BUSINESS PROJECT ASSIGNMENT

Business Project Assignment



Business Plan

Title

Business Plan a knowledge management strategy to be implemented in Law Firms.

Summary

WLF is a law firm serving technology companies and public interest organizations, and will subsidize its public interest work with local companies. WLF specializes in mergers and acquisitions as well as stock option plans, but can handle most legal needs for a technology company. The technology work will subsidize the company's public interest work which will be billed out at the cost of overhead.

The Product/Service

We aim to provide a knowledge management strategy to be implemented within this firm. Knowledge management is the effective learning process, associated with exploration, exploitation and sharing human knowledge that uses appropriate technology and cultural environments to enhance an organization's intellectual capital and performance. Knowledge management practices will facilitate effective knowledge sharing among staff within the firm.

Knowledge management, if effectively implemented will play a critical role in the future success of this firm. A knowledge management strategy is an integrated approach to knowledge management.

The knowledge management strategy will deal with Information issues such as poor information sharing practices, information overload, Difficulty in accessing specific information from previous cases, loss of information and issues over the currency of information within the firm. Knowledge issues that will be addressed would be the identification and location of knowledge assets within the firm, loss of knowledge through the retirement or departure of senior partners and experienced staff.

The knowledge management strategy will focus on managing all knowledge (legal and non-legal) within the firm. All aspects of legal knowledge to be managed

Non legal aspects of knowledge to be managed include staff skills and expertise, marketing, revenue, cost and profitability (Bilen, 2002, pp.89-120).

This knowledge management initiative will employ but not depend solely on the use of technology (Aaker, 1999, pp.137-144).

Various Knowledge management solutions will be incorporated into the firm over time as part of this strategy. Examples of such solutions are databases, knowledge cafes and document management systems.

Benefits of this service:

This strategy will provide benefits both in the long and short term.

Risk management:

Knowledge management is essential for risk management. Developing a system for the effective transfer and handling of knowledge and information is to help avoid any lgal issues or suits that may arise for mishandling information. And as a result save money that would otherwise be spent on legal fees.

Capturing knowledge in a system allows it to remain if an individual leaves the firm

Strategic Coherence:

Developing an effective knowledge management Strategy will build coherence between current initiatives in the firm by coherence between ongoing initiatives. Developing an effective Knowledge management Strategy will help to ensure that initiatives are consistent and completed, reducing wasted investment (Berkowitz, 1996, pg.40).

Higher Quality Service

Capturing and documenting knowledge effectively in a system will allow the firm to provide a higher level and quality of service to clients. This is due to more Specialist knowledge being captured and used for training and development purposes

KM will allow a firm to produce certain documents more efficiently thus resulting in a higher ...