INFORMATION & KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT

Information & Knowledge Management

Information & Knowledge Management

Introduction

John Lewis is the 3rd largest private company in the UK according to the Times Magazine in 2008, which is specialized in the distribution of high quality products with 27 stores. John Lewis has non-food and 170 Waitrose supermarkets for food; the group includes direct services from the company Greenbee. The company was founded in 1864, right after its initiation, the company became an employee-owned company in 1950, when the founder's son sold the title to a fund held by employees at a price quoted well below market value. The participatory system allowed sharing between partners not only responsibilities but also benefits, profits, information and power (William & Richard , 2005, pp. 157-163).

This business organization is primarily based on partnership and shared responsibility with employees: each employee has the opportunity to influence the business through branch forums and at the store level, each major unit operational group has its own body of participative decision. All partners are represented by the Council's partnership group (82 people, 80% elected by the employees) employees shall appoint five members to the Board and has the power to dismiss the President. The company can create new knowledge by identifying significant relationships between cognitive elements in its possession or between them and the reality which it operates, and this knowledge becomes explicit when it translates into something tangible such as a document. After the acquisition and encoding of knowledge it should be stored, this is the only way to tap into the future knowledge. This requires indexing all the elements previously acquired, encoded and stored. Knowledge can be managed for the purpose of establishing business, shared between operators under certain forms, methods and levels of access, and distributed to third parties.

Strategic Information Needs of John Lewis

Development and success of any organization (company) is largely determined by the strategy adopted by the organization. Under the strategy, a set of methods and means of long-term future objectives are determined. In this context, strategy can be understood and the concepts of “strategic approach”, “strategic tool”, “strategic system”, etc are highlighted. Currently, due to the transition to a market economy and the issue of the development strategy of firm behaviour have been paying a lot of attention that contributes to a radical change in the views on information systems. They are regarded as strategically important systems that influence the change of targeting the company, its goals, methods, products, services, allowing ahead of the competition, as well as to work more closely with customers and suppliers. A new type of information system has been originated which is strategic (www.johnlewis.com). Strategic information system is a computer information system that provides decision support for the implementation of the strategic long-term goals of the organization. There are situations where a new quality of information systems made the change not only in the structure but also the profile of companies, promoting their welfare. However, this may cause undesirable psychological situation associated with the automation of some functions and types of work, ...