I.  Background

Sequent Computers is a virtual “David-holding-a-slingshot” unlike its major competitors HP, IBM, DEC and Sun Microsystems in the UNIX systems industry. Based in Beaverton, Oregon, it employs only 2,700 in 53 field locations in the US, Europe and Asia. As small as the company is, it is valued for providing multi-million dollar solutions to many industries. As such, the expertise of employees has become critical to its success.

Aware that customers value its knowledgeable sales force, Sequent began to manage knowledge like an asset in 1993. It began by analyzing its business model by identifying and targeting its knowledge-sensitive points where improvement will yield the best results. The analysis revealed that the company would do best by focusing on its direct sales channel that is in close contact to its customers. The goal then was to make knowledge available to everyone so that each front-line employee in direct contact with the customers would be able to respond to them with the collective intelligence of the organization.
 

II. The Sequent Corporate Electronic Library (SCEL)

Sequent started KM by building the necessary technology infrastructure. SCEL or Sequent Corporate Electronic Library, an intranet site that contains corporate and individual knowledge domains focused on market and sales support to help employees do their jobs better.

IT and KM are two separate functions critical to SCEL. IT provides the technology, and human and financial resources to support KM programs. KM is responsible for the company's patent portfolio and the corporate library. A cross-functional SCEL team consists of  librarians, a Web master, programmers, a SCEL architect, a SCEL evangelist, and other members linked to other parts of the organization.

SCEL includes a combination of database management systems, full text retrieval engines, file system storage, and complex structure of programs, all of which are integrated to Sequent's worldwide internal Web and accessible to all employees through Web browsers.

SCEL works on a publisher/consumer relationship. Every employee is a publisher/consumer if they use SCEL. Publishers put knowledge into the system and consumers use that knowledge. Applying a laissez faire capitalist approach to knowledge, content is not controlled centrally. However, the influx of useful information as determined by the users is regulated by the SCEL team. User feedback is encouraged within the system. Outstanding presentations, strategy and script for sales calls and design documents are readily available. SCEL's other features are metadata capture, hypermail and a soon-to-be-developed partner library.

Sequent fosters a laissez-faire KM philosophy – the company's approach to practice and content is decidedly hands-off. Knowledge that comes to the system is not dictated by management but controlled by its direct users – whether an information is helpful and meets their knowledge quality standards.
 

III.  Results

The KM efforts of Sequent has yielded good results. According to the company's KM leaders, SCEL has helped Sequent raise project average selling price, and reduce delivery and response time at all stages in the sales and post sales process. It has also increased the customer-specific and generic knowledge captured by its employees and customers. SCEL has focused the sales teams more effectively on proper targets and has made the assimilation process for new employees more efficient. Finally, the company has increased the customer-perceived value of its offerings, in hard (financial) and soft (loyalty) ways.

Sequent is looking into SCEL enhancements in the future – better browsing structures, wider coverage, improved security model and many others.
 

IV. Key Learnings

Based on Sequent's experience with SCEL, Swanson offers the following key learnings:

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