CIMA P3 Syllabus C. Internal controls - Knowledge management systems - Notes ^{17 / 21}

record and store the knowledge held within an organisation.

Information held on a KMS is easily accessed and shared by employees.

E.g. relevant legislation, facts and solutions to problems

The question is how to capture and exploit useful knowledge at different levels across the organisation.

Benefits of a KMS

• Valuable data is preserved

• The data is easily shared

• Data duplication is avoided

Groupware is 'a collection of tools to assist collaborative work in an organisation'. (CIMA Official Terminology)

Groupware products are designed to assist communication between members of a group, and capture information that the group is working with.

In a sales context, for instance, it would provide a facility for recording and retrieving all the information relevant to individual customers, including notes of visits, notes of telephone calls and basic data such as address, credit terms and contact name. These items could be updated by anyone who had contact with a customer and would then be available to all sales people.

Groupware also provides such facilities as discussion databases and message boards, appointment scheduling, to-do lists, and jolters. Lotus Notes is a good example of a groupware product.

Workflow systems

'A WORKFLOW is a series of tasks, which must be performed in order to achieve a specific result of outcome in an organisation.' (CIMA Official Terminology)

For example, in order to purchase a new piece of equipment, a department may need to get some quotes from suppliers, prepare a business case, raise a purchase order (once the business case is approved) and match the purchase order to supplier invoice before approving the invoice for payment.

In a manual system, there is a chance that documents can get lost or out of order. Automated workflow systems avoid such problems by enabling documents to be moved over a network or maintained in a single database~ which the appropriate users have access to at the required time. An automated workflow system can also include reminders which alert staff (or managers) when actions become due.

Intranet

An intranet is an internal network used to share information.

Organisation members use networked computers to access information held on a server.

The firewall surrounding an intranet fends off unauthorised access from outside the organisation. 

Each employee has a browser, used to access a server computer that holds corporate information on a wide variety of topics, and in some cases also offers access to the internet. 

Applications include company newspapers, induction material, procedure and policy manuals and internal databases.

• Savings accrue from the elimination of storage, printing and distribution of documents that can be made available to employees online.

• Documents online are often more widely used than those that are kept filed away, especially if the document is bulky (eg manuals) and needs to be searched. This means that there are improvements in productivity and efficiency.

• It is much easier to update information in electronic form.

Extranet

An extranet is a collaborative network which uses internet technology to join organisations, for example to link businesses with their suppliers.

Expert system

An expert system is a computer program that captures human expertise in a limited domain of knowledge. Such software uses a knowledge base that consists of facts, concepts and the relationships between them and uses pattern-matching techniques to solve problems. 

For example, many financial institutions now use expert systems to process straightforward loan applications. The user enters certain key facts into the system such as the loan applicant's name and most recent addresses, their income and monthly outgoings, and details of other loans. The system will then: