RED BULL

Red Bull Formula One Team

Red Bull Formula One Team

Introduction

The relationship between the corporate strategy and knowledge management strategy has been discussed in the literature by Zack (1998), Jones (2003) and others. A comprehensive knowledge management strategy includes the recommended knowledge management initiatives and knowledge management architecture (Snowden cited in Milne 2002 p.42). The KM initiative, include the systems to be developed. Knowledge Management (KM) architecture has various layers including repositories, application layer, collaborative filtering and intelligence (Tiwana 2000 p.309). From another point of view, corporate strategy itself is formulated based on inputs from KMS.

A detailed analysis of this relationship is presented in this report with an example case study, to drive home the point that KMS is very important to a modern corporate strategy.

This report is proposed to be presented to a KM industry conference.

Aim

This report aims to establish the relationship between corporate strategy and KMS and to illustrate that relationship using the example of corporate strategy of Red Bull Formula One Team.

Objectives

This report has the following objectives.

Explain the concepts, theory behind corporate strategy as relevant to the discussion on KMS.

Explain briefly the concept of KMS

Explain why KMS are important for the organisation from a strategic view point.

Establish the relation between corporate strategy and KMS from literature

Demonstrate the link through example case studies from Red Bull Formula One Team

Intended Scope to be covered

This report is to describe the link between corporate strategy and KMS. It is not intended to be a detailed report on corporate strategy. Note that the link between corporate strategy and KMS has components of organisational processes, culture and human elements present in between. Since this report is about systems, we will not attempt to describe the cultural and human relationships in great detail.

This report is intended to be a review of theoretical literature on the topic of relationship between corporate strategy and KMS. The case study of Red Bull Formula One Team corporate strategy, used in this report, is only used as an example. It is intended to be covered only briefly. It neither covers in detail nor advice the Red Bull Formula One Team management of any KMS. Hence, it is noted here that this report is not for presentation to the corporate management of Red Bull Formula One Team.

Corporate strategy

'An organisation needs a well defined sense of purpose, mission, its unique place in the environment and scope and direction of growth. Such sense of mission defines the firm's strategy.' (Dobson and Starkey 1993).

Strategy can be defined from various perspectives.

Strategy as Plan : 'Strategy is commonly thought of as a plan, a consciously intended course of purposeful action' (Hubbard 2000 p.11). According to this view, 'information is gathered, sifted and analysed, forecasts are made, senior managers and planning decide the best course of action for the corporation'(Dobson and Starkey 1993)

Strategy can be seen as a process of management. 'A system of management that will facilitate the capability of the organisation to respond to an environment that is essentially unknowable, ...