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Israel

Simon Lelic talks to Eli Oren and assesses the impact of knowledge management in Israel.

The concept of knowledge management is not new in Israel. According to Eli Oren, knowledge management consultant at Nihulim, an Israeli consultancy firm, and former knowledge manager at both Soda-Club Enterprises and Comverse, KM made its first high-profile appearance back in 1995, when more than 200 managers attended the first conference on the subject. The event was organised by Edna Pasher, who in turn was exposed to the principles associated with knowledge management through her professional contacts in Europe.

Oren categorises the development of KM since then into three distinct phases. The first, says Oren, was primarily a period of experimentation. The earliest adopters were mainly well-established companies from the electronics and communications sectors, such as ECI, RAD and Intel Israel. Initially, various KM tools and practices were employed to tackle specific problems or to support certain activities, for example staff training, although by the end of this first phase, several consulting firms, including Nihulim, had also made their first forays into the market.

The process entered its second stage two or three years ago and was marked by a move away from what Oren describes as “guerrilla knowledge management” and towards larger, formal KM projects. With the allocation of more resources and increasing support from top-level managers and consulting firms, companies from across the industrial spectrum began to see real impact on organisational performance. One of the more impressive examples, says Oren, was the communities project initiated by Bank Leumi, in which thousands of workers across the country became involved.

“Two new trends marked the beginning of the third wave of KM activity,” says Oren. “Specifically, the increasing number of organisations from all sectors willing to start KM projects and, at last, KM projects that are initiated or championed by the heads of organisations.” The current KM projects at Rafael (the Armament Development Authority) and within the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) exemplify the level of interest and support knowledge management programmes are now receiving in Israel.

Nevertheless, in times of economic difficulty KM projects are often the first to suffer. Oren believes this is partly because many managers still fail to accept the correlation between knowledge management and improved business performance. Similarly, while Oren maintains that the average Israeli manager tends to be curious and willing to adopt and experiment with new ideas, a pervading desire to see quick results means they are often reluctant to commit to long, potentially costly change management processes.

The number of dedicated KM publications in Israel is also quite limited. This may be because of the small market for such niche publications, a problem compounded by a propensity among Israeli managers to learn about and explore new ideas in Hebrew rather than English, despite the ability of most managers to speak and read the latter fluently. As such, says Oren, Hebrew business and computing magazines remain the biggest forum for discussions relating to knowledge management, and the only dedicated KM publications are newsletters distributed by the likes of Nihulim and other consultancies, such as Rom-Knowledgeware and Pasher.

While those companies that use English for both external business and internal correspondence are able to use the latest US or British applications to assist their KM efforts, the language barrier has also meant that many Israeli firms lag behind their western peers in terms of KM technology implementation. Initially it was only the smaller, independent vendors that addressed the need for applications that integrated, for example, Hebrew text search and retrieval facilities. According to Oren, however, the situation is now changing and growth in the popularity of enterprise portals as KM tools has finally prompted many larger Israeli software developers to enter the knowledge management market as well.

There is no doubt that knowledge management is steadily gaining credence as a management discipline in Israel, but from Oren’s experiences as a consultant in the country it is equally evident that many managers have yet to fully overcome their doubts. That such high profile organisations as the IDF are now actively involved in the KM arena is nevertheless encouraging, and Oren is confident that it is only a matter of time before other organisations in both the public and the commercial sector join the fray.

Eli Oren is a knowledge management consultant at Nihulim. He can be contacted at: eli@nihulim.co.il