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turn aims at improving the overall performance of theenterprise.

The resulting Customer Knowledge Management(CKM) process model as introduced by [9] aims atintegrating the two concepts of CRM and KM. Weconsider KM to be a toolset which cannot be appliedindependently of business processes. Thus we focus onthe application within the area of CRM. The contribu-tion of this article is to describe cases in which the

performance of CRM was improved by applying theCKM process model.

In this paper, we will proceed as follows: Section 2 provides an overview of related research within theareas of CRM and KM which form the foundation ofthe CKM process model. Subsequently we will intro-duce the CKM process model based on a framework ofsix CRM sub-processes. In section 3, three action-research cases with companies in the financial servicessector will then illustrate the application of the CKM

process model. Our cross-case analysis in section 4

will specifically focus on how the illustrated casesmanaged to improve company performance throughthe application of KM instruments within CRM. Fi-nally, in section 5 we will conclude this article with anoutlook on further research opportunities.

1.3 Research Methodology

To achieve our research goals and derive the CKM process model, we employed the research approachaction research as defined by Gummesson: On the

basis of their paradigms and pre-understanding andgiven access to empirical, real-world data through theirrole as change agent, [] action scientists [] gener-ate a specific (local) theory, which is then tested andmodified through action. The interaction between therole of academic researcher and the role of manage-ment consultant, within a single project as well as

between projects, can also help the scientist to generatea more general theory, which in turn becomes an in-strument for increased theoretical sensitivity []. [14,

p. 208]. Apart from this foundation, we also used in-depth case studies and desktop research to complementour experiences and validate the conclusions derivedfrom the CKM process model. The CKM processmodel is based on nearly 6 years of research in a spe-

cial corporate-academic partnership. Research partnerswere major European players in sectors such as finan-cial services and insurance, telecommunications andchemicals.

As a foundation of our research, we use the busi-ness engineering approach developed by [20, pp. 13 etseqq.]. To describe the corporate reality, it separatesthe three layers strategy, processes and informationsystems. The strategy layer determines the business

model and proposes the goals that need to be achievedfor the success of the company. The process layercreates the output needed to fulfill the goals of thestrategy. The information systems support the proc-esses in creating the outputs, sometimes actually ena-

bling the processes to fulfill the requirements of cus-tomers. The research described in this paper concen-trates on the process and information systems level ofCRM and CKM.

2 A Model for Customer Knowledge

Management

2.1 Customer Relationship Management

The origins of CRM can be traced back to the man-agement concept ofRelationship Marketing(RM) [16].Relationship Marketing is an integrated effort to iden-

tify, build up and maintain a network with individualcustomers for the mutual benefit of both sides [35, p.34]. RM is of largely strategic character and lacks aholistic view on business processes, although they areregarded as important [23].

Advances in information technology (IT) had a sig-nificant influence on CRM, focusing mainly on theinformation systems layer in the past. The goal was tosupport the existing isolated approach of dealing withcustomer relationships. With the CRM philosophyaiming at creating an integrated view of the customeracross the enterprise, these systems were connectedand today form the building blocks of comprehensive

integrated CRM systems.We consider CRM to view the customer relation-ship as an investment, which is to contribute to the

bottom line of the enterprise. The design and manage-ment of the customer relationship is to strengthen thecompetitive position of an enterprise by increasing theloyalty of customers. While this extends beyond theuse of information technology, IT is an important en-abler of modern CRM.

Apart from the strategy oriented concept of RM andsystems oriented concepts, there are several CRMapproaches with special focus on business processes[33]. However, these approaches are based on the sepa-

ration of the functional areas of marketing, sales andservice, which by itself does not provide a cross-functional process view.

CRM processes typically require not only transac-tional data, which can be automatically collected andstored in relational databases, but also a significantamount of knowledge. Also, CRM processes are typi-cally complex and only structured to a certain extent.Hence, they can be considered knowledge-intensive

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processes [7]. Besides developing an integrated viewof CRM processes, it is therefore critical for our frame-work to address the management of knowledge flowsfrom and to the customer across all communicationchannels as well as to enable the use the knowledgeabout the customers. This is why we will focus on KMin the next section.

2.2 Knowledge Management

Up to now, there has been an abundance of publica-tions to KM, which fall into two broad categories,epistemological and ontology oriented KM models.Within epistemology mainly the cognitivistic and theautopoietic approaches have been of significance to thearea of KM [39]. The cognitivistic approach describesknowledge as stored in distinct knowledge structureswhich are created through rule based manipulation andcan exists independently of an individual. In contrast,

the autopoietic approach according to [39, p. 55f.]states that knowledge is context sensitive and embod-ied in the individual.

According to the autopoietic epistemology, indi-viduals acquire knowledge by observing and interpret-ing their environment [38]. They can actively transferknowledge between themselves through articulationand different types of interaction [40]. The main differ-entiating characteristic of knowledge is the difficulty ofits articulation. Knowledge that can be easily articu-lated is labeled explicit knowledge. Knowledge, thatis difficult to articulate and therefore difficult to trans-fer is labeled tacit knowledge [25, pp. 3-25] whichwas superseded by the term implicit knowledge.With their SECI KM model Nonaka and Takeuchihave formulated an encompassing epistemologicalautopoietic KM model [19, p.45]. Boisot [2] andMcLoughlin & Thorpe [18] also provide examples ofthis approach.

Ontological KM models on the other hand viewknowledge as a black box. The characteristics ofknowledge are defined through its relationships with aconstructed universe of discourse. Modeling dimen-sions frequently used by ontological KM models in-clude a process dimension and an agent dimension(individual vs. group).

Process oriented KM models focus on the charac-

teristics of knowledge during its lifecycle. They ana-lyze the relationships and environmental variables thatinfluence the processes of knowledge development,dissemination, modification and use. Examples for

process oriented KM models include Probst [27] andWiig [42]. Agent oriented KM models focus on thecharacteristics of knowledge during the flow betweenindividuals. They analyze the variables that expedite orhinder the flow of knowledge in social networks. Ex-

amples for agent oriented KM models include Wenger[41] and Enkel [6].

Most KM models developed within the last decadeinclude characteristics of both views. Nonaka has inte-grated an agent ontology dimension in 1994 [15] andhe tries to fully bond both views in his concept of ba[19]. The process oriented KM models of Demarest [4]or Blessing [1] by definition focus on the processing ofexplicated knowledge. However, a fully balancedmodel is yet to be created [17].

In the next section, we will introduce a CKM proc-ess model which, based on the findings in this section,will connect the concepts of CRM and KM. It will alsointegrate the different aspects of knowledge by com-

bining elements of the epistemological and the onto-logical view of Knowledge Management.

2.3 Deriving an Integrated Customer Knowl-

edge Management Process Model

2.3.1 CRM Process Model

Marketing, sales, and service are primary businessfunctions [26] with the characteristics of a high degreeof direct customer interaction and knowledge intensity.We derive our process model by detailing these func-tions into relevant business processes, which may becross-functional. A CRM business process involves the

processing of customer knowledge to pursue the goalsof relationship marketing. Usually it also involvesdirect customer contact and the exchange of informa-tion or services between enterprise and customer. Such

processes are either triggered by the customer with the

aim of receiving information or services or by theenterprise with the aim of delivering information orservices to customers. Each process handles a specific

business object which distinguishes it from other proc-esses. Based on [31, pp. 57 et seqq.] and our own ac-tion research experience we identified campaign man-agement, lead management, offer management, con-tract management, complaint management, andservicemanagement as the six relevant CRM business proc-esses (cf. figure 1).

Campaign managementis the core marketing proc-ess which fulfills the idea of interactive, individualizedcontacts in contrast to traditional transaction marketing

[13, p.11]. It deals with the planning, realization, con-trol and monitoring of marketing activities towardsknown recipients. Marketing campaigns are individual-ized (one-to-one marketing [24]) or segment specificand offer communication channels for feedback. Theobjective of campaign management is to generate valu-able opportunities or leads as the basis for lead man-agement.


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Lead managementis the consolidation, qualifica-tion, and prioritization of contacts with prospectivecustomers. The objective is to provide sales staff with aqualified and prioritized list of presumably valuable

prospects to be precisely addressed within the offermanagement process.

Offer managementis the core sales process. Its ob-jective is the corporation-wide consistent creation anddelivery of individualized, binding offers. An offermanagement process may be triggered by a customerinquiry, a qualified lead, or a discovered opportunity.

Contract management is the creation and mainte-nance of contracts for the supply of products and ser-vices. As such, it supports offer managementorservicemanagement processes. Contract management com-

prises the maintenance and adjustment of long-termcontracts, e.g. for outsourcing agreements or insur-ances.

Service managementis the planning, realization andcontrol of measures for the provision of services. A

service is an intangible output of an enterprise gener-ated with direct involvement of customers. Examplesinclude maintenance, repair, and support activities inthe after-sales phase as well as the provision of finan-cial or telecommunication services after the conclusionof contracts.

Within the scope ofcomplaint management, articu-lated dissatisfaction of customers is received, proc-essed, and communicated into the enterprise [37]. Theobjectives are to improve customer satisfaction in theshort-run by directly addressing problems that led tocomplaints and to design a continuous improvement

process in the long-run.

Operative CRM system components directly sup-port the six CRM sub-processes described above. Ana-lytical components primarily emphasize on the proc-esses campaign management, lead management, andoffer management. To cover the collaborative aspectson the process level, CRM requires activities to designinterfaces to customers at customer interaction points.

Interaction managementis the design and selection ofmedia-based communication channels like interactivevoice response (IVR) or the world-wide-web (WWW)to achieve an optimal channel mix [34]. The objectiveis to increase the quality and value of interactionswhile at the same time decreasing the cost of interac-tions by shifting customers to less costly channels, e.g.web-self-service.

Closely connected to interaction management ischannel managementwhich addresses the challenge ofconfiguration and synchronization of different commu-nication channels [12, pp. 18-19]. Key objectives are todefine organizational responsibilities for each channel,to avoid conflicts between channels, and to ensureconsistent knowledge flows across different channels.

2.3.2 Integrating Customer Relationship Man-

agement and Knowledge Management

To achieve their goal of providing a solution for theprocess of the customers, enterprises need to focus onthree sorts of knowledge in CRM processes [21]. They

make up what we consider to be customer knowledge. They need to understand the requirements of cus-

tomers in order to address them. This is referred toas knowledge about customers.

The information needs of the customers in theirinteraction with the enterprise require knowledge

for customers. Finally, customers possess knowledge about the

products and services they use as well as abouthow they perceive the offerings they purchased.This knowledge from customers is valuable as itfeeds into measures to improve products and ser-vices. Efforts need to be made to channel this

knowledge back into the enterprise.We therefore consider CKM to include more than

just knowledge from the customers (in contrast to [10])and perceive it as a comprehensive approach for cus-tomer knowledge. The CKM process model as intro-duced by Gebert et al. 2002 [9] was the result of acollaborative research process in which the authorswere involved as well. It offers a process perspective toillustrate which KM tools can be applied to the CRMsub-processes to achieve effective CKM. It introducesthe four KM aspects content, competence, collabora-tion and composition. These aspects were derived byanalyzing existing KM models as well as numerous

case studies (for details, cf. [28], which is also basedon our collaborative research). They will be furtherreinforced by the action research examples we intro-duce in the next section.

To comprehensively cover the Customer Knowl-edge Management approach, the model would alsohave to encompass the layers of strategy and informa-tion system. We chose to omit these layers in thegraphical representation to avoid excessive complexity

but will explain them in this section.On a strategy level, companies need to determine

how Customer Knowledge Management can support business goals and processes and use these as guide-

lines for designing the Customer Knowledge Manage-ment processes and performance indicators. The proc-ess level, our main focus in this paper, is derived asfollows:Like the SECI model of Nonaka/Takeuchi[19], the CKM process model is based on the fact thatthere are two types of knowledge, implicit (or tacit)and explicit. According to Polanyi, who introduced theconcept of tacit knowledge in 1968 [25], each indi-


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Fi ure 1: Customer Knowled e Mana ement rocess model

vidual possesses an amount of implicit knowledgewhich influences the ability to articulate and thereforeexplicate and create knowledge. Implicit knowledgeincludes past experiences and influences the perceptionof the environment. However, explicit and implicitknowledge as such are not separable from the particu-lar individual possessing it. Therefore, we term it theknowledge aspect competence. As a consequence,the organization can only directly manage explicatedknowledge in the form of media such as text or imageswhich we term the knowledge aspect content. Con-tent is part of the business processes and exists inde-

pendently of individuals.Similar to the revised SECI model of Nonaka and

Hedlund [15], the CKM process model also introducestwo aspects that take into account how knowledge iscreated, disseminated and used within an organization.As a consequence, the model contains elements of boththe epistemological view and the ontological view withan agent dimension. The ontological view is repre-sented by the two aspects of collaboration andcomposition. Collaboration deals with the creationand dissemination of knowledge among few individu-

als, e.g. in project teams. The knowledge aspect com-position, on the other hand, deals with the dissemina-tion and usage of knowledge among a large number ofindividuals. Composition deals mainly with helping

people find explicated knowledge, for example in en-terprise portals.

The four knowledge aspects deliver services thatsupport the CRM sub-processes. That sometimes re-quires support processes such as managing content or

competency information from creation to application ina lifecycle. The aspects of collaboration and composi-tion provide an infrastructure that supports the provi-sion of knowledge to business processes while not

being a process itself. Nevertheless, as proposed by the business engineering approach (see section 1.3) allknowledge aspects need to be supported by informa-tion systems that deliver specific functions for eachaspect. The aspect contenttypically requires the use ofcontent management or document management sys-tems. The aspect competence makes use of expertisedirectories as well as skill management or e-learningsystems. Email, group information tools, and instantmessaging systems are typical functions that supportthe aspect ofcollaboration. Finally, the aspect ofcom-

position which primarily deals with search and naviga-tion uses systems such as knowledge mining systems,

personalization, taxonomy management systems, andknowledge maps. While it is beyond the scope of this

paper to illustrate the use of all these systems to sup-port CRM sub-processes, we will focus on three caseswhich are part of our action research work and provideinsights on how to improve performance by employing

the four aspects of knowledge and supporting informa-tion systems.

Content

Competence

Composition

Collaboration

Customer

Process

Marketing

Sales

Service

Offer

Management

Campaign

Management

Lead

Management

Service

Management

Contract

Management

Complaint

Management

Service 1

Service 2

...

Product 1

Interaction

Management

Multi-Channel-

Management

Product 2

Content

Competence

Composition

Collaboration

Customer

Process

Marketing

Sales

Service

Offer

Management

Campaign

Management

Lead

Management

Service

Management

Contract

Management

Complaint

Management

Service 1

Service 2

...

Product 1

Interaction

Management

Multi-Channel-

Management

Content

Competence

Composition

Collaboration

Customer

Process

Marketing

Sales

Service

Offer

Management

Campaign

Management

Lead

Management

Service

Management

Contract

Management

Complaint

Management

Service 1

Service 2

...

Product 1

Interaction

Management

Multi-Channel-

Management

Product 2


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3 Action Research Cases of Customer

Knowledge Management

3.1 Case One Knowledge Support for the

Customer Communication Center of a

Mutual Fund Company

The following action research case of a large mu-tual fund company in central Europe shows the impor-tance of explicated knowledge for the CRM sub-

process service managementand the KM aspects ofcontentand composition. The case focuses on a majorelement within modern service management, the cus-tomer communication center (CCC), which integratesthe communication channels phone, fax and (e)mail toserve customers via multiple channels.

In this case, the CCC serves bank employees andretail customers alike. It consists of 120 employeeswho offer support on two levels, depending on exper-tise required to resolve inquiries about a wide array oftopics connected to complex financial products.

3.1.1 CKM Challenges

In order to address the needs of their customers,CCC agents utilize different information sources pro-vided by an internal unit named Information Support.The content was mostly disseminated via email. Whilethis was possible without further investments in thetechnical infrastructure, each CCC employee had toorganize his or her content individually and new em-

ployees did not have access to older information.Therefore, a knowledge platform was created usingbasic web technology which offered the same informa-tion as email with a certain time delay. Yet, with anincreasing amount of content, the navigational struc-ture eventually became more and more cluttered. Sinceno search function was available, the CCC agentstended to still primarily use email for information re-trieval and not the central knowledge platform.

The existing solution also caused significant costsfor creating, formatting and publishing content. Thecomplicated process with only very basic support inconverting documents to a web-based format alsodelayed timely publication, which is critical to support-

ing the CCC agents.

3.1.2 Relevant Knowledge Aspects

The relevant knowledge aspects in this case werecontentas well as composition. The focus of the pro-

ject was to provide the CCC employee with knowledgefor the customer, thereby concentrating on explicatedknowledge that can be rather easily transferred. One

major shortcoming was in the current design of knowl-edge composition. The navigational structure wasunwieldy and searching for content was not possible.This also applied to Information Support since theeditors had no adequate tool to help them structure theknowledge and get an overview of existing documents.

The major contentchallenge, requiring up to 50%percent of the time to supply information to the CCCwas the conversion of documents from office applica-tion formats delivered by other departments into con-tent displayable in a web browser. Up to the project,editors had to convert content manually with special-ized HTML-editors.

To overcome the challenges, a new content man-agement system was selected. It includes a conversiontool which is based on newly created templates inoffice applications and creates content in HTML for-mat automatically. The application for the editors en-ables them to publish new content directly from theOffice application and provides an overview of exist-

ing documents. They can be directly accessed andedited from within the tool. On the part of the CCCagents, the content management system offers a searchfunction in addition to a redesigned consistent naviga-tional structure.

3.1.3 Results

Based on a detailed analysis of the processes ofCCC agents and editors, knowledge dissemination wassignificantly improved. The new structure and im-

proved timeliness of information available on theknowledge platform is an important factor in support-ing CCC agents. It enables them to provide faster an-swers with higher quality. By saving time, customersare served faster. An individual agent can serve morecustomers, thereby increasing service levels and reduc-ing waiting time.

For the Information Support department, the costsand time needed to maintain the new platform wasgreatly reduced by mostly eliminating efforts to con-vert existing content. The structure is now maintainedmuch more easily. The focus on just one informationsource makes it easier for agents to find what theyneed, reduces operational costs of publication for edi-tors and strain on the network infrastructure caused bylarge email attachments.

3.2 Case Two Skill Management as a Cus-

tomer oriented Human Resource Man-

agement Instrument at a Health Insur-

ance Company

The following action research case of a Europeanhealth insurance provider shows the business impact of


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the knowledge aspect ofcompetence for all CRM sub-processes. The case focuses on strategic skill manage-ment as a means to support complex customer proc-esses, improve the corporate ability to react quickly tochanging market requirements and to manage andimprove the corporate skill set.


Customers typically demand individual, affordableinsurance services. This requires employees in thecustomer oriented units that are organized along mar-keting, sales, and services to have complex, compre-hensive and flexible knowledge for and about the cus-tomers. Without a management tool for managing andmaking visible the required knowledge and skills on acorporate level, the organization could suffer compe-tency shortages with a negative impact on business

performance.

3.2.2 Relevant Knowledge AspectsThis case focuses on the knowledge aspect ofcom-

petency and therefore concentrates on the managementof implicit knowledge which cannot be transferred

between persons solely by using information technol-ogy. The project aimed at establishing an IT solution tosupport corporate skill management which would cre-ate transparency as to where in the organization whatknowledge resides. The main services to be delivered

by the new system were derived from the requirementsby the business units. These were competency profilesof employees combined with search functionality tolocate employees with certain skills. Also, the system

was to create competency maps of the organizationbased on individual competency profiles. In addition,Human resources (HR) demanded that the competency

profiles can be used for individual goal definition,human resource planning, and to derive training meas-ures.

To develop the competency profile, a skill treewas used, which included professional competence aswell as information about education, language skills,and experience. The identification of competenciescritical for the success of the company was based oncriteria such as relevance to strategic goals, relativesteadiness (i.e. how much effort it takes to acquire a

skill that lasts), and relative scarceness.The project team used these criteria to develop a hi-erarchical ordering with relative steadiness being thetop hierarchy level. This ensured that the skill treecould be aggregated into a skill map reflecting the skilldevelopment costs in an appropriate manner. For eachqualification in the skill tree the competency profilestates whether it is present or not. A multi-level grad-

ing scheme is used for measuring professional compe-tency and soft skills.

3.2.3 Results

The prototype for the skill management system wasdeveloped based on standard software. The skill pro-

files and the skill history enable managers and HRpersonnel to efficiently plan training measures for eachindividual employee. On a corporate level, the aggre-gation of data within the skill profiles allows for analy-sis of the existing skill set and for deduction of re-quired strategically relevant skills. With this informa-tion, a gap between the required skill set and the exist-ing skill set can be identified and addressed via corpo-rate training measures or new hiring policies.

Also, the skill profiles allow for quick and easy lo-cation of required expertise within the company duringany step of any process. Thus the resource allocationcan be optimized since long searches for an expert are

avoided. Additionally, project team members with therequired skills can be located and recruited more eas-ily.

The prototype has been field tested and the resultswere very good. All participants assessed the systems

potential on their daily work as essential and rankedthe systems benefit as good or very good. There-fore, it will be rolled out to further parts of the organi-zation in the near future.

3.3 Case Three Global Collaboration at an

Insurance Company

The third case concerns an insurance companywhich is one of the major players in Europe andworldwide. The company had experienced stronggrowth, especially with acquisitions. As a result, in thearea of life insurance products, there was an abundanceof information systems in use to manage contracts. Toenable a more efficient contract management espe-cially for closed blocks (contracts that were still run-ning but no longer offered to new customers), thecompany decided to standardize processes and systemsin this area on a global scale as far as possible. Thusthis case focuses on the CRM sub-process contractmanagement and the KM aspects of collaboration,

composition and content.


In order to standardize the management of closedblocks, projects were initiated worldwide on a country-level. The teams consisted of members of the globalcore team as well as of local experts who reengineeredthe processes, calculation models and information


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systems involved in the management of closed blocks.As a consequence, there were a number of globallydispersed teams working on similar problems. To com-municate within and between the teams and with head-quarters, email was the primary medium. In somecountries, access to a fileserver, which stored relevantcontent, was also available. However, communicationand knowledge exchange, which were based primarilyon documents, were not entirely satisfactory. As aresult of the use of email, team members could never

be sure to have the most up-to-date version of a docu-ment. As in the first case, new members had to startfrom scratch since they had missed past communica-tion. The file server was not globally accessible. Emailcommunication also made it virtually impossible forthe core team to get an overview of the progress andlessons learned of the different projects.

3.3.2 Relevant Knowledge Aspects

To improve the knowledge dissemination across thedifferent projects, the insurance company implementeda new knowledge portal based on a standard software

product. The portal was to be globally available andenhance the dissemination of knowledge across all

projects within the management of closed blocks. Be-cause the transfer is based on documents, this casedeals with explicated knowledge similar to case one.

The portal includes elements of three aspects withcomposition being the most prominent. It now providesa standardized process oriented navigational structureto be used by all projects. This goes hand in hand withthe introduction of a common terminology which de-fines the most relevant terms. Besides the navigationalstructure, a comprehensive search function also allowsthe retrieval of relevant documents. With the new ac-cess rights management, individual team members onlysee content relevant for them.

Concerning content, documents are now availableon a web-based platform. The system includes versioncontrol, making sure that documents are only availablein their most recent version. It also provides templatesto standardize content creation processes and thereforefacilitate a review of relevant documentation acrossmultiple projects. The templates also provide means torecord feedback and lessons learned from the projectteams.

The aspect ofcollaboration is based on the featuresalready described and primarily concerns the organiza-tional setting in which the portal is used. It enables thedispersed project teams to store and retrieve documentsfrom virtually anywhere and work together on commondocuments. By linking to other projects, it is possibleto easier work on common problems across projects.On the other hand, version control helps team members

recognize if they are using the most recent version intheir work.

3.3.3 Results

The new portal improved the efficiency of the pro-jects in a variety of ways, thus enabling the standardi-

zation of contract management for closed blocks.The primary goal was to facilitate knowledge dis-semination for collaboration. Since all projects will

place their documentation into the portal, the status ofthe different projects can now easily be analyzed andcompared. A special reporting function further extendsthis aspect. When a certain step in a project is con-cluded, lessons learned are reviewed and can nowimmediately be incorporated into the process orientedstructure and the templates. This makes them availableto every project that has not reached the relevant stepyet. As a result, many potential problems are elimi-nated before they actually come up.

On the individual project level, documents are nowkept centrally. In contrast to email, all project membersnow have access to all documents. It is not possibleanymore to be faced with outdated versions and per-sonalization reduces information overload. For theinfrastructure, the portal brought significant relief asnot every document needs to be sent to every projectmember anymore. After one year of use, the portalincludes over 10,000 documents and is employed in 21

projects in nine countries worldwide.

4 Cross-Case Analysis - Performance

with Customer Knowledge Manage-

ment

The contribution of this paper lies in illustrating thesuccessful application of the CKM process model indifferent companies in an operational setting. In eachcase critical customer processes were identified, KMinstruments suitable for those processes selected ac-cording to the CKM process model and then imple-mented. This resulted in significant performance im-

provements in those processes eventually enablinghigher revenues and/or lower costs.

Case one identified content creation and knowledge

navigation as crucial elements within the CCC and service management. The CKM process model sug-gests content management systems with an easilymaintainable content structure and search functionalityas appropriate KM instruments for these elements.

With the implemented system the duration of ser-vice calls and the quality of the provided service could

be improved, enhancing knowledge transfer to thecustomer, resulting in higher customer satisfaction,


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higher loyalty and thus, higher revenue. Also, moreefficient content creation was facilitated, resulting inlower costs.

Case two identified skill management and staffingand planning as crucial elements. The CKM processmodel suggests skill management systems and exper-tise directories to be suitable KM instruments for theseelements.

Case two demonstrated how a skill managementsystem allows to record skills of employees accordingto a corporate skill tree. This lead to increased trans-

parency of existing and required skills and competen-cies. Hence location of expertise was accelerated, re-sulting in better and faster service to customers, and amore efficient staffing and planning of individual andcorporate training measures. This causes higher cus-tomer satisfaction as well as more efficient resourceallocation, eventually enabling higher revenue.

Case three focused on communication support,community management, knowledge navigation and

knowledge discovery as elements of CKM. The CKM process model suggests portals, personalization anddiscussion boards as suitable KM instruments for theseelements.

The insurance company implemented a portal fa-cilitating global collaboration across members of mul-tiple project teams. This made project managementmore efficient and lowered the costs of implementationfor the standardized contract management. The con-tract management in turn became more efficient due tothis standardization, enabling the insurance company tosave significant cost in managing customers and theircontracts.

5 Suggestions for further Research

Even though the application of KM instruments incustomer processes can lead to increased process per-formance, as experienced in the cases we described,there still is no comprehensive, proven system ofmeasuring process performance in knowledge intensive

processes. No generally applicable metrics along withkey performance indicators (KPI) have been defined.

No common tools exist to provide the aggregated datanecessary for measuring those KPI or allow for auto-

matic measuring.The definition of such metrics and KPIs for the dif-ferent processes mentioned in the CKM architecture isa research goal currently targeted by our research.

Furthermore, although the projects described couldhave been extended to include all knowledge aspects, ithasnt been done yet in practice. Further research isrequired to determine how all knowledge aspects to-gether affect the performance of enterprises and what

challenges come up with the integration of all fourknowledge aspects.

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