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The concept of Brand Knowledge
Management looks to move brand~led
organisations from content to process
and from data to tacit knowledge. This
paper proposes a manifesto for brand
marketing that refocuses its activities and
challenges the roles, structures and
behaviour of its management. Above all,
it provides a new framework for
developing, exploiting and managing
brand knowledge.
INTRODUCTION
Brand equity has become a hot topic for chief
executives, accountants and academics as it is
tipped to join other critical measures of long-
term business performance. At the same time,
the 'knoledge economy' is becoming an
accepted frameork for management
thinking, planning and organisation. !t is
perhaps surprising, therefore, that the
designated marketing function in so many
companies has done so little to advance the
management of one of their most value-
adding activities - brand knoledge.
!ndeed, it is nearly "# years since $heodore
%evitt pointed out the unique perspective of
marketing& '$he difference beteen
marketing and selling is more than semantic.
(elling focuses on the needs of the seller,
marketing on the needs of the buyer. (elling
is preoccupied ith the seller's need to
convert the product into cash, marketing ith
the idea of satisfying the needs of the
customer by means of the product and the
hole cluster of things associated ith
creating, delivering, and finally
consuming it.)*+,
-uring those four decades, marketing
departments have gron as substantially as
their budgets, huge quantities of data samp
the brand teams and yet the evidence suggests
they have not strengthened their grip on
'knoing and understanding' their users
better. .ver the same period the reputation of
the marketing function has declined in many
companies. $his paper proposes a manifesto
for brand marketing that re-focuses its
activities and challenges the roles, structures
and behaviour of its management. Above all,
it provides a ne frameork for developing,
exploiting and managing brand knoledge.
WHAT IS BRAND KNOWLEDGE?
!n order to anser this, e first need to define
hat a brand is. $his apparently innocent
question has a variety of ansers, depending
on hat your perspective is. .ur preference
is to take the familiar vie of a brand as part
of our lives, here its personality represents a
promise and a set of values that are supported
by benefits, features and functions that deliver
that promise. Brands like %uco/ade, 0ellogg,
1oca-1ola, 2epsi, 3oliday !nn, 4irgin, B56
and $esco all evoke clear meanings, images
and associations, each ith an identity that
separates it from its direct competition and
make it more or less attractive to the potential
Jourra| ol KroW|edge |aragerer| - 3ep|eroer 1998
+
user. Brands have relationships ith their
users, often throughout the lives of the
individuals and their families.
$he obvious value of brands is their ability to
translate reputation and loyalty among their
users into long-lived and reliable profit
7 1998 8519:lnteractives
streams. $hus, the importance of these brands
and the poer of their equity make it vital to
understand ho they ork, hat makes them
tick, and hat you can and cannot do ith
them. As 9eoffrey ;andall puts it& 'Brands
are so fundamental to the survival or success
of many firms that e need to understand
them in all their subtleties and complexities
so that e can manage them correctly.' *<,
.ur experience of running brands, both big
and small, shos the enormous value of deep,
insightful brand knowledge. $his is founded
on a continuous dialogue ith users, leading
to real understanding of the product or
service, and a refusal to accept received
isdom as state-of-the-art knoledge.
=ven in the apparently mundane categories in
hich brands like Andrex and -omestos
compete, deep brand knoledge and
understanding is critical to their continued
market leadership. !n fact, the more mundane
the category, arguably the more dependent the
brand is on this.
.ur vie relates not only to the explicit
knoledge that arises from data
interpretation, internal systems and processes,
but more especially to the tacit knoledge
about a brand that is tucked aay and usually
not shared, because it is so hard to
communicate. 0noledge, then, is the
essence of hat a brand represents, ho it can
achieve competitive advantage and ultimately
significant value to a business. Brands are,
quintessentially, knoledge.
KNOWLEDGE AND BRAND EQUITY
.ver the last three decades there have been
significant changes in the brand arena as
many major industries have consolidated into
a fe key players - at first nationally, then
regionally and more recently, globally. (o, in
traditional industries like food, there has been
the emergence of an elite group of
international players such as >estle, ?nilever,
0ellogg, -anone and -iageo, ho exert a
huge influence over the industry. $he trends
of acquisition, merger and ithdraal have
been mirrored across a ide range of other
industries, including drinks, paper,
confectionery, media, retail, transport and
many others - fast moving consumer goods
markets and business-to-business sectors
alike.
At the same time as this industrial
consolidation, the cost of marketing products
and services, particularly the media, has
continued to inflate faster than the prices of
the products using them. $his, combined
ith the escalating costs of getting ne
products into distribution and the increasing
poer of the private label, has created a
significant barrier to launching ne brands.
$he net result of these major forces has been
the consolidation of business into feer and
feer brands, many of hich have been
around for a number of years. $his has
served to create extremely large brands,
knon as 'superbrands', @megabrands', 'poer
brands' or 'banner brands', each often divided
into a variety of sub-brands, hich in turn
carry an enormous range of products.
As corporations have recognised the
phenomenal value of the equity attached to
their brand names, there has been a headlong
rush to value, control and gro their equity
further. 8or a decade the major activity on
brands has been to stretch and extend in every
possible direction, as 1oca-1ola, $esco and
4irgin have done so successfully.
Aet, do the business leaders and marketing
practitioners kno hat they are doing ith
their brandsB -o they use the knoledge of
their brands to its full potential hen making
decisions that impact the equity of their
brandsB 5ore importantly, do they value that
knoledge as a fundamental part of the
brand's equityB -espite the maturity of the
marketing discipline and the data that exist to
Jourra| ol KroW|edge |aragerer| - 3ep|eroer 1998
<
support brand management, examples of poor
brand performance and the concomitant loss
of brand equity are no all too common. !t is
our belief that this is because too little attempt
is made to convert data into knoledge.
THE CHALLENGE TO BRAND MARKETING
As the former 1hairman and 9roup 1hief
=xecutive of 9rand 5etropolitan plc, (ir
Allen (heppard, rote, '.ur brand managers
face the challenge of increasing the value of
their brands, but ho can they tell hat they
are doingB And, for that matter, ho can
senior management ensure that the ork of
the junior brand manager is actually
enhancing brand value rather than the
oppositeB 5ost companies rely on short-term
partial measurements such as market share or
profitability, but these may distort the long-
term picture.'*C,
6hile agreeing ith both the sentiment and
the issues (ir Allen raises, these need to be
seen in the context of the tremendous
challenge facing the junior brand manager of
the late +DD#s vi/. a beildering array of
skills to master, knoledge to absorb and
contacts to maintain. 1ompared to his:her
counterpart of <E years ago, the complexity
and difficulty of the job has magnified many
times as ne and different challenges have
gron.
hallenges to brands ! often old
established brands in mature markets,
here retailer poer, brand
rationalisation and variant proliferation,
media costs and management failures are
groing at an alarming pace.
hallenges to the marketing function
changes to the role and function are
being demanded by the globalisation of
markets and competition, increasing
sophistication and demands of customers
in over- supplied, slo groth markets
and the customer focus of the hole
organisation.
The challenge of change - consumer
habits, innovation, sources of
competition and kno-ho are all
changing at unprecedented speeds.
The challenge of new media and
channels of communication ! the
emergence of ne media, the
fragmentation of old media and the
impact of information technology have
created a multitude of ne ays of
reaching and communicating ith end
users.
The challenge of balancing long!term
health with short!term performance ! as
the increased emphasis on short-term
financial performance has been passed
don the operating lineF it has reduced
the brand management guardianship of
the long-term health of the brand and
potentially its strategic advantage.
hallenges to individuals ! the need to
move from reard and recognition based
on individual achievement 'in the job', to
a recognition of team-based
contributions and sharing concepts,
metaphors and mental models of brands
ith others.
$hese challenges, particularly ith the
continuing short-term pressures for
performance, have created a very different
focus, complexity and role for the brand
manager of the late +DD#s - compared to that
of the brand managers in the +DG#s and +DH#s
today's 1=.s.
WHO IS REALLY MARKETING THE BRAND?
As little as a quarter of a century ago a brand
manager, hile not totally 'in control' of
his:her brand, could anticipate a fairly
reasonable degree of autonomy in the
delivery of agreed goals, amongst hich
ould have been some idea of groing the
brand and its equity. $oday, ith a
dramatically shortened roll call of brand
names in a corporation and ith each brand
being that much bigger and more important to
Jourra| ol KroW|edge |aragerer| - 3ep|eroer 1998
C
the business, the likelihood is that the so-
called brand manager is one of a large and
fluid group of people handling the brand.
8or the marketing fraternity, the truth is that
most brands are managed by a collective of
management, a netork that includes the
functional marketing people, but very often
directed from the board room, if not the
1=.'s office. .n top of this, the big or
multinationals often layer a =uropean, Asian
or Americas management tier to help 'co-
ordinate the regional activities'.
As 2rofessor 2eter -oyle rote& '!n today's
netork organisations the old idea that
marketing managers determine the brand and
the marketing mix is hopelessly dated.
2roducts, prices, channels of distribution,
service and the development of brand equity
are not the provinces of a single function or
even a single firm.'*", $he result, not
surprisingly, is that no one person is the
dedicated, champion of the brand and its
equity.
!n some organisations it ould seem that
these changes might not have been recognised
in this explicit fashion. $hese companies
have lost sight of the need for the
organisational role previously played by
marketers in the longer-term creation of brand
value. !ndeed, in many companies the drive
for short-term goals merely pushes marketers
to actions that erode the brand equity.
6orse still, the individual and organisational
expectation is for brand managers to 'make
their mark' on a brand in their journey of
moving on to greater things. 8urther, many
companies give brand managers limited
tenure on specific brands, in order that
interest and promotion may be used to deter
them from being tempted by bigger cars and
salaries at another company. Added to this is
a more cynical and more self-focused
employee attitude, brought about by a
succession of donsi/ing and restructuring
initiatives. >one of these organisational
pressures supports the development of brand
value in the long term.
$he advent of supply chain teams, trade
marketing functions and the dramatic rise in
speciality marketing functions serve to
underline that the traditional marketing role
has been overtaken. 3oever, this is not to
say that they are no longer needed. A major
focus of brand and marketing managers has
become transactional, satisfying demands of
internal measurement processes and trade
customers at the expense of a deeper
understanding of the needs of the end users of
the brand. $his gradual dislocation aay
from the needs of the end user has contrived
to reduce the orld-class marketing
capabilities and groth of brand equity that
are essential for long-term corporate survival.
!t is our belief that to become valued by
businesses, the marketing function and the
broader marketing profession must face the
need to change. !t needs to re-focus its
activities and organisation, be prepared to be
measured, commit to a formal training and
development process that continues through
the career of the individual and dedicate itself
to adding value to the brand e"uit#.
$rom To
!ndividual .rganisational
4olume 4alue
2oint scoring 2oint sharing
2rotecting ;evealing
Ad-hoc 2rocess
!slands >etork
;epresentational Abstract
=xplicit $acit
$actical (trategic
=nd 5eans
l|gure 1. T|e 8rard KroW|edge |aragerer| Jourrey
GETTING MARKETING TO CHANGE THEIR
WAYS
$he key to the role of marketing being valued
by its functional peers and an organisationIs
shareholders is the re-focusing of its efforts
onto the strategic areas that ill develop the
future of the business and its brands.
5arketing also must move aay from
primarily transactional and tactical content.
5arketing is the best placed function in a
business to lead the management, building
and measurement of brand equity. !t can plan
the development platforms for innovation
Jourra| ol KroW|edge |aragerer| - 3ep|eroer 1998
"
programmes, setting the direction and rate of
market and competitive change. !t can also
drive the formal and informal organisational
netorks that deliver competitive advantage
in each of these areas.
All these issues require a deep understanding
of the market, ho it segments, the task or
service, the products, the end user's needs and
ants the competitors, the brands and their
composition. !n fact, all of the external
influences that impact on the companies
brand their performance and value. Brand
knoledge and its management thus becomes
a central theme to the future role of the
marketing function. 5oving from role
content to organi/ation, brand managers, the
marketing function and the organisation face
a ne journey, as shon in 8igure +.
$he implications of this journey are clear for
all of the different stakeholders, as ell as
hat needs to change. $he change ill
involve people, content and process. 5uch of
the journey is flagged by a requirement for
marketers to change not only the content, as
identified above, but also the ay in hich
they ork and therefore their behaviour.
$he measurement of marketing is an emotive
issue. 6e believe that Brand 0noledge
5anagement should be vieed as an
opportunity to closely link the organisationIs
measures of brand equity ith performance of
the marketing function, since this is a primary
element of the role being performed by
marketing. ;ather than being seen as a
constraint, this ould allo the marketers to
balance long- and short-term business
performance requirements in full corporate
vie, sharing the trade-offs, rather than
bemoaning the short-termism of the company
as eroding the brand equity.
!t ill necessitate the use of a number of
techniques that have been available for some
time, but shunned by some marketers, either
because of fear or ignorance. =qually, these
techniques ill help marketers to promote the
case for investment in the brands and defend
against discontinuity.
6hile much of the business orld has oken
up to the opportunities offered by relevant
process management, the marketing fraternity
has been slo to embrace the approach. !n
some quarters the move has been openly
resisted as being 'not applicable to marketing',
or 'suppressing creativity'. 8aced ith the
need to become more valuable to their
companies, marketers should re-consider their
outlook on the organisation and ho some of
the process learning, such as netork
organisations and personal and team mastery,
might help to increase the value of their
contributions.
Brand and marketing managers are in a
privileged position, ith a broad perspective
of the business, closest contact ith the end
users and intimate knoledge of ho the
brands ork. .perating from this vantage
point, marketers ho grasp the opportunity
ill have a hugely beneficial impact on the
business. But before they can change and
improve their corporate value, they must deal
honestly ith the current shortcomings of
their function.
MARKETING AND BRAND KNOWLEDGE
MANAGEMENT
$he opportunity and need for marketing to
reassert itself as a key part of business
leadership has never been greater. !n our
vie this opportunity can be realised by re-
focusing the content of the marketing
activities, applying a ne business process
and organising marketing people to create
payback for the business and themselves.
$he unifying theme for this approach of
content, process and people is Brand
0noledge 5anagement.
.ur premise is that brands are about
knoledge. !t is the marketer's knoledge of
the task:service, the end user and his:her
needs, the category and its segmentation, the
brand and its 'atomic' structure, the marketing
mix and ho to operate it. !t is the end user's
knoledge of the brand, hat it promises and
hat it delivers. !t is the distribution
channel's knoledge of the brand's selling
poer and commercial reard. .ver time,
this builds to a considerable body of
knoledge, hich, if captured, integrated and
shared, can represent a critical competitive
advantage.
Jourra| ol KroW|edge |aragerer| - 3ep|eroer 1998
E
(ome of this knoledge is easily transferable
ithin the organisation and has, in the
groing area of 0noledge 5anagement,
been termed explicit knoledge. =xplicit
knoledge is tangible, can be easily
communicated and shared and usually exists
in some documented form. .bvious
examples of explicit brand knoledge ould
be brand share, pricing, user demographics
and frequency of purchase information. $he
organisation of a sound marketing
information and analysis process for explicit
Table 1: Tacit !"#le$%e i! b&a!$ $e'el"()e!t
T*e)e C+&&e!t 1i&!itati"! Tacit &e,+i&e)e!t
ldeas raragerer| 'b&0 rever core up W||| ary good
T|e spar||||g|| ou|o,
(or o|g) |deas'. besu||s ol prev|ous crea||v||y
ora|rs|orrs are rare|y re-v|s||ed.
ldea sources are ur|-lurc||ora| ra||er Trus| &
co||aoora||or
||ar cross-lurc||ora||re|Wor|ed
Corsurer No re|a||ors||p oe|Weer ac||ors ard |ar|e| lee|
urders|ard|rg orard va|ue
lroduc| des|gr A|Ways sourc|rg ex|erra| produc| des|gr
0es|gr ger|us

8rard equ||y 'No-ore e|se urders|ards |||s orard'. 8rard erpa||y,
8rard rarager |as ||r||ed |erure
'l|v|rg W||| ||'
Corsurer To|a| agercy deperdercy Crea||ve ger|us
Corrur|ca||ors
los|||or|rg Cors|ar| deoa|e ard d|sagreerer| 'Corror
|arguage'
|ar|e| Adequa|e researc| ou| ara|ysed |r |ar|e| ard
opera||ors |so|a||or, ro coro|red va|ue crea|ed corpe||||ve lee|
knoledge is an essential start point in the
process of 0noledge 5anagement and a
minimum standard for orld-class operations.
$he second and potentially more poerful
element of brand knoledge is that of tacit
knoledge. $acit knoledge is difficult to
communicate and share ith others. !t is built
on our experiences, feelings, values and
learning styles and represents the
understanding of the external orld. =ach
brand marketer, to a greater or lesser degree,
both. learns and creates this tacit knoledge
on a brand. A good example of a tacit
knoledge area that represents one of the
most potent tools by hich marketing can
create a common language across functions
and thus unify their efforts is that of brand
positioning.
Brand positioning and its atomic structure,
deal ith 'soft' understanding, 'feel' and
'touch' topics such as a brand's values and
personality, not hard facts and numbers.
(uccessful management of subjects like brand
personality is based on accessing the
consumer experience and relationship ith
the brand at both an explicit and tacit level.
Building and combining these different areas
of learning and knoledge requires constant
dialogue ith end users and a broad diversity
of perspectives.
=ffective exploitation of that knoledge ill
happen hen the understanding of the
relationship beteen the end user and the
brand at both the explicit and tacit levels is
shared ithin the organisation.
Brand 0noledge 5anagement concerns all
stakeholders, not just marketing, since it
represents the core property that drives a
brand's differentiation. All of those in contact
ith the brand, directly and indirectly, can
bring unique perspectives and insights,
experience and learning that can create
poerful tacit knoledge about the brand and
its heart that can guide the actions of all
functions over time. $able + illustrates this
through the tacit requirements and limitations
often experienced ith different aspects of
brand development.
$he current process of brand management
usually isolates the knoledge about the
brand, its users and its markets from the
various stakeholders in the organisation.
$hus, hile the four major streams of activity
J1ollection, Analysis, =nquiry and
=xperienceK shon in $able < may be active
at one time or another in an organisation, it is
rarely converted into integrated knoledge
that is shared across the business. $hus,
knoledge remains isolated on organisational
'islands'.
!n our 'Brand 0noledge 5anagement'
process, e identify the knoledge, both
explicit and tacit, and link it to all of the
activities and interfaces involved in groing
the equity of the brand. $he evolution of this
process is based upon the convergence of the
three streams already identified, process,
content and people.
Jourra| ol KroW|edge |aragerer| - 3ep|eroer 1998
G
$he process employs a variety of tools to
convert the explicit and tacit understanding
into integrated knoledge that can be
communicated across the organisation.
1learly, there is significant potential to create
differentiation from tacit knoledge. $hus,
the transition from a content and explicit
knoledge orientated business to a process
and tacit 0noledge 5anagement approach
has strategic importance. 2rocess
management and tacit 0noledge
5anagement are intimately linked, the
accessing of tacit knoledge depending on
the introduction of human, dialogue-based
enquiry processes. $he tacit knoledge that
Tao|e 2. lso|a|ed orard |roW|edge
Co||ec||or Ara|ys|s Frqu|ry
Fxper|erce
%xternal influences
ompetition
onsumer understanding
Market segmentation
hannels
&ositioning
&roduct design
Brand e"uit#
Advertising and
communications
&ricing
'ales promotion
Ke#s to success
can be accessed can be built around the
folloing tacit concepts&
a shared model of the market and its
segmentation.
a shared model of the end user.
a clear definition of the brand
positioning.
a detailed description of the @atomic
structure' of the brand.
a shared vision and strategy for the
brand.
$he critical elements of this approach are the
shared nature of the knoledge and the type
of knoledge involved. $hese start to tackle
both the isolation of knoledge and the re-
focusing of marketing management time.
$he process accesses tacit knoledge through
a tacit converter of enquiry and codification.
$he tacit converter links the emotion and
experience-based tacit knoledge to the
analytical and tangible elements of explicit
knoledge. 8igure < outlines the frameork
for converting tacit knoledge in various
brand development areas.
!n support of the conversion and codification
of tacit knoledge, a range of tools and
frameorks has been developed to enable the
capture and integration ith explicit
knoledge. Additionally, progress in the
implementation and adoption of the ne
approach can-be monitored using a composite
dashboard of measures, modified from the
ork of 5eyer.*E,
$he content of the marketing ork required
by this approach is more end-user focused,
more strategic, more knoledge-based and
more team-centred than the current
transactional norm. !f marketing is to survive
as a key influence and central business
activity, it has to concentrate its efforts on
brand equity management, innovation
leadership and establishing the formal and
informal organisational netorks that deliver
competitive advantage.
$his requires marketers no longer to bury
themselves in operational activities that have
historically consumed their time and
attention, hich in any event have largely
become the province of ne organisational
groups, such as trade marketing and supply
chain management. %etting go of this
traditional co-ordination role ill be easier,
though not ithout its moments, if the co-
ordination role associated ith brand equity
management is given the organisational
importance that it is due. $he durability of
marketing's position in this leadership role
ill ultimately depend on its ability to add
value to the brand equity.
Jourra| ol KroW|edge |aragerer| - 3ep|eroer 1998
H
E-(licit Tacit C"!'e&te& Tacit
Co||ec| Ara|ys
e
Frqu|ry
& code
Fro||o
r &
|roW
|oW
Corsurer
Corrur|ca||o
r
Corsurer
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8rard Fqu||y
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ldeas
|aragerer|
|ar|e|
0pera||ors
l|gure .: Tac|| corvers|or lrareWor|
Building the formal and informal netorks
requires marketers to lead the creation of ne
vascular routes for the transfer of knoledge
in the organisation. !n her article, '$he
3uman .rganisation,' Loy 2almer has
highlighted the need to respond to pressure on
hierarchy by creating fluid processes and
flexible teams in netorked organisations.*G,
$he netork ill demand greater investment
in the social processes of integration and,
ithout this human agenda, 'the openness and
learning on hich the generative knoledge'-
based environment depends ill remain
beyond our reach, together ith our ability to
ork and transfer knoledge across complex
and shifting organisational boundaries.'
greater connectivity and information and
knoledge sharing.
2eople ill make this overall approach
possible. =ffecting change of this nature
requires commitment from the top and from
those ho are affected by it. $hus, hile the
concept of increasing shareholder value
through the groth of brand equity might
attract the support of the business leadership,
it must be balanced ith an appreciation of
the need to create personal value for the
people ho have to change. Building 'ins'
into the change process for all involved is
much more likely to create lasting change
than the assertion of shareholder value as an
unquestionable truth.
6ith the increasing adoption of techniques
such as orkflo, process management and
team-orking, alongside technology enablers
such as groupare, intranets and smart
messaging, organisations are moving toards
Organisational Payback Brand Development Issue Individual Payback
1lear strategic goal (trategic vs. operational 5arketing role and impact
1lear business strategy 5arket definition and brand ;ole and influence
positioning
5easurement of marketing 5eaningful metrics Balanced measures, transparent
performance and reards
5otivated brand managers !nternal leadership and !mproved job satisfaction, role
1onnected strategic plan netorking of change and challenge
!mproved brand development $angible and intangible brand !mproved context and
!mproved corporate capability direction and innovation effectiveness
!ntegration ith other business $otal brand development process .pen to the involvement and
processes contribution from individuals
!mproved multi-functionality
Jourra| ol KroW|edge |aragerer| - 3ep|eroer 1998
M
l|gure 3. 0erera||rg a oa|arced payoac|
8igure C outlines the key brand development
issues and types of payback both the
organisation and the individual should expect
to secure if the issues are successfully
resolved.
!n designing a frameork for inclusion of all
stakeholders, it is apparent that the ay to
secure buy-in from the people on hom the
change process depends is to deliver personal
(wins( as early as possible. $his guides the
design of the process to focus on content and
explicit knoledge in the early part of the
programme, before moving on to process and
tacit knoledge. $his focus on content and
explicit knoledge makes the change process
tangible and loers conflict. !n return, the
organisation receives the establishment of a
thorough and disciplined base of explicit
brand knoledge that is often missing.
!nvolving marketing and brand managers in
the definition of hat constitutes orld-class
capability creates self-generated questions
directed at a change toards process
management. $he move to the process
management requirement can be more
effectively planned and managed ith the
self-realisation of the marketers. $his self-
realisation occurs through a facilitated
process dialogue and comparisons of
individuals' and the organisationIs skills and
capabilities against orld-class benchmark
capabilities.
lrd|v|dua| locus

Cor|er| & Fxp||c||
leop|e C|arge
lrocess & Tac||
0rgar|sa||ora| locus
l|gure 4. T|e c|arge |rars|||or
2ascale et al. have noted that )solutions must
come from the ranks) and that three
concrete interventions ill restore
corporate agility&*H,
+. )*ncorporating emplo#ees fully into the
process of dealing ith business
challenges.
<. +eading from a different place so as to
sharpen and maintain employee
involvement...
C. *nstilling mental disciplines that ill
make people behave differently and then
help them sustain their ne behaviour
into the future.)
$he process has designed into it the key
features that give 'ins' for individuals, a
process of self-realisation and involvement
through dialogue and a netork-enabled team
approach that changes behaviour.
Acknoledging the personal change that the
process and tacit knoledge approach
involves, the process provides the frameork
for those involved to realise the change for
themselves, $he transition from content and
explicit knoledge to process and tacit
knoledge is shon in 8igure ".
$he transition to process and tacit knoledge
management requires time and care, since it is
dependent on the group concerned having the
desire to embrace the change as ell as the
gain involved. 1reating the frameork and
environment that nurtures this capability is
crucial to the lasting effect of this change.
Jourra| ol KroW|edge |aragerer| - 3ep|eroer 1998
D
CONCLUSION
!n the knoledge economy, intellectual
capital is recognised as one of the three
capital requirements of a business. Attitudes
to the source of this capital, the employees of
the organisation, remain locked in the
management paradigms of the !ndustrial Age
in too many organisations. .ther than in
exceptional cases, people are vieed more as
functional orkers than (knowledge
contributors(.
6hile managers accept the intuitive
plausibility of 'knoledge-based business' and
change their missions and strategies
accordingly, this change is attempted, more
often than not, ithin existing organisational
templates. $hus the ne management
initiative is transplanted into the existing
organisational form and function, resulting in
a loss of impact and effective change.
$he concept of Brand 0noledge
5anagement looks to move brand-led
organisations from content to process and
from data to tacit knoledge. $he elements
of the journey imply significant
organisational and individual change in order
to enable the transition. $he key to the
change process is the people on hom it
depends, and in hom the tacit knoledge is
embedded.
Re/e&e!ce0
*+, %evitt, $., '5arketing 5yopia,' ,arvard Business
-eview, ./01.
*<, ;andall, 2., Branding, edited by >orman 3art,
0ogan 2age, %ondon, +DDH.
*C, (heppard, A., Adding Brand 3alue, in Brand &ower,
edited by 2aul (tobert, 5acmillan, %ondon, +DD".
*", -oyle, 2., 'Brand =quity and the 5arketing
2rofessional,' Market +eader, !ssue +, (pring +DDM.
*E, 5eyer, 1., $ast #cle Time, $he 8ree 2ress, >e
Aork, +DDC.
*G, 2almer, j., '$he 3uman .rganisation,' Lournal of
Knowledge Management, 3ol. +. >o. ", Lune - +DDM, pp.
<D"-C#H.
*H, 2ascale, ;., 5illeman, 5., and 9ioja, %., '1hanging
the 6ay 6e 1hange,' ,arvard Business -eview, 4ol.
HE, >o. G, +DDH, pp. +<G-+<D.
4avid $oster and -uth Morgan are Managing &artners
5f $oster Morgan onsulting 2roup, a consulting firm
that focuses on strategic marketing, market and brand
knowledge management and brand and product
innovation. Tel6 788 91:.81; <0=/;;, %!
mail6fostmorg>aol.com.
*an -ichards is a 4irector of *nteractives, a consulting
firm that focuses on knowledge networks, innovation
and process management and management assessment.
%!mail6 *nteractives>compuserve.com, ?ebsite6
http6@@www. interactives!humanorg.com.
Jourra| ol KroW|edge |aragerer| - 3ep|eroer 1998
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