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7. NTT DoCoMo69The Japanese company, DoCoMo is one of the world’s most well known Internet service providers. DoCoMo’s i-mode service allows subscribers to remain connected to the internet via their cell phones. Subscribers can enjoy a range of services like checking stock prices, conducting bank transactions, reading news and horoscopes and playing games. DoCoMo was spun off from its parent company, the large and bureaucratic NTT in 1992. Koji Oboshi, CEO of DoCoMo chose Keiichi Enoki as the project leader. Enoki was not only in touch with the market trends but was also not afraid to speak out freely. Oboshi felt that a leader who could think independently, was necessary to create the right context. Enoki was selected for the role, though he did not have any specialized knowledge of wireless technology. Realizing the need for creativity and out-of-the-box thinking, Enoki built his team carefully. Mari Matsunaga, the editor of a women’s magazine was recruited to work on the content. Tsuyoshi Natsuno, an Internet entrepreneur was also appointed. Enoki sheltered the project team from outside influences. He acted as an interface between the project and other departments so that project members were kept out of avoidable conflicts. The new team came together and started sharing ideas and opinions. They were guided by Oboshi’s knowledge vision “From volume to value”, which reflected his belief that DoCoMo had to go beyond voice communication into data communication. Matsunaga had good knowledge of young consumers based on her experience as a magazine editor. Her lack of awareness of technology brought the much needed diversity to the team. Matsunaga wanted the service to be fun, holding appeal to even ordinary technology ignorant people, like herself. She felt the content should be something “you can enjoy when you have a bit of time, not just useful contents such as news and banking service”. Matsunaga used “my concierge” as a metaphor to explain the concept of i-mode service as someone to help people find what they wanted quickly. This metaphor made more sense to ordinary customers, compared to other equivalent terms like “secretary” or “agent”. On the other hand, Natsuno had a good understanding of the Internet and came up with an innovative business model. Natsuno sensed that Japanese consumers would access the internet via the cell phone, not PCs. Instead of buying content, the team decided to work collaboratively with content providers. DoCoMo collected fees on behalf of content providers as part of its monthly billing and took a 9% commission. Content providers liked the arrangement because they could reach out to a large number of subscribers. It was a win-win arrangement. Both DoCoMo and the content providers could make money. Natsuno leveraged his experience to cultivate the content providers. DoCoMo decided not to use the existing Wireless Application Protocol (WAP). By using compact HTML, the team was able to take advantage of the vast amounts of content available in the Internet world. Soon i-mode became popular across Japan and attracted attention across the world. 8. Chaparral Steel70Chaparral Steel, a leading steel manufacturer in North America, started its operations at its Texas plant in July 1973 as a mini-mill producering steel bar products with an annual capacity of 0.25 million tons. In 1999, the company completed construction of its modern, low-cost structural steel plant in Virginia, which nearly doubled its structural steel capacity and expanded its product line. Over the years, as it grew in size, Chaparral demonstrated how knowledge can be used to generate a sustainable competitive advantage in a low margin business. Chaparral utilizes mini-mill technology. Recycled scrap steel is melted in electric arc furnaces, and continuous casting systems convert the molten steel into a broad range of products. The company manufactures hundreds of different types, sizes and grades of structural steel and bar products. Chaparral markets its products throughout the United States, Canada and Mexico, and to a limited extent in Europe. The company sells its products to steel service centers and steel fabricators for use in the construction industry, as well as to cold finishers, forgers and original equipment manufacturers for use in the railroad, defense, automotive, manufactured housing and energy industries. To stay ahead in the steel industry, Chaparral must be able to produce high quality steel at the lowest cost, without diluting safety norms. Knowledge management requires knowledge. Knowledge management at Chaparral is driven by shared-values, creative problem solving, implementing and integrating new methodologies and tools, formal and informal experimentation and drawing expertise from outside. For knowledge management to be effective, knowledge must flow in all directions. Chaparral encourages all employees to contribute ideas. The company has taken various steps to minimize both vertical and horizontal barriers to knowledge sharing. There are few layers and plant operators can easily approach the top management. Horizontal boundaries are also minimal. Multi tasking is quite common. Production workers do quite a bit of the maintenance work. All people consider themselves to be sales people. Security guards enter data while on night duty. They are trained to function as paramedics too. Decisions about process improvements are taken at the lowest levels. These improvements are immediately implemented without waiting for management approval or standardization of best practices. If a process modification works, it becomes the de facto standard and other departments embrace it. Work is structured keeping in view the ease of knowledge dissemination. Workers involved in commissioning a new plant or process are dispersed among the other crew to diffuse the knowledge they have created, in particular the unique features of the new process. There is no separate R&D facility at Chaparral. Indeed, it is often difficult to identify the source of innovation. People share in the pride of doing and if the experiment fails, everyone shares in the failure. Unlike most companies, where a few people take responsibility for innovation, Chaparral believes that when many people contribute in small amounts, the total adds up to something significant. 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