
STRATEGY
● IT system to support knowledge
creation, codification, & transfer
IMPLEMENTATION
● Airbnb Data University & other
e-learning platforms
● Airbnb Knowledge Repo
● Standards & guidelines
Knowledge that’s not easily codified:
Externalisation & Socialisation
PERSONALISATION
STRATEGY
● Person-to-person approach
● Transfer of high value knowledge
and creation of new ideas
IMPLEMENTATION
● Communication & sharing culture
● Meetups
● Content creation (blogs, reviews)

18. Connecting Data Science to Business
18
Centralised Structure
Opportunity to learn from each
other
Tighter cohesion
Disconnected with business partners
Missing the business context
Reactive stats gathering
Embedded Structure
Direct involvement in work planning
and execution
Understanding business context
Siloed knowledge and talent
Lack of managerial focus
Airbnb early stage

19. Connecting Data Science to Business
19
Hybrid Centralised/Embedded Structure
Singular data science team broken into sub-teams that partner directly with
engineers, designers, marketers, product managers, and others.
Accelerated data adoption throughout
the company
Data scientists as proactive partners
Maintain vantage point over every piece
of business
Source: http://www.datascience-pm.com
Airbnb current model

20. Scaling Knowledge
Facilitates the sharing of
knowledge between data
scientists and other technical
roles
20
Knowledge Repo
External
Knowledge Graph
Stores and serves structured
data that is necessary to
provide relevant information
to customers
Internal
Scaling Knowledge at
Airbnb

21. Knowledge Graph Infrastructure Architecture
How Airbnb integrate their
IT infrastructure to enable
knowledge management
& digital
● Inventory of Data &
Algorithm
● Airbnb search flow
● Data pipeline
● Machine learning
21
Source:
https://medium.com/airbnb-engineering/contextualizing-airbnb-by-building-knowledge-graph-b7077e268d5a

22. Value Creation
22
01
02
03
04
VALUE CREATION
CAPACITY
Knowledge Creation:
● Content management
● Community & Help Centre
● Knowledge transfer (e.g.
training, articles)
VALUE REALISATION
Airbnb strategy of realising
value from the knowledge:
● Initiated “Belong
Anywhere” strategy
● Data University
VALUE FOR
STAKEHOLDERS
Financial & non-financial
value for key stakeholders
● Hosts loyalty
● Community
engagement
● Customer satisfaction &
retention
● Highly skilled employees
VALUE STREAM
MODEL
Financial return
● Revenues increase from
customers
● More productivity
Airbnb knowledge-based strategy drives value creation that
generates both financial & non-financial value.

23. SWOT Analysis of Airbnb KM Strategy
23
● Getting more knowledge from guests
(customers)
● Photo Analysis of houses to determine most
attractive features and offering a
photography service
OPPORTUNITY
● Knowledge sharing is part of the
culture
● Well-developed KM system
● Analyse data from hosts and
customers for better matchmaking
STRENGTH
● Data privacy issue
● Potential loss of credibility or clients
from data security breaches
THREAT
● Making sure hosts & guests
regularly leave reviews
● High employee turnover, average
tenure is 2.6 years
WEAKNESS
S W
O T

24. KM Stage: Capability Maturity Model
24
5
Stage
5:KM
M
aturity
KM
is
partofairbnb
business
m
odeland
know
ledge
sharing
is
partofthe
culture
4
Stage
4:KM
Expansion
Expansion
ofKM
pilots
across
organisation
3
Stage
3:KM
Im
plem
entation
Im
plem
entation
ofKM
pilots
Stage
2:KM
Initiatives
Initiation
ofKM
pilots
21
Stage
1:KM
Interest
KM
is
a
topic
ofinterest
Airbnb stage: Knowledge
Sharing Culture

25. Airbnb Digital Strategy

26. 26
Airbnb Digital Marketing
DIGITAL PROMOTION
1. Referrals: rewards of
travel credit for
referring to new
customers or hosts
SOCIAL MEDIA
1. Twitter Campaign
#belonganywhere
2. Facebook page
3. User-generated photos
& video contest on
Instagram
4. Youtube campaign:
“Live Like a Local”
CONTENT STRATEGY
1. User-generated
content
2. Delivering stories:
blogs of reviews
3. SEO technique
4. Airbnb online
magazine
5. Neighbourhood
Guides
DIGITAL MARKETING
1. Google Rating &
Adword listings
2. Google Display Ads:
Banner campaign for
worldwide reach
3. Craigslist Integration:
Recommendation of
listed accommodation
4. Experiential PR
“Aim of the marketing strategy is to reach and encourage the maximum people around the
world to become hosts and/or travellers” (Rastogi, 2020)

27. Improvements on the reputation system:
27
Online Reputation
Thorough
consumer reviews
Collect more
information on
hosts & guests
Make it more
acceptable to
refuse guests
Vary prices based
on ratings
Provide insurance
for hosts
Myriad market with the facilitation between the buyers and sellers
Heavy reliance on their review system

28. Factors in almost 100 signals to decide how to order the listings
28
Airbnb Search Algorithm
Attractiveness
Price
Instant
Booking
Superhost
Accepts
bookings
Responsive

29. Airbnb Cybersecurity
Airbnb is focused on safety, both in real-life and online through
1. Risk scoring
2. Background checks
3. Preparedness
4. Secure payments
5. Account protection
6. Scam prevention
29

30. 30
Social Media for Customer Service

31. SWOT Analysis of Digital Strategy
31
● Growing travelling market
● Less-known countries developing tourism
● Improvement of technologies to manage the
data and customer experience (e.g. 3D
visualisation)
OPPORTUNITY
● High influence on social media
● Worldwide presence
● High number of customers
● High satisfaction among customers
● Partnerships with digital platforms
● Customer oriented webpage and
services
STRENGTH
● World or regional crisis that
threaten the tourism market
● Cyber-attack: damage the data
● Bad news that can affect the
reputation of the brand
THREAT
● No in-person presence (hard for any
paperwork question such as refund)
WEAKNESS
S W
O T

32. 32
7S Analysis of Digital Strategy
STRUCTURE
STRATEGY
SKILLS
STYLE
STAFF
SYSTEM
Shared
Values
Technological
infrastructure suggests
adaptability
Structure
Online platform aligns with
the overall mission to bring
homes to people while they
are away from home
Strategy
Search for “top-coders“ that
are good with algorithms and
data structures
Skills
Application with features like
internal communication
system and connections to
local activities
System
HR considers a person’s
passion for the company
when hiring
Staff
Founders are from
design backgrounds
which leans the
company to a
non-traditional culture
and style
Style
Traveling and comfort are the
values of Airbnb customers
Shared Values

33. RECOMMENDATIONS

34. Recommendations
Knowledge management strategy:
1. Reward system for leaving review
2. More campaigns or competitions for customers to write content
(blogs, youtube videos, etc)
3. Personalised recommendations based on photo analysis &
preferences
34

35. Recommendations
Digital strategy:
1. Create partnerships with travelling platforms to create packages
2. 3D visualisations for a customer experience
3. Giving tips based on previous people’s searches
4. Create alerts when accomodations become cheaper in a location
5. Background check the hosts as a customer
35

36. Kahoot
0635855
Testing your knowledge
withof

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41. Airbnb Customer Help Centre: https://www.airbnb.co.uk/help/booking-and-traveling
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