MBA632 Report: Analysis of Woolworths' Knowledge Management System

This report presents an analysis of the knowledge management (KM) system implemented by Woolworths Limited. It begins with an executive summary outlining the role and benefits of the KM system. The report then details the current KM practices at Woolworths, including socialization, externalization, combination, and internalization processes, and discusses the use of a community portal. Subsequently, it identifies challenges faced by Woolworths, such as issues with customer cycles, product costs, and competitive pressures. The report offers recommendations for improvement, focusing on coordination, measurement, organizational structure, training and development, encryption technology, and open communication. The analysis utilizes the SECI model to evaluate the KM system, and concludes with a summary of the findings and suggestions for long-term sustainability. The report is based on the MBA632 course requirements and provides a critical examination of Woolworths' KM approach.

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Knowledge Management
Name of the student: Diksha Sharma
Student ID: 132109

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Executive Summary
This report reflects the role and profit offered by the Knowledge Management (KM) system of
the nominated company “Woolworths Limited”. As soon as Woolworths Limited has realized
the need for the knowledge portal they design and implemented that. However, some issues were
highlighted whose mitigation become much crucial. The factors that are considered for the KM
system improvement include easy usability, wide access, flexibility, dynamics, collaboration,
customization and security.

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Table of Contents
1. Introduction..................................................................................................................................3
2. Analysis of Woolworths Limited’s KM system..........................................................................3
2.1 Socialization..........................................................................................................................4
2.2 Externalization.......................................................................................................................4
2.3 Combination..........................................................................................................................5
2.4 Internalization........................................................................................................................5
3. Challenges at Woolworths Limited.............................................................................................5
4. Recommendations........................................................................................................................6
4.1 Coordination and measurement.............................................................................................6
4.2 Organizational structure.........................................................................................................7
5. Conclusion...................................................................................................................................7
References........................................................................................................................................9

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1. Introduction
In these days hundred numbers of vendors have incorporated the concept or idea of portal in their
business organization. The specific organization that has been chosen for critically analyzing the
benefits and impact of Knowledge Management approach is Woolworths Limited. This report
depicts the current Knowledge Management system captured by Woolworths Limited. The areas
of Woolworths Limited with insufficient infrastructure and gaps are also identified and analyzed
in this report. Currently available KM and the set of knowledge uptake by the employee of
Woolworths Limited are also demonstrated in this report.
Apart from this, the issues or challenges associated to Woolworths KM model are also
elaborated in the consciousness for portal is seems to have created light of Knowledge
Management (KM) risks for the beginning of time (Patil and Kant 2014). In order to facilitate
growth as well as increasing internet usefulness Yahoo has succeeded in creating structures. Not
only this but also yahoo and some other have made structural provision, layout and document
navigation. Along with searchable directories those are established for web sites and some other
categorized topics always a standardized format is very much crucial.
2. Analysis of Woolworths Limited’s KM system
Currently the company has developed a new business strategy in terms of intranet design
and development. In order to create knowledge in Woolworths Limited the impact of information
is very effective. According to Mariano and Awazu (2017) the enterprise portal must contain all
official up to date and corporate information and theses information should have on time and
secured access ability (Wang and Yang 2016). The knowledge portals of Woolworths Limited

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support the role of the knowledge workers and also combines all external and internal
information that are suitable for the enterprise.
The users always want flexible workplace portal where which is capable to offer
integrated access form to the resources need by the users. Woolworths Limited has mentioned
all related content and identified that growth is the primary element for the community. It helps
to place high values over the usage of the community portal (Natek and Zwilling 2014). It helps
the company to retrieve and insert all necessary data in the portal whenever required. Moreover,
the portal used by Woolworths is a community portal. Different success factors are available that
helps to reach the knowledge management factors. In order to analyze the current knowledge
management system the SECI model needs to be considered (Nonaka et al. 2014). The
discussion is done in the below section.
2.1 Socialization
Socialization procedure is used for converting any implicit knowledge to a new implicit
knowledge set by making professional social interaction. People associated to this organization
are always intended to interact with different employees and consumers of the organization to
understand the goal and objectives (Wang and Yang 2016). Though, the communication
approach utilizes by the company is extremely formal and thus most of the times the employees
do not feel free to share their ideas with others. The decision making process used by the
company is also not integrated and therefore, sometime the knowledge shared with little
coordination lack.

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2.2 Externalization
In this process the complicated knowledge converted into clear knowledge by using
different codifying approaches (García-Holgado et al. 2015). The ideas and thoughts of all the
associates are considered individually through either documentation or imagination to decide the
final process. Though, the team management process of Woolworths Limited is extremely
professional and as a result the problems of the employees are always resolved sooner (Sabri
2014). However, the system security is another positive approach that helps to maintain the
application security and nine of the external users are allowed to access any data without
permission.
2.3 Combination
Woolworths Limited has successfully combined all necessary components together to
systemize the processes. All explicit knowledge will be integrated and the overall complexity
will be reduced. The executive board members are allowed to reformulate the terms and policies
(Wu et al. 2016). The database, network and the portals are needed to be combined properly to
make sure that all the operations are operating accurately. Proper combination of the elements
and functional components the knowledge management system of the company will be
improved.
2.4 Internalization
The company also uses professional processes which help to convert the clear knowledge
into implicit knowledge. Both annual reports and hard written reports are available through
which awareness can be generated (Corones and Davis 2017). Though, the company is focused
on internationalization but still they are not aware about personal development of the individual
employees.

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3. Challenges at Woolworths Limited
After analyzing the current operational and functional activities of the company it has
been found that the company is facing certain challenges and those are as follows:
 Slowing customer cycle (Wu et al. 2017)
 Issues with the product cost
 Decreasing rate of return on Woolworths a de-rating
 HR facility issues
 Very high rated competitive pressure
 Threats from the new similar type of entrants
 Diversification for the new products
 Lack of security concern in the user portal
4. Recommendations
4.1 Coordination and measurement
After analyzing all coordination and measurement related issues facing by Woolworths
Limited it is found that those are required to be resolved to avoid further errors. The
recommendation lists offered are as follows:
Training and development: The Company needs to arrange professional individual
training and development program to make them much aware of the company needs and
objectives. On job training will help the members to become more flexible and engaged to their
job roles.

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Encryption technology implementation: In order to increase the overall security of the
company portal the associate technical experts are required to incorporate professional
encryption technology to the system. This security will prevent the unwanted users to access
information from the portal without permission.
Open communication: Due to communication gap sometimes the employees become
unable to share their point of views with the rest of the employees. Therefore the policy of
Woolworths Limited needs to be revised with the implementation of open communication. It will
help the employees to share their creativity and ideas with both the higher authority and
coordinators. It will help to establish coordination among the members.
4.2 Organizational structure
As the socialization and externalization processes used by the company is little limited
therefore, it is crucial for the company to include professional multi disciplinary approaches to
make sure that all the associates are contributing the best from their end. It is the responsibility of
the company higher authority to invest a little much capital to improve the search functionalities.
After that the content of the products and services offered by the company needs to be well
categorized. In order to create the content of the company offerings all the employees should be
encouraged professionally. A community of practice development will provide a friendly
environment to the company associates.
5. Conclusion
From the overall discussion it can be concluded that, in order to gain measurable success
and long term sustainability from sufficient services and products it is mandatory for the
company to check the current KM model and they ways through which this can be improved.

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The portals are all regarded by the organizations through access route of Knowledge
Management (KM). Before implementing the portal it has to be planned accurately so that all the
users can successfully access needful information from the portal. After determining the business
requirements all the sources of information should be identified accordingly. After the end of the
analysis the business impact should be analyzed and even if any changes are found to be
incorporated then possible changes need to be implemented. The blueprint of the organization
that should be implemented for the consumers and employee must cover all the single elements
and components. Based on challenges proper recommendations are also developed in this report.

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References
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García-Holgado, A., García-Peñalvo, F.J. and Rodríguez-Conde, M.J., 2015, October. Definition
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Sabri, A., 2014. Applying DeLone and McLean IS success model on sociotechno knowledge
management system. International Journal of Computer Science Issues (IJCSI), 11(6), p.160.
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pp.79-91.
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