Siemens ShareNet : Building a Knowledge Network

Case Background: Siemen’s Information and Communication Network’s (ICN) Group Strategy Division had been delegated with the task of proposing a strategy for the future of ShareNet. ShareNet, a Knowledge Management System had grown from a small experiment to a tool and was widely used by ICN’s Sales and marketing department (S&M), had been rolled out to R&D department and one of the Siemen’s large U.S. Client. There had been a meltdown in the telecommunications industry which had precipitated major cutbacks throughout ICN.Group Strategy team faced pressure to cut costs and as a result, ShareNet was likely to come under increasing scrutiny as it been viewed by the upper management as a “ Nice to Have” and not as a “ Mandatory’ tool. There were questions around funding on whether Development and Maintenance of ShareNet be treated as a corporate initiative or the ICN’s five product divisions which use it as a resource should fund for the ongoing development and support.

Case Analysis: The core idea of building ShareNet, a global knowledge network surfaced when an internal ICN consultancy group, Business transformation partners teamed up with a group from Boston consulting group who identified the unique challenge faced by Siemens due to the poor reuse of customer solutions and sharing of best practices which was critical to shift from pure technology products to products with solutions. ShareNet consisted of knowledge library with information around knowledge objects that are easily retrievable by performing a search and urgent request section wherein urgent questions could be posted for anyone to respond. Pilot version of ShareNet, which was developed by a web development firm, rolled out to S&M department in few countries was not well received and had to be revamped by ArsDigita. In order to get the word out,