Evolution of Knowledge Management toward Enterprise Decision Support: The Case of KPMG

Daniel E. O’Leary
Marshall School of Business, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA

Realizing that knowledge and its proper management are essential for effective decision support, this chapter traces the evolution of knowledge management within a major professional services firm – KPMG. By supporting decision making, computer-based systems for managing knowledge can impact organizational performance and the very nature of the organization itself. Here, we examine a progression of knowledge management systems at KPMG, beginning with the 1997 condition of having disparate or no knowledge management systems and culminating with an enterprise-wide integrated system accommodating both locally and globally managed knowledge. Strategically, knowledge-management advances were used to transform the firm from being a confederation of local enterprises to a global enterprise. This chapter investigates why KPMG pursued the development and implementation of a global knowledge management system. In addition, it summarizes some of the key capabilities and technologies of the resulting knowledge management system, K-World. This chapter also examines some key implementation issues. Finally, the chapter investigates two key problems emerging from the use of the system after its introduction: search and client confidentiality, plus some of the emerging extensions for K-World.

Keywords: Enterprise decision support; Knowledge management system; K-World; KPMG; Professional services

“We are at the vanguard and will leap our competition.” Michael Turillo

1 Introduction

In the early to mid 1980s, KPMG developed a unique vision about knowledge management captured in their concept of a “Shadow Partner” (Gladstone and Eccles 1995). Supporting clients was not just a job for people but one that required integrating human and computer activity. KPMG needed to integrate and evolve their knowledge management system to support their decision needs. Unfortunately, that vision was not executed at the time, and KPMG went from one limited knowledge management system (K-Man) to 64 country-specific disparate systems (e.g., K-Web), until they finally developed an integrated system with locally and globally managed knowledge. Called K-World, its implementation was so successful at integrating the system into their professionals’ work that shortly after its implementation, there was an interest in taking K-World public as its own company: Cering. However, the initial public offering environment changed, and this did not occur. Although ultimately, the implementation went well, there were some emerging potential issues associated with client confidentiality and search, plus some emerging system implementation issues. This chapter is a case study of the evolution of knowledge management within a professional services firm (KPMG) and some of the problems that it faced, including designing, implementing and using a system for supporting decision making of their professionals. We examine how knowledge management technology has been used within KPMG to facilitate transformation from localized collaboration to global collaboration capabilities, and why such a system might be spun off to be its own company. In so doing, we analyze key capabilities of such systems and some potential problems. KPMG knowledge management efforts are reviewed across the time period roughly 1986 to 2006, with detailed focus on 1997 to 2006. As a result, this chapter brings up-to-date the well known case “KPMG Peat Marwick: The Shadow Partner,” (Gladstone and Eccles 1991) and “KPMG Peat Marwick U. S.: One Giant Brain” (Alavi 1997). The later case leaves off in 1997, right before KPMG dropped Netscape’s browser from its design. This chapter includes some additional background information relating to both of the earlier cases and the progresses to the current knowledge management system, K-World, and the firm’s analysis of spinning of K-World as an IPO (Initial Public Offering). This case is a longitudinal study, examining a single professional services firm, KPMG using two methodologies: a field study and archival research. KPMG's ultimate use of knowledge management is traced through multiple technologies across time and organizational issues. The field study was unstructured, involving interviews to gather and detail information from KPMG knowledge management personnel including Robert Elliott (Partner who developed original vision of “Shadow Partner”), Robert Zeibig (Principal in Charge of Global Knowledge Management), Bernard Avishai, (International Director of Intellectual Capital) and Michael Turillo (Managing Partner, Knowledge Management, International Chief Knowledge Officer). Additional information was gathered from users of the KPMG knowledge management systems. Archival information was gathered from published and Internet sources, including a Bill Gates’ speech, KPMG presentations, various publications, news releases, and press articles. Evolution of decision support and knowledge management systems is an emerging area that is gathering increased attention. O’Leary (2007a) provides a survey of issues that relate to predicting, facilitating and managing knowledge management system evolution. O’Leary (2007b) provides an empirical investigation of the evolution of a taxonomy over time. This paper provides a detailed example of the evolution of a system to illustrate and provide specificity to some of the concepts discussed in those and other papers. The chapter is organized as follows. Section 2 discusses the importance of knowledge management to professional services firms, including an analysis of the pre-1997 knowledge management efforts of both KPMG and other large professional services firms. Section 3 investigates KPMG’s initial efforts into web-based knowledge management in 1997 and the resulting disparate systems. Section 4 summarizes the reasons KPMG needed to have a global knowledge management system, including the potential loss of whole countries of offices. Section 5 describes capabilities of K-World, a knowledge management system built in response to the needs discussed in section 4. Section 5 also lays out the basic capabilities and architecture of K-World. Section 6 discusses the proposed spin-off of the knowledge management group and the capabilities of the new firm, while Section 7 briefly summarizes the new company and its product. Section 8 analyzes the decision to drop the notion of an IPO. Section 9 investigates important emerging issues, those of search and client confidentiality, and system extensions. Section 10 briefly summarizes the chapter.

2 How Important is Knowledge Management for Professional Service Firms?

Knowledge management and the corresponding collaboration that it facilitates are critical, and provide a core value for professional services firms. For example, as noted in Foley (1996), Allen Frank, former chief technology officer for KPMG, who left KPMG in May 1997, explained We're basically a giant brain. For us the knowledge management environment is the core system to achieve competitive advantage.
Similarly, as noted by Ellen Knapp, former vice chairman at Coopers & Lybrand, "all our assets are knowledge assets." Further, as noted by Frank (Netscape 1997), "At KPMG, our best asset is the knowledge that resides with each of our professionals. With 18,000 employees in the US alone, distributed across 120 offices, it's imperative that we share this knowledge to provide the best service possible to our clients." Although the notion of a professional services firm being a giant brain is arguable, it is clear that professional services firms see the importance of knowledge management: the need to be able to share knowledge to support professionals’ decision making; and the fact that the primary asset professional services firms have is in the knowledge they can bring to clients. We might view the function of such a firm as being a joint human-computer system ultimately supporting their clients. For it to be successful at this decision support, KPMG went through an evolution toward providing integrated decision support system for its professionals in support of their clients. At the outset, KPMG had limited systems’ ability to facilitate knowledge distribution across the firm. Instead, knowledge was locked into pockets limited by geographical boundaries, personal relationships, and limited system capabilities and integration.

2.1 KPMG’s Early Knowledge Management Efforts

KPMG is a professional services firm, one of the so-called "big 4" – formerly “big 6” and then “big 5” (the largest professional services firms now also include Ernst & Young, Deloitte & Touche and PriceWaterhouseCoopers - formerly Price Waterhouse and Coopers & Lybrand). KPMG was one of the first of the professional services firms to explore using technology to facilitate knowledge management in the classic case study “KPMG Peat Marwick: Shadow Partner” (Gladstone and Eccles 1995). In the early 1980’s Robert Elliott, a partner with KPMG, developed the vision of a “Shadow Partner.” This computer version of a partner would provide decision, knowledge, and administrative support to KPMG partners. As discussed in Gladstone and Eccles (1995), the shadow partner could have a range of capabilities designed to support their professionals, including; • monitor news feeds for information relevant to clients, and then notify the partner of the activity • provide access to libraries of previous engagements and proposals • provide access to information about staff that perform particular types of engagements • allow access to mailing lists of experts within particular areas • provide access to project information for those projects where the partner is in-charge • provide calendaring • provide on-line training • provide access to information about various key client personnel, and who knows them.
In 1986 a committee was formed at KPMG to advise KPMG regarding the adoption of a system to facilitate communication, coordination, and collaboration. In 1989, proposals for the Shadow Partner knowledge management system were presented to KPMG partners, at meetings in both the US and Europe. In October 1990, Jon Madonna was elected CEO (Chief Executive Officer). It was not until April 1991 that Madonna met with Elliott about Shadow Partner, possibly suggesting a limited interest in the concept. In 1991, KPMG was faced with potentially implementing the system at different levels of costs ranging from $30 million to $100 million. However, rather than implement Shadow Partner, from 1989 - 1991, a specific department, "KPMG Consulting," implemented a system referred to as "K-Man" using "First Class" (Siboni 1997). From 1994 to 1995, K-Man was diffused to the rest of the firm (Siboni 1997). At the time of implementation, First Class provided relatively limited capabilities beyond proprietary e-mail. Although information could be stored in folders, there were limited search capabilities. For example, the primary means of categorizing information for search was through eight character folder and file names. As a result, rather than having a “Shadow Partner” by the beginning of 1996, KPMG had K-Man, an instantiation of First Class, a commercial email package that would provide only limited support for their professionals. Madonna remained CEO until October 1996, when Steve Butler was elected CEO and Roger Siboni was elected as the new COO. In 2002 Eugene O’Kelly took over as CEO, until 2004. It would be after October 1996 that extensive knowledge management support would be built at KPMG.

2.2 Knowledge Management at the Rest of the Professional Services Firms

By 1996, virtually all of the other Big 6 professional services firms had substantial knowledge management systems, typically implemented using Lotus Notes, but increasingly placed in an Internet and Web environment. Price Waterhouse had been the first in 1989 (Mehler 1992). Arthur Andersen followed closely behind and was the first to move to the Internet with “Knowledgespace.com.” Shortly after, Ernst and Young focused heavily on knowledge management, ultimately developing one of the more sophisticated systems among the professional services firms (Svary and Chard 1997). Coopers & Lybrand implemented Lotus Notes in 1994 (Lotus Press Release, January 4, 1994). Further, Coopers & Lybrand had been rated one of the most 25 innovative intranets (Information Week 1997). Price Waterhouse and Coopers & Lybrand later merged to create PricewaterhouseCoopers. Deloitte and Touche implemented Lotus Notes in 1995. In late 1996, Banks (1996) singled out Ernst & Young, Coopers & Lybrand, and Arthur Andersen as being the leading professional services firms in terms of knowledge management. During the time period 1998-2000, Andersen, Ernst & Young, and PricewaterhouseCoopers each finished in the top 20 of the most admired knowledge enterprises, a survey of the leading knowledge management firms in the world (Chase 2001). However, KPMG was not in the top twenty any of those years. Research into knowledge management at professional service firms has continued with a number of case studies. KPMG was the focus of two studies, one involving the original vision (Gladstone and Eccles 1995) and the other looking at early version of their knowledge management system (Alavi 1997). Andersen Consulting, which became known as Accenture, also was the focus of two case studies about their knowledge management system (Savary and Chard 1997, Meister and Davenport 2005). Ernst & Young, and then later Cap Gemini Ernst & Young also was a focus of later case studies (Lara, et al. 2004).

3. K-Web, D-Web, U-Know, …

In the United States, according Roger Siboni (1997), the notion of a web-based collaborative knowledge management system at KPMG, dubbed "K-Web," was introduced in 1994, as a concept and piloted in 1996 using Netscape as the basis for the system. Elliott (1997) dubbed Siboni’s (1997) presentation as the “solution” to the classic Shadow Partner case (Gladstone, J. and Eccles, 1995). After Siboni took over as COO in October 1996, KPMG began the implementation of web-based technology for knowledge management purposes. In January of 1997, KPMG in the U. S. decided to build K-Web using Netscape's Communicator and Suitespot (Netscape 1997), "… to increase internal collaboration as part of an enhanced knowledge sharing environment." As originally designed (Netscape 1997), … K-Web, project team members will be able to work on shared documents as well as send and receive Web-based mail messages, extend discussions to their partners and clients, and ultimately automate business processes. KPMG is planning to use K-Web to hold town hall meetings over the Intranet, engage in sophisticated chat sessions and to make it easier for KPMG professionals to locate colleagues. K-Web will also serve as the front end for accessing information in legacy databases internally about particular KPMG clients and projects.
However, during the middle of their knowledge management system implementation, in July 1997, KPMG chose to drop Netscape and adopt Microsoft products at the same time that an alliance with Microsoft was announced. This action apparently ended up as part of a legal case against Microsoft (US Department of Justice 1998). This delay stalled KPMG knowledge management efforts, but also made the point that choosing Microsoft technology had additional benefits, beyond the knowledge management system. As noted in KPMG (1999b) by Charles Stevens, vice president of the application developers’ customer unit at Microsoft, "KPMG will be able to assist their clients in developing and implementing their own knowledge management system based on the Microsoft platform." As a result, the choice of knowledge management technology is more than meeting internal requirements and supporting professionals’ decisions. It can be a function of other purpose alliances. As it turns out, in addition to forming an alliance with Microsoft, KPMG (1999b) was one of the first five firms to "… embark on its fast track program to fully exploit the power of the Web Browser, integrate Microsoft-based messaging, collaboration and knowledge-sharing applications…." At roughly this same time, KPMG Germany began developing "D-Web" (“D” for “Deutsch”), and KPMG in the U.K. was developing "U-Know" (“U” for United Kingdom). Similar efforts took place in KPMG offices in other countries, including, Canada, the Netherlands, Australia, and South Africa. As with K-Web in the United States, each of these efforts was designed to leverage web technology into knowledge management. However, users in one country generally were unable to access the knowledge management systems in other countries. For example, KPMG users in Canada were unable to use K-Web in the United States. KPMG had a disparate set of knowledge management systems. In still other countries there was no digital knowledge management. Systems could not communicate or there were no systems available. Accordingly, at the time, KPMG did not have a true global knowledge management system. Systems met some support needs but did not integrate systems. Effectively, decision support was still geographically limited.

4 Was There a Need for a Globally Integrated Knowledge Management System?

Accordingly, by the end of 1997, KPMG did not have a globally integrated knowledge management system. Instead, there were different countries pursuing their own systems. According to Boom (2004) there were 64 different intranets scattered throughout the company. In addition, at this time the decision making focus of professionals, and support of those decisions was largely local. For example, Boom (2000) noted the following quotes from KPMG interviews at the time: • “I only work with local clients” • “Why change, we already have a legacy system” • “There are too many cultures in KPMG” (for a global system)
This raises the question, “Was there a need for a globally integrated knowledge management system?” Starting at the end of 1997, at least four factors appeared to drive the need for KPMG to pursue a globally integrated knowledge management system to support professionals’ decisions: competition, a need to collaborate for the larger engagements and more profitable engagements, keeping the firm together, and decreasing costs.

4.1 Competition

In October 1997, a merger was announced between KPMG and Ernst & Young (Ernst & Young and KPMG 1997), although it never took place. Zeibig (2000) indicated that as part of the merger activities KPMG and Ernst & Young were made aware of each other’s knowledge management systems. In February 1998, after the failed merger between KPMG and Ernst & Young, KPMG’s international chairman noted (MacDonald and Lublin 1998), “Going into the merger our perception of Ernst & Young was that they were ahead of us in knowledge-management systems and communications. Our discussions confirmed that.” Human-system integration and decision support for professionals lagged at KPMG compared to Ernst & Young.

4.2 Globalization: Larger More Profitable Engagements

One of the driving forces for K-World implementation was the need to globalize and move to larger engagements. According to Zeibig (2000), the largest engagements were global and these had the highest profit margin. These engagements required coordination of collaboration across multiple countries using knowledge management. Unfortunately, during 1998 and the beginning of 1999 (Turillo 2001), KPMG was global in appearance, but not in reality. Different cultures, business cultures, and languages stood in the way of being a global firm. Competing for a large audit client forced KPMG to realize that their knowledge management system needed to have global support capabilities. Decision support for professionals needed to be integrated across geographic boundaries. Unfortunately, the independent knowledge management systems in each country did not facilitate the ability to mobilize resources on a global basis. In fact, disparate systems stood in the way. Although KPMG had offices around the world, the independent knowledge management systems made it impossible for their professionals to fully collaborate. However, competing for the high margin profit engagements required having a knowledge management system that would allow the firm to collaborate globally across its many offices.

4.3 Keeping the Firm Together

More than just profitability was at stake. Collaborating on engagements influenced the ability to keep clients and firm members. As noted in the Wall Street Journal (May 27, 1999), "Last month, top partners at KPMG Canada threatened to defect to Arthur Andersen, citing as one of their reasons the difficulty in serving multinational clients due to KPMG's unintegrated systems." The future of the KPMG was dependent on globally linking the firm's different offices and their knowledge management systems. Without an integrated system the future of the firm as a single, independent entity was threatened.

4.4 Redundant Information and Systems, and Extra Costs

Furthermore, according to Bill Gates (1999a), during 1998 there were substantial knowledge resource and software redundancies, resulting in extra costs. For example, dozens of offices were buying the same information and there were three email systems. Further, according to Turillo (Grzanka 1999), KPMG used 13 different messaging systems, six different knowledge management systems, and multiple human resources, finance, and payroll systems on at least six different operating systems. Driving down costs would require system integration and elimination of redundancy.

4.5 Local Materials and Control

Although there was a need for a global system, there remained tensions for the ability of different countries to add and control their own materials. For example, because accounting and audit principles differ from country to country, auditors in one country are likely to need daily access to different materials than auditors in other countries. Some decision support needs varied. Further, the rate of change of those materials is likely to differ. Accordingly, there was a tension between the need for a global system and global resources, versus a local system and local resources. As a result, individual countries and other organizational units maintained the ability to add materials and servers to K-World.

5 K-World

In the middle of 1998, Siboni left KPMG (Abate 1998). That also seemed to be the end of K-Web as the “solution” to the “Shadow Partner” case. However, it was also becoming clear that it was important for KPMG to mobilize resources on a global basis to meet the competition and procure the more profitable engagements. Integrated decision support for professionals was necessary for more profitable engagements. As a result, in part of an announcement indicating that KPMG would be combining firms in the Americas and Europe, to form regions, as a basis to serve global clients in a world-wide consolidation, Stephen Butler, former CEO and Chairperson, also announced the advent of K-World, indicating that (KPMG 1998) Being global means being capable of accessing the same information at the same time, regardless of whether you're in New York or New Delhi.…This knowledge management system is transforming KPMG's embedded intellectual capital into a global strategic asset - and it’s enhancing KPMG's ability to collaborate with other organizations, irrespective of their messaging environments. A single knowledge repository allows us to access global sources of information, limit redundant information searches, and streamline the development of client deliverables anywhere.
K-World was seen as more than just knowledge management. Its global decision support would be an enabler for a new organization structure, and it would allow the firm to be able to compete for the more profitable engagements. As a result, K-World led to a change in the priorities of the firm. Chief Executive Paul Reilly called K-World (Cone 1999), "the No. 1 priority of the global firm." On June 9, 1999, KPMG began the roll out of K-World to the United States, United Kingdom, Germany and the Netherlands (KPMG 1999b). It also announced that K-World would be deployed to Canada, Australia, Sweden, and Switzerland. By August 2000, all KPMG users had been brought into the system. By 2001 many of the disparate legacy systems had been shut down (Boom 2004).

5.1 Capabilities

The vision of Shadow Partner, and more, was actualized in K-World. According to Gates (1999a), K-World was designed to connect and support KPMG's 93,000 people worldwide, in order to provide a corporate memory for collaboration (Gates 1999a): The consulting companies have really seen that this is a key area for them to try to jump onto first, because they have a variety of engagements all over the world with different kinds of industries. … [T]hey'd like to share the learning that has gone on. One of the key themes to illustrate the concepts associated with the original Shadow Partner case was how the system could be used to facilitate the merger of a client. In order to test K-World, this scenario was used to examine the existence of time economies associated with using the system (Management Consultancy 2000). As noted by Gates 1999b … the ability to pull together all key members of the global team in order to make decisions and recommendations. What would have taken 80 hours in the past took only one hour in a test and resulted in a smarter firm with a deeper understanding of customer needs. K-World design was aimed at facilitating collaborative communities of practice. As noted by Michael Turillo, KPMG's Chief Knowledge Officer, Knowledge is content in context and our global communities of practice – who marry knowledge about complex services to specific industries – determine K-World's contextual frames. K-World brings qualified internal content and filtered external content to each community … Ultimately, K-World has been designed with a wide range of resources to support the professional’s efforts. For example, as noted by Trotman (2003), K-World resources include access to company financial statements, audit engagement tools (such as financial disclosure checklists), and training materials. Professionals can employ those materials to support their own and collaborative decision making.

Interaction with Clients

K-World was designed for internal KPMG use. However, there also was a need to integrate decision support with clients. KPMG professionals and clients needed to generate and access some of the same materials. Thus, KPMG needed a collaboration tool through the internet. Accordingly, in 2000 K-Client was deployed (Boom 2000). K-Client was designed to facilitate communication and collaboration within globally deployed KPMG teams and with clients. K-Client provides workflow management capabilities, and the ability to gather and organize large amounts of information from a wide range of sources. While K-World was designed for internal use, K-Client was designed for internal and client interaction.

Knowledge Architecture

Information in K-World is categorized based on a hierarchical taxonomy to support professionals’ decision making. According to Boom (2000) the design was aimed to “let people use the Global Taxonomy to find solutions from other cultures. See Exhibit 1 for a sample screen.

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Exhibit 1. Sample Screen

The taxonomy had three dimensions: Product, Industry Segment and Geography, mirroring the firm’s organization structure. For example, at the highest level there is product information, industry segment information, or geography information. Under product, the user might choose “Assurance,” under Assurance, the user might choose “Advisory Services,” and so forth. Under industry, the user might select “Global Industry Groups.” Information also is categorized by news, clients, library, and other categories.

5.2 Technology for K-World

The importance of the underlying technology for K-World was echoed by Turillo, in a statement that ended up generating some controversy in the knowledge management community (Hildebrand 1999): "Knowledge management cannot be done without technology." White (1999) describes a design of the global network infrastructure for K-World, labeled “K-Net.” KPMG had decided to use Netscape during Allen Frank's tenure as Chief Technology Officer. However, although KPMG had been using Netscape prior to the time of K-World's development, K-World was based on Microsoft products (Kane 1997), which linked countries together using the Internet (KPMG 1998). Shortly after that decision, Netscape was criticized for failing to make inroads among the Fortune 1000 (Bowman 1997). On the other hand, some questioned Microsoft's ability to provide the software and the know-how for knowledge management (Johnston and Davis 1999). As noted by an analyst at Meta Group, David Yockelson, (Johnson and Davis 1999), "While there is not one platform to tackle knowledge management, Lotus (Notes) does have many of the piece-parts you might desire, and Microsoft doesn't. Microsoft has things on an agenda, which is to come up with those piece-parts and also be a platform provider to third parties who will come up with piece-parts." KPMG used a number of third party products to piece together the technology for K-World. For example, in addition to Windows NT Server, SQL Server, Exchange, Site Server, Outlook, Office, and Internet Explorer, KPMG also include collaboration software from Silknet Software, portal software from Sageware, other software and services from Razorfish, and NewsEdge news solutions (NewsEdge 2000). As noted by Yokelson (Johnston and Davis 1999), "One could argue that having to put the pieces together isn't the best thing." However, that piecing together process is where additional value was created by KPMG's knowledge management group.

5.3 People and Costs

Knowledge management with a system like K-World can require substantial human resources. As a result, knowledge management efforts resulted in a shift of personnel from other functions in order to facilitate the system introduction. With K-World, there was a shift in the function of personnel from library department to a knowledge management department (e.g., Boom 2000). Boom (2000, 2004) notes that there was a knowledge management staff in The Netherlands throughout the time frame 2000-2004. In 2002, after K-World was largely implemented there were about 40 people in the UK knowledge management group (Autonomy 2002). Ultimately, Turillo's development and implementation of K-World with a team of 55 developers (Flash 2001a) took place in the Boston Office, over a period of two and a half years. At the same time, there also were 15 full-time knowledge editors in the New York Office, charged with capturing knowledge from published papers, books, speeches, and magazine articles (Glasser 1999). The capabilities provided by K-World did not come inexpensively, and probably not surprisingly apparently exceeded the original Shadow Partner estimates. Ultimately, in just the first five months of 1998 KPMG spent over $40 million on the knowledge management initiative (Glasser 1999). Further, as noted in the Wall Street Journal (May 27, 1999),

Worried about partner defections, Big Five accounting and consulting firm KPMG International said it will spend $100 million to more fully tie together its world-wide computer systems.

… KPMG's attempt to develop a new global "digital nervous system" marks the first time that the firm has devoted such a large amount of money to a computer overhaul.

KPMG typically spends $50 million a year on upgrading its computers.

KPMG indicated that they planned to spend more than $400 million on K-World through 2002 (Cone 1999). The first $10 million was for designing the technical architecture. $100 million was for the first year, and $115 million was for the second year. Yearly expenditures were planned to level out to about $80 million per year by 2002. External content purchases were planned at roughly $20 million per year.

5.4 Implementation

One of the first implementation concerns was the notion that K-World was focused too much on or about the United States. For example, as noted in Boom (2000) at the time of the implementation some typical comments included: • “There is only US – based information on K-World.” • “K-World is US driven.”
This was a potential problem because of cultural differences between offices in different countries summarized in Exhibit 2 (generated by KPMG, Boom 2000). When cast along two dimensions of (equalitarian vs. hierarchical) and (person vs. process) countries laid out in different quadrants. Based on this two dimensional diagram, the complaint against a US driven system would result in a system that was more focused on processes than people, and less hierarchical than other settings. A K-World that was focused on one quadrant potentially would not be well received in a global firm. Somehow implementation would need to accommodate or mitigate potential differences.

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Exhibit 2. Country Dimensions of Knowledge (Boom 2000)

Cultural Transformation Accordingly, a number of steps were taken to transform the culture and facilitate system evolution (Boom 2000). First, the technological structure allowed professionals to communicate with each other and learn about corresponding views. Second, professionals were trained to use, and trained in the benefits of, globally-used best practices, but adapted to meet local needs. In addition, there also was training in other culture awareness. Third, the system allowed capturing knowledge in each different geographic area. This would allow professionals to find solutions from other countries and cultures. Fourth, the system was built to allow multiple languages. As a result, they could put solutions in their own context. Finally, an international content acquisition workgroup was found to try to ensure that appropriate international resources were built into the system to support decision making (Bloom 2004). Ultimately, a three-phase “cultural transformation model was planned (Exhibit 3), that included an adoption phase, loyalty phase and collaboration phase (Boom 2000). Planned cultural transformation for K-World, started with “awareness,” moved to “loyalty,” and finished with “institutionalization.”
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Exhibit 3. K-World Cultural Transformation (Boom 2000)

The cultural transformation model paralleled the system development and evolution. At the “awareness” and “interest” states in the adoption phase only basic design information, and possibly a prototype is necessary. In order to progress to “installation” and “repeated use,” an existing system with sufficient resources to draw the users back is necessary. In the loyalty phase, in order to obtain “positive perception” the implemented system must be operational, providing integration across multiple countries in order to obtain global benefits. For users to “recommend to others” the system there generally need to be greater benefits than the existing legacy systems. In the collaboration phase, links to multiple countries and client capabilities need to be established to realize global capabilities that ultimately would facilitate “internalization” and ultimately, “institutionalization,” where K-World becomes integrated into the fabric of the firm.

Technology-Enabled Implementation
KPMG apparently also used a technology-enabled (e.g., O’Leary 2000) approach to facilitate change. As noted by Colin Sharman, Chairman of KPMG (White 1999), “KPMG is globalizing and K-World … is both the product and the catalyst for this transformation.” Technology was being used to drive the implementation across multiple geographic locations. Technology-enabled approaches are often used to drive change in global organizations, in part, because the focus is on the need for technology similarities rather than cultural differences. The focus on technologies appears to minimize the apparent impact of some of the cultural differences.

Local Differences Further, each individual country's systems (e.g., U-Know) and office systems (e.g., specific cities) still held local information. English is used at the global level; however, a country's specific language could be used at the local and office level. In addition, individual business units can have their own servers, which facilitate capture and presentation of unit specific knowledge. Both the individual and business-specific servers were connected to the same infrastructure that was K-World. Local knowledge remains outside the control of K-World. It is administered and created locally. Online countries appoint local content managers who are responsible for adding knowledge (Power 2000a). Local knowledge is not necessarily globally indexed within the K-World taxonomy. However, as noted by one user, "in general, the first place I look is (locally)." Further, as noted by another user, "With our (business-specific server) we have all the knowledge I use, plus we have links to all the important K-World knowledge." K-World provides the infrastructure and link point to a wide range of other knowledge sources. As a result, knowledge could remain local, but was globally accessible.

5.5 Quality of K-World (Chase 2001)

By 2001, the quality of K-World had become apparent. In June 2001, a poll of knowledge management experts was made to determine the "Most Admired Knowledge Enterprises." Four of the Big 5 were named among the 37 finalists: Andersen, Ernst & Young, PricewaterhouseCoopers, and KPMG. KPMG finished 13th, behind Ernst & Young 12th and Andersen 11th. At the time KPMG's Global Chief Knowledge Officer noted that "Knowledge sharing is a core value in KPMG and underpins our current and future ability to serve our clients worldwide."

6. Spinning Off K-World (Turillo 2001)

In November 2000, Merrill Lynch put together a report on a potential new firm, “Cering,” whereby KPMG would spin-off K-World. K-World had a number of investors, including Microsoft, that were providing venture capital to support the spin-off. Michael Turillo, Partner-in-Charge of knowledge management (and K-World), would be the new CEO of the emerging company (Flash 2001a). Why was KPMG going to spin off K-World? Turillo explained that it was a function of costs, client interests, SEC constraints, emerging technology capabilities, a desire for return on investment, and a lack of fit with KCI (KPMG Consulting).

6.1 Costs

The K-World cost per user had been higher than was expected. Further, because all users were now on the system, there were no other users to drive down the cost per user. In addition, maintaining the position of the system on the technology curve required additional spending and maintenance. Otherwise, there would be the unintended consequence of slipping back to where the firm had been prior to K-World. As a result, another way of generating additional funding was required.

6.2 Clients Wanted It

After Bill Gates (1999a and 1999b) mentioned the system at the CEO Summit in 1999, a number of KPMG clients became interested in the system and wanted to have the system capabilities. They recognized that the system offered more than they had in their own knowledge management systems. In addition, Flash (2001b) noted that after KPMG started using K-World internally, they had hooked some clients to the portal. KPMG had created an asset. The Director of Knowledge Technologies at International Data Corporation, felt that K-World could provide links to clients (Grzanka 1999): "Today it is an internal capability with potential for leveraging out to customers. Over the long term, it can form the basis of an electronic umbilical cord." However, because of KPMG’s work in assurance, the Security and Exchange Commission (SEC) limited the work that KPMG could do to implement knowledge management systems, and their ability to provide knowledge management to clients.

6.3 A Way to Further Exploit Emerging Technology

K-World was built to meet the current requirements of KPMG, which did not include mobile computing capabilities. However, recent developments in technology suggest that mobile computing be built into the system and more fully leveraged. Breaking away from KPMG would provide resources that would allow the knowledge management group the ability to provide mobile computing-based knowledge management as part of a continued evolution of K-World.

6.4 After Spending Millions, KPMG asked “Can We Get ROI?”

KPMG had put millions of dollars into this system. Unfortunately, knowledge management is often seen as overhead. Costs can be readily seen, but it may be hard to trace specific revenues generated by using the system. One approach to potentially realizing return on investment was to spin it off as its own company, particularly in the initial public offering (IPO) environment of the times. As an IPO, K-World could generate substantial additional funds and not increase costs.

6.5 Why Not Make It Part of KCI (KPMG Consulting)?

An alternative approach was to make the knowledge management group and K-World part of KPMG Consulting Incorporated (KCI). However, there were at least three reasons for not making it a part of KCI: • KCI defined its space as the systems integrator and e-business spaces. Knowledge management is not even in the top 10 of KCI business issues. • In 2000, KCI was spun off as part of an IPO (KPMG 2000a). KPMG did not want there to be any distractions for the spin off. In any IPO, there is a need for focus. Worrying about K-World would detract from that focus. • Finally, KPMG used an approach that minimizes the need for consulting, so there was no real need for KCI.
In addition, KPMG spent two years taking KCI public: an experience that could be used to take the knowledge management group public. Ultimately, KCI went public under the name “BearingPoint” (http://www.bearingpoint.com/), but it did not include the knowledge management group.

7 The New Company and Product (Avishai 2001)

Cering, the new company, would focus on providing a system that consisted of products from twenty vendors, and devote its attention to knowledge management across four basic dimensions, including an enterprise portal, collaboration/messaging, business intelligence, and knowledge management consulting. The target customer would be a company that wanted a solution to its knowledge management problems, but is either unwilling or unable to integrate the products to get that solution. As noted by Avishai, “We are like a 'fund manager,' we look for the best vendor, and swap technologies in and out. We deliver a Rolls Royce off the shelf. Alternatively, if a company is interested, we could take a role as an application service provider."

7.1 Taxonomy

One of the key knowledge management issues is the taxonomy used to categorize knowledge in the system as a basis for search and other purposes. KPMG’s knowledge management group found that about 30% of a company’s taxonomy may take customization, and 70% is part of the emerging general language of business. For a given business, it can take 2-3 months to construct the taxonomy. In addition, the taxonomy needs to be revisited every 3-5 months to bring the taxonomy up-to-date. As a result, development time and costs and maintenance can be substantial. Ultimately, the K-World taxonomy reflects the organization structure and view of the world in which KPMG does business. As noted by Power (2000b), the taxonomy is managed by KPMG's director of intellectual capital and is based on an agreed view of the business, its locations, and the functions and industries in which it operates. The importance of the taxonomy is that it forms the basis of search in K-World, rather than using single search, single request-type enquiries (Power 2000b). The issue of the taxonomy and search is discussed further in section 9.

7.2 Merrill Lynch Report

According to Flash (2001b), Merrill Lynch, praised the potential leadership of Cering in a November 2000 report saying, “(Cering) has the strongest management team we have seen, and in the end the story is the same. People, not technology, win the software game based on execution. We believe that Cering is well positioned to leverage its KPMG heritage to assume an early leadership role in the (enterprise portal) space.”

8 Planned IPO for Cering Dropped

Knowledge management at professional services firms is expensive. The costs of being an early mover in 1991 with Shadow Partner were between $30 million and $100 million. The yearly costs of K-World were reportedly $100 million (or more), $50 million more than the normal level of expenses. The technology curve had moved and it would continue to move. As noted above, realizing the change in technology, KPMG sought to find a return on this overhead function, and planned to spin it off to be its own company.

In August 2000 (Southworth 2000), Rod McKay was named KPMG's "Chief Knowledge Officer." Later (Shoesmith 2001), McKay was quoted as being the "Global Chief Knowledge Officer," an offshoot of his role as KPMG Canada's Chief Technology Officer and Chief Knowledge Officer. At the time of his appointment, McKay noted "Knowledge sharing is a core value within KPMG." During the summer of 2001, KPMG decided to not pursue the Cering IPO plan. The environment for IPOs was substantially different than it had been earlier in 2000. Both Bernie Avishai and Michael Turillo left the firm. Robert Zeibig joined another part of KPMG. In late August 2001, as part of a "realignment of priorities within the organization," McKay announced that KPMG was laying off 50 members of the knowledge management group in the Boston Office (Goodison 2001). As further noted by McKay (Goodison 2001), "The people affected are or were in the knowledge management activities of our firm, maintaining and developing informational databases -- the application content that really supports our businesses throughout KPMG globally."

9. Emerging Issues

By 2002, after K-World’s implementation and roll-out continued the system was well-received, and largely complete, including shutting down some local legacy systems (e.g., Boom 2004). However, there were still some emerging issues and system extensions.

9.1 Search

Initially, search was designed so that users would locate K-World resources by establishing a “context” using the taxonomy that would provide them with a list of items (KPMG 1999c). Context was set by three main parameters: Product, Business Segment, and Geography. By setting the context using those parameters the basic matrix organizational structure of the firm would be built into the knowledge management system. Then, given specified parameters, there were additional content selectors that provided greater detail: News, Overviews, Clients and Targets, Engagements (active and completed), Discussions, Library, KPMG Services, and Inside KPMG (See Exhibit 4). In a short period of time, the number of knowledge resources (document lists) became substantial, making search difficult. For example, within the context established in exhibit 4, how much material might be in “Technical Resources” or “Tools and Templates” and how might we search those resources. As a result, just as search was a defining issue in KPMG’s K-Man system, where only documents in text format could be searched, search emerged as a critical issue in K-World. Finding knowledge was difficult, unless you knew where to look and what to look for. At least four other reasons were behind emerging difficulties with search. First, the existence of K-World increased the number and document types of postings. Now, it was not difficult technically to post materials. For example, as noted in Felt (2004), “there was a day when the UK intranet had a quarter of a million Web pages … (then) the business went into overdrive and anything that could go online went online—without any discipline.” This had at least two consequences: The number and type of documents exploded. As a result, this complicated search efforts, making the selection of knowledge from that set of resources even more difficult, leading to the next issue.

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Exhibit 4. Search Example

Second, the Chief Knowledge Officer in the UK noted (Felt 2004) “Our users suffer from the same malaise that many Internet users suffer from—they are lazy in constructing queries. … They neither have the patience nor the time to sift through long result lists in order to find the information they need.” Although search was possible, it was not easy. Third, if search within a single country such as the UK was difficult, imagine when that search needed to broadened to multiple countries. As Turillo once noted (Glasser 1999) “KPMG was not so much a global company as it was a collection of geographically identified franchises." Unfortunately, this resulted in knowledge silos at KPMG (Raghavan 2001). The existence of those knowledge silos, coupled with decentralized resources and architecture, also made finding knowledge resources difficult. Fourth, when KPMG initially adopted Microsoft Exchange, the K-World architecture called for use of tagging documents for search capabilities (e.g., KPMG 2000c). Further, as noted in Felt (2004) “We believe that you can’t just automatically go around and auto-classify and auto-search and auto-understand everything without any effort at all … Having the ability to use domain expertise to instill discipline in our information environment yields enormous benefits.” Unfortunately, manual tagging is costly and time consuming, and because it is manual, the quality is inevitably uneven. Accordingly, because of the limited search capabilities, some countries in the KPMG federation of offices have tried to develop solutions to improve search of K-World. Because of the decentralized structure, different countries were in a position to pursue their own solutions. According to Felt (2004), the UK adopted its own technology solution to search – going with Verity. Autonomy (2002) indicated that KPMG in the UK also was pursuing the use of a recommendation engine which recognized the social networks that exist within a corporate online environment and automatically suggests documents and identifies the experts who have used them. However, apparently other countries were free to try alternative approaches. Accordingly, global search still faced a number of limitations.

9.2 Client Information

One of the key potential problems associated with knowledge management systems in professional services firms is the potential lack of client confidentiality, and resulting misuse of client information. Ian McBride, KPMG Australia's chief knowledge officer at the time of the K-World introduction noted (Power 2000a), We have to assure our clients that we will not be putting their confidential information on K-World and that there is no logical link between K-World and that data. Rather, what is there are experiences, best practices and proposals without client names or fees.
Further, according to ETW (2003) “Client names and confidential information are removed from stored documents which are used as examples of best practices.” In addition, KPMG has a “Code of Conduct” that includes many references to client confidentiality (KPMG 2006). As a result, according to McBride, K-World does not currently contain client-sensitive knowledge. Unfortunately, some of the key advantages of the original design and story of the “Shadow Partner,” included knowledge about which clients, that specific work had been done for and what was charged for that work (Gladstone and Eccles 1995). For example, if work is done for similar companies in the same industry, that industry knowledge could be very useful in guiding design of proposed work for others with similar problems in the same industries or choosing who should work on the engagement or knowing what to charge. Without company names, finding and choosing relevant resources can become substantially more difficult. Instead of being built into the system, client name information would only be available in the memories of the particular users. Accordingly, over time such information would be lost. As a result, it is important to note that it was anticipated that the next release of K-World would have a security model built around it that would enable KPMG to publish more specific information that would facilitate search, but which will still not be client-identifiable (Power 2000b).

9.3 System Extensions

A number of system extensions were planned for K-World to further support professionals' decision making, facilitating K-World evolution, including (e.g., Boom 2004) • Newsletters on Industry Sectors • Personal Portals • Knowledge Maps • Alacra
As librarians were shifted into knowledge management, adding research to K-World became more feasible. Librarians could be active contributors to K-World by adding knowledge that they generated from an analysis of various data sources. Proposed newsletters about particular industry sectors could include researched emerging developments, such as the impact of new technologies or other emerging developments. Yahoo! was among the first to come up with the well-received concept of allowing personal portals, such as My Yahoo! Accordingly, as a potential extension, it is not surprising that K-World was also focused on potentially providing its users with personal portals that they could customize to meet particular client and decision support needs. Personal portals could help users rapidly use the resources that they found the most helpful and insightful. Knowledge maps show who has knowledge and who uses or needs that knowledge. They can be used to facilitate understanding processes or flows of knowledge, or built to support group processes. There are ultimately several approaches used to construct these maps. For example, one approach is to use e-mail message maps to understand flows of knowledge. Alternatively, such maps can be hand-built or customized to meet the requirements of particular processes. In any case, development of knowledge maps can lead to changes in processes or understanding why processes operate as they do. Alacra is a company that packages multiple sources of financial knowledge for supporting users. As a result, they provide a single point of departure for knowledge, allowing a company to outsource some of its knowledge management functions. Outsourcing would be a reversal from the build-it-internally mentality associated with K-World. As an example of the use of Alacra, see Exhibit 4.

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Exhibit 4. Alacra Integration of Multiple Data Sources (Boom 2004)

10 Summary

It is not clear whether KPMG was able to “leap” the competition with K-World. However, they apparently were able to implement and evolve a system that allowed them to pull together disparate systems and facilitate collaboration and global decision support.

KPMG has had their knowledge management system evolve over time. KPMG has gone from having a vision of a “Shadow Partner” that preceded virtually all professional service knowledge management efforts, to being behind the other major professional services firms in knowledge management, to having a knowledge management system so robust that apparently it could be spun off as its own firm in a competitive knowledge management environment. In addition, based on the survey of the "Most Admired Knowledge Enterprises," the resulting knowledge management was competitive with the best in the world (Chase 2001). KPMG went from a firm that almost lost an entire country of offices to competitors because of a lack of global knowledge management capabilities to a firm with a global network capable of sharing information and supporting decisions on the largest engagements.

Global sharing and integrated decision support became important for more profitable global engagements. Accordingly, KPMG found it necessary to guide the system away from a potential U.S. focused system to one that would accommodate multiple cultures. KPMG used a technology adoption model that tried to move users across the life cycle in parallel to system developments and evolution.

Two of the key emerging issues are client privacy and search. Ensuring that confidential knowledge is not included among knowledge management resources that can be freely selected is important for assuring client confidentiality. Further, as the number of documents, types of document, and sources of those documents has increased, search has become a more important and more challenging. Ironically, not including client information ultimately could hamper search. Consistent with KPMG’s organization structure and history, apparently different countries have pursued their own solutions to improve K-World search capabilities. Ultimately, K-World continues to evolve as new and emerging changes are considered.

Acknowledgement

The author would like to acknowledge the primary discussions with KPMG personnel Robert Zeibig, Michael Turillo and Bernie Avishai and with other KPMG personnel regarding K-World and Cering. In addition, I would like to thank Bob Elliott for his discussion of Shadow Partner and K-Web. I also would like to thank the referees for their comments on earlier versions of this paper. Finally, I particularly would like to thank Clyde Holsapple for his substantial comments on the previous version of the paper.

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Information

Interaction

Information

Intellect

Process oriented

Person oriented

Egalitarian

Hierarchical

UK

South
Korea

USA

Germany

NL

India

France