Knowledge Management in Organizations: Case Study

Knowledge Management in Organizations:
Bridging People, Enterprise Content and Business Processes
ATKINS Case Study

Manal Rayess (manal.rayess@gmail.com)

IT project in ATKINS: Towards a Knowledge-
based Work Atmosphere

Overview “We have aimed at making ATKINS a knowledge-
based and knowledge-ready organization by bringing
Country or Region: Dubai-UAE-ME
Industry: Constructions Engineering and knowledge at our users’ fingertips, streamlining
Consultancy processes and making work easier and more
Customer Profile
efficient”
Clare Bradley, Regional Systems Manager, ATKINS Middle East & India
Atkins is a multinational constructions
company that provides innovative solutions With more than 40 offices all over the continents, the UK-based
of leading architectural, engineering,
planning and consultancy projects. Atkins
constructions development and consultancy company, ATKINS,
ME & India now employs around 3000 used to depend on its Web site (aka the blue pages) to display
professionals to serve the constructions
market sectors in the region.
corporate-related news and information. However, this content was
mostly concentrated on the UK office and of less (or no) relevance
Business Needs
Regional project managers and senior
to other regional offices such as the UAE office. The case with
executives required better means to bridge organizing and sharing enterprise content was no better. Massive
people (within and across the different
regions) with information to acquire easy
redundant communication and navigation was the typical way of
access, people with people to share finding a piece of information or sharing knowledge especially
knowledge and people with business
processes to have better productivity.
among the geographically dispersed experts.

Solution
AXIS is developed as a new Web portal
To overcome these limitations and to dramatically improve the
based on Microsoft’s latest technology, organization and management of enterprise content, collaboration
SharePoint, as an efficient mean to mainly
manage enterprise content and facilitate
and sharing of knowledge, the company decided to launch a project
collaboration and the sharing of to build the right infrastructure. The newly developed portal for
knowledge. Other technologies are
employed to facilitate communication.
collaboration and content management now gives project
managers more comprehensive views of critical information, and
Benefits
Improved storage, organization and
allows better collaboration and easy access of data and sharing of
location of enterprise electronic content knowledge.
Enhanced business insight through
better reporting
Improved sharing of knowledge
Enhanced employee collaboration
Enhanced employee productivity
Ensured consistency of documents and
business process

Situation partners. No customized area was dedicated
for these stakeholders to connect virtually to
In February, 2007, two instances of AXIS, the firm to get information relevant to their
ATKIN’s new portal, were launched. One projects and needs.
instance is based in the UK and the other is
in the Middle East. The first noticeable The role of computers in managing projects
impact of the new solution is that the number and teams during a project was limited to the
of web pages shrank from around 6000 to use of MS Outlook for exchanging emails and
300 pages. the setting of meetings, and the use of the
Before that date, information was not easy to network storage drivers for creating folders
find, not only because of the huge number of for saving the projects data and the related
web pages, but also because people used to documents. The problems of redundant
keep a local copy of the same document in content, un-unified format, and un-unified
their local folders or in some network folder. storage structure, had lead to consequences
As a result, tens of replicas could be found of inconsistent reporting, poor user
for the same document. The network driver experience, and un-easy access and
had hundreds of unstructured, poorly-labeled gathering of data.
folders with a folder for each employee. To
locate some application form, for example, To meet these growing needs, ATKINS
the most common and easiest way was to needed a solution that would:
call or send an email to some colleague and
ask whether she happened to keep a copy of Support the growing amount and
the form on her local drive or at least know complexity of enterprise content in terms of
where it could be found in the local network data, information and knowledge at the
file server. Another common scenario that local and global levels.
shows how information used to be assembled Enhance both the scope and detail of
in an unstructured process is when a business insight for better visibility and
multiregional manager wishes to have a decision making through central, up-to-
report showing the latest data and status date, and real-time copies of data.
about ongoing projects categorized by region. Improve the ways in which information can
This could involve extra steps of collecting, be viewed, accessed and utilized in a
updating, consolidating data as well as timely manner.
unifying the format as each replica of the Support the need for exchanging
same file could have different format. This knowledge through better means of
would typically involve lot of collaboration.
incoming/outgoing calls and emails. Streamline major business processes
through unified routines.
Another facet of the inadequacy of the old
infrastructure was the difficulty of sharing
and exchanging knowledge, lessons learned,
discussions or experiences between the Solution
engineers in different geographical regions. Recognizing the growing need for a new
solution, the top management decided to
Another weakness point in the old launch a project for revamping the firm’s
infrastructure was that its design didn’t online and network systems.
consider the special user class of clients and

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Microsoft SharePoint Server and Services executive in the main UK office defined
2007 (MOSS) was picked as the new firm’s eleven knowledge areas and assigned a
portal. SharePoint (SP) is a collection of ‘Network Chair’ for each of the defined areas.
technologies ranging from a web browser to a Knowledge (specialty) areas include (figure
platform for different enterprise content and 1): Bridge Engineering, Carbon Critical
process management. MS SharePoint is Buildings, Commercial Due Diligence,
geared to attend to the enterprise major Geospatial & Integrated Digital Solutions,
concerns of efficiently connecting people, Geotechnical, Internal Project Management,
content (data, information, knowledge, Master-planning, Strategy & Policy Planning,
documents, etc) and processes with various Structural Engineering, Tall Buildings, and
technologies to manage and serve each of Tunneling.
these vectors.
The ’Global Knowledge Exchange’ space
ATKINS distinguished three layers through serves as a tunnel for the dispersed
which it utilized the different technologies knowledge to flow between professionals in
provided by SP to design its portal, named different locations. Professionals can share
AXIS. These layers are: its web site, internal presentations, open discussions or
sites and extranet for its clients and partners. ask/answer technical questions where 85%
The SP web interface and accompanying web of questions got answers in short time.
controls were first utilized to provide better
user interface and experience through better
look and feel interface and filtered updated Another less-structured space for knowledge
content. sharing is the ‘Knowledge Site Index’ that
Second step was to design and develop the doesn’t follow a pre-defined structure. It
collaboration space on the intranet level. rather allows any professional to host a space
Figure 1: New Web page for Three areas were defined: Knowledge space, for displaying material for or discussing any
knowledge exchange with Team space and Project space. topic under some business area. To ensure
links to the 11 technical
non-overlapped redundant content, an
networks
Building the Knowledge Exchange Space application form should be submitted to
In response to the emergent need of justify the need of the desired space and
facilitating and organizing knowledge specify one business owner and two site
exchange among ATKINS engineers, the chief owners who shall receive adequate training
on how to use SP web controls.

Building the Team Collaboration Space
Each department was allocated a space on
AXIS where it can employ the different
controls that come with SharePoint to display
its news and announcements, store its
documents and forms, assign blogs to its
staff, or automate some process.

Departments that provide service support to
other departments such as the IT, HR and
marketing departments were among the first
to migrate to AXIS. The move of such central

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Figure 2: Web page
for some
department in the
UAE office. The
page contains a
document library
and a list to place
the team holidays

departments to the shared portal solved the o Tasks. Teams can use this list to
problem faced previously by staff when they keep track of the assignment,
wanted to browse some commonly-used status and completion of tasks that
document or application form in the network are shared among team members.
shared storage that used to contain hundreds o Issues. This list can be used to
of folders. With the SharePoint portal, all manage and track the progress of
important documents are placed in a issues assigned to a person or a
document library (figure 2), which is an easy- team.
to-use, out of the box web part that comes
with SharePoint to serve as a list (or Automation of some common business
container) with controls to add/edit/delete activities made possible with SharePoint’s
documents. More than one document out of the box Workflow feature. This helps
libraries can be created to hold different boasting the business productivity. A
categories of documents. Site administrators common example where workflows can be
receive training on how to set access rights employed is the document approval
on different levels. For example, one process. In ATKINS, employees can now
document (or document library) can be apply for their annual leaves directly by
shared among everyone; another one can filling in the leave request application form,
have limited access. which is placed in the HR document library,
and submit it online and it will be directed
Other SP out-of-the-box features that were automatically to the manager in charge.
efficiently employed in AXIS team sites The manager will receive an email
include: notification with options to approve or
o Calendar. Team members can use reject the request. The requester receives
the team calendar to add, view and a notification whether his application had
get notified about upcoming been approved or rejected.
events, deadlines, and meetings Other examples of process automation that
related to the team. This calendar- were developed by the IT department using
based list can also be linked to the SP and MS-InfoPath technologies include:
Outlook calendar. New Joiner form, Book a Driver, and Order
Stationary forms (figure 6).

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Figure 3: Project
management
controls

The new joiner form can be accessed from can view actual vs. forecasted costs and
AXIS to let the new starter picks his IT track the cash flow of each project.
requirements (hardware and software). Upon
submission, the form follows the designated Another specialized tool that the Systems
path to notify concerned people. team purchased and plugged into the firm’s
SharePoint portal to direct the process of
Building the Project Workspace bidding and delivering projects is what is
For each new project (identified by a unique called in ATKINS the ‘Commercial Gate’
job#), a project workspace site can be (figure 4). This control comprises an
Figure 4: The “Commercial created using the already available (but interactive graphical diagram (similar to what
Gate”, a tool for directing the extensible) SP project workspace site could be generated using MS Visio) that can
process of bidding projects template. direct the process of bidding by
diagrammatically showing the required steps
Besides the default lists available for any new and their status where each step can be
site/page on SP (Announcements, Calendar, associated with the required documents to
Links, and Tasks), a project workspace site be filled and submitted.
includes the following specialized built-in lists
for team collaboration and project
management: Enhanced infrastructure for
o Project Documents communication
o Project Issues Besides the efforts put by ATKINS’s systems
o Project Risks specialists in revamping the firm’s internet,
o Project Deliverables intranet and extranet portals, the firm had
Project managers and top management can also invested in other collaboration and
easily track the progress of and efficiently communication tools such as Microsoft Office
manage projects. To gain further insight on Communicator and CISCO IP Communicator
business, ATKINS plugged another project applications so that people can be accessible
management tool on AXIS for advanced whether at office, meetings or abroad.
reporting on and risk management of projects
(figure 3). Using this feature, central Using MS office communicator, an employee
management can drill-down through projects can instant-message any employee whether
by region, then by risk-level for example. It in the same physical location or in different
overseas region. This can be ideal for short

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notices, quick questions, or availability 300 pages. The network file server is no
checking. longer used to store documents in a non-
structured manner. Document libraries can
Cisco IP Communicator is Windows PC-based be created on the web portal to store central
softphone that can be used for voice and copies of documents.
video calls through the PC (figure 5). This
allows employees to access their corporate Enhanced business insight through
phone number and voicemail, take or make better reporting
calls from anywhere provided they have Aggregation and consolidation of data was no
access to a PC with an Internet connection trivial job four years back in ATKINS. This was
(since they can remotely access the due to the existence of multiple versions of
corporate network through AXIS). the same data file that could be found in
multiple locations saved by different
Benefits employees. The new portal provided central
data storage location through dedicated
Revamping the ATKIN’s intranet, extranet and document and report libraries (SharePoint’
internet infrastructure and adopting new out of the box lists that can be added to the
technologies for efficiently connecting people web page to manage documents and
with people, data, knowledge and business developed data reports).
processes provided great benefits to the Special dashboards (also known as multi-
firm’s business productivity and to the way report summary pages) were developed to
people do their work. Some of these benefits provide a unified but flexible view of data
Figure 5: Softphone that is
are listed below. pertinent to all projects run by ATKINS.
reached through the Web Portal
to make receive calls Project management controls are used for
Improved storage, organization and advanced statistical reporting on projects.
location of enterprise electronic content
Enhanced business insight through better Improved sharing of knowledge
reporting The new portal hosts multiple channels
Improved sharing of knowledge through which the valuable yet intangible
Enhanced employee collaboration corporate asset of knowledge can be
Enhanced employee productivity dispatched for better acquisition and sharing.
Ensured consistency of documents and This is manifested in the classification of
business processes ATKINS knowledge areas into 11 classes and
organizing them into 11 technical networks. A
Improved storage, organization and special site is created for each area where
location of enterprise electronic content specialists can meet, document, acquire and
Despite the many types of content, such as exchange their knowledge. They can ask and
documents emails, worksheets, and web answer technical questions, post material
pages, that keeps getting larger and larger on and articles and access technical resources
daily basis due to the ease of its creation, such as online libraries.
ATKINS’ SharePoint-based portal had
succeeded in providing a unified, well-
organized, and easy to manage structure for
documents, records, and web content. This is
best manifested in the considerable
reduction of web pages from 6000 to only

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Figure 6: The New Starter
form that can be accessed
and submitted online. It has
an embedded workflow to
move it through the
designated path to get the
required approvals and notify
the concerned staff Enhanced employee collaboration tracking of these tasks become easier and
With the new technology solutions, an more efficient.
employee can instant message any other Employees can start and interact with
employee whether in the same regional office workflows directly in some 2007 Office
or in other offices. Employees can make and programs such as Word, Excel, PowerPoint
Figure 7: An example of a receive phone calls as if incoming to or and Outlook. For example, an employee can
Workflow design
outgoing from their office phone line from get an alert through his Outlook whenever he
anywhere and at any time. Team members got assigned some task to do (reviewing or
can share news, announcements and event approving a document for example).
calendar.
Ensured consistency of documents and
Enhanced employee productivity business processes
This was realized by three means: gathering This was realized by the use of shared
data through browser-based forms that are document libraries to hold documents, and
deployed to the SharePoint portal, the use of workflows to streamline and direct
streamlining business processes by using business processes.
workflows that are predefined in SharePoint
portal, and greater integration with MS Office
system desktop programs. Discussion

Office SharePoint Server defines a workflow The growing need for more context-
as a process that automatically moves dependent representation of facts, in such a
documents or items through a sequence of way that guarantees better understanding of
actions or tasks that are related to a the context, had caused the trend-line to go
business process (figure 7). Workflows are from the need of merely managing and
typically used for coordinating common processing data, as raw numbers or bits, to
business processes that may involve more the need of managing information, relations
than one party at different hierarchical levels, within data), to the recently emergent need of
such as project approval or document review. managing knowledge, patterns (justified
By automating the human tasks involved with beliefs about relationships) within
those processes, the management and Information, (figure 8). An example of this

7

evolution can be felt in organizations when can revert to some documented knowledge
some marketing manager initially asks for the (explicit knowledge). In both ways, this query
email address of some customer. The ‘Data requires that the right systems, technologies
Worker’ can revert to an Excel sheet where all and infrastructure necessary to discover,
customer details are kept to get the capture, share and apply such knowledge are
requested data. In this case the DW is in place. It also involves the people, as
retrieving data, i.e. raw facts. In a later another source of knowledge besides the
scenario the same manager would require earlier sources of data and Information. In
the details of top buyers and top products. In that particular scenario, the human factor
this case the ‘Information Work’ would revert (the domain expert) can be involved in the
to some database that relates the tables of acquisition and justified understanding of the
‘Customers’ and ‘Products’ in a ‘purchase’ customer profile and the patterns that can be
relationship (an Access or SQL database for deduced from the relationship between the
example) to retrieve the details of the customer profile and the product catalogue.
customers whose purchasing orders have the Whereas in the previous two cases using the
highest totals. In this particular scenario, the right applications to store and organize the
business unit needed an Information system data and Information would guarantee the
to process relationships in the context of the retrieval of the desired answer.
Figure 8: Data, Information firm’s business (a database management
and Knowledge in terms of
context-dependence and system). In a higher-level scenario, the same Knowledge management in organizations can
understanding marketing manager can ask something like be seen as the systematic processes by
‘get me the prospect customers who might be which the knowledge which is needed for the
interested in our new product’. In this case it success of the organization is discovered,
is not a trivial query as it requires deeper captured, shared, and applied. This requires
understanding of the context so that existing the right infrastructure, mechanisms,
knowledge can be analyzed for new systems and processes to bridge all of the
knowledge to be created. The answer would three enterprise pillars and sources of
affect the decision and determine the action knowledge: enterprise content (data,
to be taken by the management. The information, and knowledge), people and
professional expert (Knowledge Worker) business processes (figure 9). This shall set
Figure 9: The processes needs to figure out the patterns within the the right infrastructure required for
required for bridging people, profiles of the customers who were previously knowledge to exist, accumulate and flow
data and business interested in products similar to the new smoothly in the enterprise.
product. The expert could have an intuition or To bridge people with people, tools for
insight about the answer (tacit knowledge) or facilitating the collaboration are required. To
bridge people with enterprise content, tools
for facilitating enterprise content
management (ECM) are required. To bridge
people with business processes, tools for
enhancing business productivity are required.
To bridge enterprise content with business
processes, tools for realizing business
intelligence are required.

The major technology that ATKINS employed
to fulfill this objective of providing the right

8

infrastructure for knowledge management is units (HR, marketing, sales). The project was
Microsoft’s SharePoint server and services kicked off by the central management
(figure 10). identifying the main technical knowledge
areas (11 areas were identified) and
Figure 10: SharePoint feature
With its features specifically catered to attend assigning an expert lead for each area. The
areas
to the enterprise needs of bridging people, project advanced through different stages
content and business processes, the first from the initial stage of identifying the gaps in
fruits of deploying SharePoint-based web the current settings and establishing the
portal in ATKINS (called AXIS) were evident. specifications of the required solution, to the
The new solution succeeded in bridging stage of research where different potential
people in all of the firm’s 40+ worldwide solutions and technologies were assessed
offices through better collaboration and and evaluated, and then came the stages of
knowledge sharing facilities, bridging people implementation, testing, user training and
with enterprise content through better post-implementation support.
infrastructure for its content management via
its new SharePoint-based portal, bridging The applied solution especially benefited the
people with business processes through sharing and exchanging of knowledge among
enhancing the business productivity via the the firm’s experts through dedicated sites on
use of automated workflows and web-based the web portal (discussion boards). This has
forms, and bridging enterprise content with also enabled the discovery of both tacit and
business processes through the employment explicit knowledge. New explicit knowledge
of business intelligence and reporting tools and content can be created through
and dashboards. combining the already posted material
whether they were articles, questions,
ATKINS launched its ‘knowledge and answers posted by experts, available
enterprise content management’ project in templates, or tools for mining the data
the first quarter of the year 2007 with a through advanced reporting. Discovery of
scope spanning around its business specialty tacit knowledge was facilitated by the
areas and including all employees of its socialization and collaboration tools such as
business domain units (engineers and the instant messaging application that
consultants) as well as business support

9

connects all the firm’s employees in all its systems manager for the ME & India at
regional offices. ATKINS.

On another dimension, the application of To what extent has ATKINS succeeded in
some specific knowledge, such as managing, creating a “knowledge-based environment”,
evaluating and bidding projects, has been i.e. an environment where prior knowledge
directed by the use of workflows that allow can be easily and efficiently retrieved and
the automation of moving items or tasks new knowledge can be created and stored for
through predefined actions or steps in a way the sake of leveraging business decisions
that assembles automated routines or and insights?
directions, where a step can be combined To answer this question, we first need to
with some template to use or form to fill. distinguish the main processes required for
retrieving and adding knowledge to and from
the enterprise business-related knowledge
Evaluation sources, i.e. people, enterprise content and
business processes. Figure 11 illustrates
“We have aimed at making ATKINS a these processes (a-j).
knowledge-based and knowledge-ready
organization by bringing knowledge at our We, then, can assess the availability of
users’ fingertips, streamlining processes and different tools and technologies at ATKNIS
making work easier and more efficient” that are required to fulfill these processes
concluded Clare Bradley, the regional and the extent to which these tools are

11:
Figure 11:
Processes
required for
retrieving prior
knowledge from
and adding new
knowledge to the
enterprise
business-related
knowledge
sources (people,
enterprise
content and
business
processes)

10

actually utilized by the firm. Table 1 ATKINS and showed how the project
demonstrates these details. launched by the firm for establishing an
infrastructure for knowledge management
As evident in table 1, although the utilization benefitted the firm’s business and its two
Table 1: Evaluation of availability
1: of technology tools for supporting processes valuables assets of people and knowledge.
and level of utilization of of knowledge management is not fully
technology tools required for the realized at the present time in ATKINS, but it This case study also discusses the applied
different processes of knowledge also shows that the firm actually acquires a solution in the light of theoretical literature on
management
strong infrastructure and efficient technology knowledge management and concludes that
solutions and tools that would enable it to the firm has successfully established an
realize its aimed-for potential as a infrastructure rich enough to support the
knowledge-based working environment. processes required for managing the
enterprise knowledge in ways that would
leverage the business insights and decisions.
The Information about the ATKINS project
studied in this case study was collected via Conclusion
an interview meeting with Mrs. Clare
Bradley, Regional Systems Manager for ME
This case study sheds a light on how ATKINS,
& India regions in ATKINS
(clare.bradley@atkinsglobal.com) by Manal a global constructions firm, approached the
Rayess (manal.rayess@gmail.com) . The objective of establishing a knowledge-based
meeting took place at the ATKINS office in
working atmosphere in such a away that
Dubai (Bur-Dubai), on 6th November 2009.
Mrs. Bradley reviewed and verified the knowledge can be easily created, discovered,
contents relevena to ATKINS presented in shared, applied and stored. We described
this document. the technology solution implemented by

11

Knowledge Management in Organizations: Case Study

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