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Title:
Buying Knowledge: Effective Acquisition Of External Knowledge
Review:
Peter Sammons is a purchasing professional, who sees knowledge buying
as a subset of knowledge management. The book is aimed at managers in
business, as he says that at some point in their career, most
managers will by responsible for a project to buy new knowledge.
There are introductory chapters which explain the recent worldwide
growth of R&D and knowledge. There is a useful chapter on intellectual
property rights, which defines copyright, the patent of invention, the
rights of employed inventors, trade secrecy and design rights.
The chapter entitled 'Why buy knowledge?' is very valuable reading for
anyone who has to buy information or knowledge for business. Sammons
lays considerable emphasis on the decision as to whether knowledge
should be created internally or bought in, and the comparative costs
associated with both approaches. I find this interesting, as at
present many organisations are dispensing with the services of
internal knowledge creators. However, later on in the book, he
described Microsoft's recent strategy, which was to buy the owners of
the knowledge, in other words to recruit the top researchers in the
field on to the permanent staff. The researchers were given freedom to
follow their own agenda and in this way to advance the 'state of the
art' in software. Sammons works on the premise that the driver for
knowledge acquisition is to move into new areas and that little
knowledge is needed for operational requirements.
Sammons uses various yardsticks to indicate the value of particular
types of knowledge to an organisation. One measurement is the
closeness or proximity of the knowledge owner to your organisation.
Therefore, knowledge obtained from industry trade associations is much
closer than central government. He has also developed a ranking of the
value of knowledge obtained via various knowledge-acquisition
strategies. For example, hiring employees with specific knowledge or
acquiring knowledge-rich firms is ranked higher than knowledge
purchase. Knowledge scanning is seen as the lowest of the strategies,
partly because it is the least integrated. Integration is defined as
the closeness of formal contractual links. Similarly, he describes
knowledge transfer models: these start with latent knowledge, for
example, a law book, which can be used for reference when required;
moving on to knowledge transfer with skills enhancement; and then to
extremely active knowledge transfer, which will effect a strategic
change.
The book contains some extremely useful acquisition-planning
information: how to assess vendors throughout the contract;
advantages and disadvantages of competitive tendering or negotiation;
specifying the work and project management: contract costing. The
yardstick for return on investment should be a minimum payback of 3:1
and if this target cannot be reached, then the organisation should
look for another way to acquire the new knowledge.
The book finishes with chapters on acquiring knowledge from
consultants, contract research organisations and universities. It
offers insight into some procurement techniques and how organisations
perceive the value of acquired knowledge.
Free Pint Reviewer:
Olivia Freeman works on freelance basis, as a trainer, researcher and
information management specialist. She was previously Head of
Business Information at HSBC Bank, where she started the global
service. She was responsible for planning and development plus the
procurement and exploitation of electronic resources.
Olivia specialises in training on the selection of e-resources and
vendor management. She also runs tailored workshops for individuals
and companies. She is a judge for the 2005 International Information
Industry Awards 'FreePint Award for Best Customer Service
Team' <http://www.freepint.com/events/online-info-2005/>..
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