Knowledge Management Strategies: A Case Study of Bouygues Telecom

This case study explores how Bouygues Telecom, a major player in the French mobile telephony market, addressed its knowledge management challenges. Faced with difficulties in managing information flow and fostering collaboration across departments, Bouygues Telecom partnered with Valtech and implemented Microsoft's SharePoint Portal Server. The company launched pilot projects to share tacit knowledge, focusing on SAP Best Practices to provide online help and knowledge portals for its employees. This initiative enabled the conversion of tacit knowledge into explicit knowledge by creating an online technical knowledge base accessible to technicians in the field. The outcome was immediate and impressive, improving information access, decision-making, and overall efficiency. By embracing transformation in their management and focusing on effective projects, Bouygues Telecom successfully achieved its knowledge management vision.

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Introduction
Bouygues Telecom has covered about 98% of France network with more than six million clients.
The company was established in the year 1994 as the subsidiary of international Bouygues
group. Today, Bouygues Telecom has proven to be one of the most innovative and dynamics key
player within the French mobile telephony industry (Bourreau, Sun & Verboven, 2016). The
main objective of this report is to analyze Bouygues Telecom under the given headlines.
The situation and problem faced by Bouygues Telecom
One of the challenges faced by the Bouygues Telecom was the issue of size. Work specialization
is one of the key factors that can be negatively impacted if any business organization has poor
structures (Maillé, Tuffin & Vigne., 2011). This because work specialization will determine how
various tasks are divided among the employees. A long period task is broken down into small
tasks and facilitates more specialization among the workers. Therefore, due to small size
Bouygues Telecom struggled in managing the flow of the information from one department to
another. Organizational alignments of any company will depend on its capability in accessing the
information in taking and making decisions (Dutot, 2013). With no clear and right information,
made it difficult for Bouygues Telecom to communicate appropriately.
Due to poor sharing of information, individuals and department of Bouygues Telecom were not
able to collaborate efficiently and effectively in other parts of the business. Thus, the flow of
information is important in executing the strategies of a business. Lack of proper communication
is one of the key hurdles to the performance of Bouygues Telecom company. Any successful
company must be able to depend on frontline, horizontal and vertical sharing of information to
ensure the data needed is readily available (Cézanne & Rubinstein, 2011).

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The strategy adopted by Bouygues Telecom to cope with the situation
In order to contain the situation, Bouygues Telecom had to consult the Valtech an organization
specialized in information technology enterprise and management consultation. Valtech is an
international digital organization which help their clients in connecting with their customers and
closing available experience gaps. The Valtech is well rooted in addressing the marketing,
experience, technological design and transformational difficulties among its clients like the
Bouygues Telecom. Therefore, the company played a bigger role in helping Bouygues Telecom
to orchestrate seamless experience with its customers and to implement its solutions properly
(Lamarche & Rubinstein, 2012). Bouygues Telecom had made the right decision since their
project needed an immediate and effective knowledge management solutions and the experience
in the field was well established.
How Bouygues Telecom incorporated IT tools to implement the Knowledge Management
(KM) system?
Bouygues Telecom had to incorporate information technology tools to help it in implementing
the knowledge management in their systems. This is because incorporating the IT approaches
was challenging, difficult in managing as well as too expensive (Abubakar, Ibrahim, Kado &
Bala, 2014). Thus, Bouygues Telecom began the process by issuing an invitation to tender. After
a long study of the market, Bouygues Telecom settled on Microsoft’s SharePoint Portal Server
solution. This is because Microsoft’s SharePoint Portal Server its very flexible in meeting
different needs of the Bouygues Telecom company and also not difficult to implement (Dahl,
2010). Microsoft’s SharePoint Portal Server is a business company collaborative portal used on
the basis of windows SharePoint service platforms. The portal service platform has more features
like personalization and external content source. Theses features among others are critical in

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Bouygues Telecom in navigating, to aggregate and organizing all the information in a single
web-based platform. Bouygues Telecom company was therefore, able to manage all its workflow
procedures linked to document publications and sharing the documents in dedicated spaces
(Husman, 2010).
Which initial step Bouygues Telecom took to share tacit knowledge?
The initial Bouygues Telecom took in sharing the tacit knowledge was the launch of pilot project
in North-east France. Pilot project was critical in leading the efforts of the company in attempt in
determining the viability. Other than focusing on the efforts, pilot project enabled the Bouygues
Telecom to collect the concept information which was essential in further implementation of its
ideas (Pik et al 2010). For the pilot project to work effectively, the project officers have to
balance their choices and decisions in a manner that will not jeopardize the success of the
technique. For instance, examining the timing which means decisions have to be conducted in a
way that will allow execution of opportunities as the demands of the business. In order for a pilot
project to fully fulfil its objectives, the company had to comprehend the gaps in interpreting
using the pilot project as a technique. That means effort was critical in defining the information
from the shareholders of the concept and making sure its properly handled for it to meets what
was needed. Because of such efforts, the pilot project was able to deliver support to about one
hundred members of staff through SAP.
The idea of SAP Best Practice was developed by SAP many years back. The idea was to
recommend various business organization to organize their business appropriately so that their
automation to move smoothly. SAP practitioners have always believed in SAP Best practice. The
primary object of pilot project was to offer online help to the end-user and make sure that they
are able to share best practices of this solution. The SAP Best practices knowledge is helping in

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managing the publications and in classifying the documents and offers the users with one
knowledge portal. Therefore, the SAP Best practice users can integrate their own advices and
other experiences linked to SAP through own browsers.
The outcome of the project was immediate and impressive to the Bouygues Telecom. With SAP
Best Practice the users like Bouygues Telecom are able to get accurate and quick information
thus helping them exact contributions to their bottom-line. The SAP Best Practices supports
business organization best practices procedures due to wide range of functionality contained in
the application. For instance, within the automotive sectors, there is certain functionality for just
in time (JIT) or the forecasting schedule agreement. SAP also overwhelms a sequence for other
stakeholders like suppliers which guarantee the delivery of the products in exact order of the
manufacturers have built them. The SAP encourages the companies to be responsible and
accountable in implementing and integrating their own strategies or software (Rizescu &
Andone, 2010. Few companies are aware of SAP best practices are beyond the software business
procedures just need to include in the scope and implement. This is because they incorporate the
governance and structured decisions making to software solutions in businesses. One of the
objectives by SAP is finding ways in gaining tangible advantages in applying the technology.
Through identification of value-based projects and governance procedure, the Bouygues
Telecom was able to make some considerable improvements. The knowledge base has enabled
the Bouygues Telecom in extending and leveraging the value of its SAP Best practice
investment.
How did Bouygues Telecom convert its technical tacit knowledge into explicit knowledge?
The Bouygues Telecom was able to convert its technical tacit knowledge into explicit knowledge
by giving the online technicians an opportunity to access the technical data from the company

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knowledge base (Maxwell, 2013). Initially, it was designed in a way that it could only be
accessed by the maintenance technical experts from the same area. Thus, the second project was
able to include approximately thirty individuals before incorporating to other 200 members of
staff. The technical experts working on websites can link with the technical knowledge base on
portals on own portable devices. Hence, making it easier for them in accessing recommendations
and files created by their co-workers in same cases. In case they found that a file is not
completely relevant, they could just make it more useful and ensured their expertise was
available for other individuals (Hafez & ElDahshan, 2010).
This enabled the Bouygues Telecom to come up with a comprehensive online library comprised
of technical knowledge. Technical experts have now real-time, rapid and can easily access
expertise from other well established technological companies. Bouygues Telecom online library
is very versatile and different technical experts can look for knowledge base with respect to
certain procedures like particular areas of their interests or full texts. Technicians have also
secured the required information in making appropriate decisions faster than before. Before
Bouygues Telecom established the online portal, technicians had to spent more time looking for
the right individual with appropriate information. All they need today is searching for the
required information on website.
Conclusion
Bouygues telecom company is able to over key challenges of knowledge management success
end-use and resistance through embracing transformation in their management. Through
focusing on effective and efficient projects it has been able to get immediate and impressive
outcomes. Bouygues Telecom has therefore achieved in making its knowledge management
vision a reality.

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