Week 4

Skill #4: Collect knowledge and information about current events, technology, the business environment, the clients business, your company and consider this when making decisions.

Week 1: Expanding Easy Wheels (EW) operations into the Asian market will require some planning. This is a task that will require teamwork and cooperation from all levels of management and leadership. Geoffrey Colvin says that in order for businesses to thrive today, they must be up front and honest about where the company stands and willing to make risk decisions in order to adapt to todays ever-changing business environment (2006). Discussing the future of the business environment, advantages and disadvantages of manufacturing abroad, and the role of todays business managers and leaders will clarify where EW stands today and clear the path for a successful tomorrow. Creating new manufacturing facilities in the Asian marketplace will provide new jobs and opportunities in the region, as well as potential new leadership roles for EW to fill for ensuring these new sites are successful. EW has a standard practice of hiring wounded US veterans first. This can still be the case by creating new managerial and leadership roles for veterans, who can travel to and from multiple manufacturing sites.

Looking back to week one and the recommendations you made in the week one assessment in conjunction with this weeks material consider EWs position in the industry, their current customers and those in the future and identify trends, ideas and technology that you feel Dwight should consider in growing the company. For this skill, Dwight wants to see how well you can judge the external trends for the business by measuring your understanding of a SWOT analysis. For this, he has prepared a SWOT TABLE for you to evaluate. See the Quiz he has prepared under the week four content area for the directions.

Skill #5: Know the basics of knowledge management.

Inge Swanson was one of the first employees Dwight and Ike hired. She runs the customer relations department and now the online returns and rewards programs as well. Recently she has gone to Dwight and Ike with the idea that her commitments to the webstore are getting so demanding that she needs help in several areas. She wants to hire people to take over the customer relations department and online returns so she can focus on the webstore and move into a marketing role. She thinks that Dwight and Ike should consider this move for two important reasons; better decision making and, should anything happen to her, the whole online and customer relations departments would shut down. Ike agreed immediately and Dwight was right behind him. The problem Dwight realized almost immediately was: How would the transition work with all that knowledge in Inges head? And all the tools, she uses to measure her marketing goals etc.: How can we make good decisions without them?

Dwight wants you to look at the idea of collecting and storing the knowledge Inge and the others have in the business. Using the course material and prior business class experience complete a brief 2-3 page memo outlining the steps a manager might take to make the transition go smoothly. In the outline include:

• Explain how to capture, collect, and store knowledge for the company.

• Explain how these actions will affect performance in the company.

• Describe how you go about collecting knowledge from Inge.

• Explain how the knowledge will affect the hiring decisions for the new departments or should it be teams?

• Explain how it could affect Inges new role.