Buckman Laboratories
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Buckman Laboratories International, founded in 1945, is a privately-held company offering over 500 specialist chemical products and services/solutions in paper-making technologies, industrial water treatment, leather chemicals, agriculture, and coatings and plastics. They do not just ship products, they ship customers knowledge of how to use them
Since the 1980’s knowledge has been the foundation of the companies competitive edge: “we should use our systems for communication to share our tacit and explicit knowledge as widely as possible so that no individual will stand alone in the face of competition, but will always have the full global force of the company behind them.” - Bob Buckman ex CEO Chairman of the Executive Committee
Since the 1980’s knowledge has been the foundation of the companies competitive edge: “we should use our systems for communication to share our tacit and explicit knowledge as widely as possible so that no individual will stand alone in the face of competition, but will always have the full global force of the company behind them.” - Bob Buckman ex CEO Chairman of the Executive Committee
Strategy
Buckman Laboratories’ knowledge strategy has been developed with five objectives:
The company explicitly takes a customer-centric knowledge driven approach: “we will excel in providing measurable, cost effective improvements in output and quality for our customers by delivering customer specific services and products, and the creative application of knowledge” – Buckman Laboratories enterprise mission statement.
- Accelerate the accumulation and dissemination of knowledge by Buckman Laboratories’ associates worldwide
- Provide easy and rapid access to Buckman Lab’s global database of knowledge
- Eliminate time and space constraints in communications
- Stimulate associates to experience the value of sharing knowledge in providing custom-tailored service to customers
- Respect the dignity of each individual by cultivating an environment that enhances his or her professional development and recognises each person as a valued member of a service-oriented team
The company explicitly takes a customer-centric knowledge driven approach: “we will excel in providing measurable, cost effective improvements in output and quality for our customers by delivering customer specific services and products, and the creative application of knowledge” – Buckman Laboratories enterprise mission statement.
Initiatives
Knowledge Portal, K'netix, featuring:
Total estimated cost of the knowledge management and learning initiative within Buckman is US$7500 per employee per year; or $10.5m annual enterprise total (includes all hardware, software and network costs associated with knowledge sharing and collaboration)
- Asset library encompassing all organizational knowledge and experience
- Discussion forum allows employees to share tacit knowledge; threads are captured and stored as assets
- Communities meetings are held within the forum focusing on different areas of interest
- Also have a message bulletin board, a knowledge library and virtual conference rooms
- A key advantage is simplicity and adaptability: it is easy to contribute and easy to access knowledge
Total estimated cost of the knowledge management and learning initiative within Buckman is US$7500 per employee per year; or $10.5m annual enterprise total (includes all hardware, software and network costs associated with knowledge sharing and collaboration)
Leadership
Knowledge mentors – leading by example
In common with other world-class knowledge management enterprises, the senior leadership were clearly seen to be acting as knowledge mentors:
- Ex CEO, Bob Buckman, routinely sent personal communications to employees demonstrating a low level of knowledge-sharing: he would ask if they were experiencing problems or required training and asked what help the leadership could offer
- Middle managers were seen to have a critical role as mentors and coaches - encouraging knowledge sharing and enterprise-wide customer problem-solving
Knowledge sharing and collaboration has now evolved from a few at the top pushing knowledge sharing to an organizational imperative on everybody’s agenda. The company highlights that they have not one Chief Knowledge Office, but rather every leadership role is part knowledge leader
Culture
Key effort is focused on changing organizational culture:
“[Our focus has been ] 90% culture change and 10% technology change. Technology is the easy part… the focus needs to be on culture change and how to shift to a networked communication model” – Bob Buckman, ex CEO, Chairman of the Executive Committee
Develop a common value system, built into recruitment and reward system:
In driving forward its cultural change programme, Buckman built on earlier work in which it carefully identified a ‘global code of ethics’:
Each of the 23 country organizations were invited to submit key behaviors into a draft code of ethics
Common themes that transcended local cultures were identified and later validated at the individual country level. The entire process took 18 months in total
The company strives to integrate its code of ethics into its standard operating model – with an emphasis on recruitment and selection. This is seen as imperative in fostering and maintaining a knowledge-sharing culture
“The higher one can carry that value system and get people to trust each other, the higher and deeper you can carry knowledge sharing.” – Bob Buckman, ex CEO, Chairman of the Executive Committee
Quality not quantity
Employees do not get praise for responding to numerous emails, adding value is the key and paving the way for best practices. Knowledge sharing is pro active as an associate is not considered for promotion unless there are active in their knowledge sharing
“What other incentive do they need?” Bob Buckman, ex CEO, Chairman of the Executive Committee
Process
Information at speed – No taxonomy
Buckman Laboratories do not believe in having taxonomies because they need information at speed and believe tagging data is time consuming and lacks consistency (although the requirement in Buckman is more around collaboration than the dissemination of structured content as might be in the case of a call centre for example)
“[we] do not want to wait for a good piece of information to become available just because we are waiting for someone to code it, we can’t afford to wait that long” Bob Buckman, ex CEO, Chairman of the Executive Committee
What they do have are knowledge areas based upon business functions across all the different systems and repositories with a common interface. They access all this information through a search engine
A human touch
K’Netic has highly trained librarians, with access to the entire global network, who manage and monitor content threads – if they see employees searching for information they can guide them effectively and rapidly to the correct content
Buckman Laboratories do not believe in having taxonomies because they need information at speed and believe tagging data is time consuming and lacks consistency (although the requirement in Buckman is more around collaboration than the dissemination of structured content as might be in the case of a call centre for example)
“[we] do not want to wait for a good piece of information to become available just because we are waiting for someone to code it, we can’t afford to wait that long” Bob Buckman, ex CEO, Chairman of the Executive Committee
What they do have are knowledge areas based upon business functions across all the different systems and repositories with a common interface. They access all this information through a search engine
A human touch
K’Netic has highly trained librarians, with access to the entire global network, who manage and monitor content threads – if they see employees searching for information they can guide them effectively and rapidly to the correct content
Technology
Technology as a facilitator
Technology needs to meet the requirements of its users, for Buckman this was a global network, allowing quick response time and collaboration “if there is no need for what you are doing in the organization (technology), then it will not be successful” Bob Buckman, ex CEO, Chairman of the Executive Committee
- In house document repository
- Microsoft Outlook based collaboration tool
- Verity search engine
- eLearning tool
“‘Use simple tools in imaginative ways with a higher purpose in mind’ Bob Buckman, ex CEO, Chairman of the Executive Committee
Benefits
- 50% rise in sales from new products indicating a sharp rise in profitability from innovation
- 51% rise in sales per associate
- 93% increase in operating costs per associate
- Cost of training with the learning center decreased from $1,000 per hour to $25- $40
- Global speed of response to the customer has improved from days and weeks to hours
