f
knowledge management
I
i
Putting knowledge to work
What'sNewS Issue
Building tools
Serving clients
Deeper knowledge
Performance measures at
the Netherlands branch
Education
Research/Experience
A
Rabobank/Client
Interface
12* December 1998
applies when it comes to building
knowledge and its subsequent
management - it has to be organized as
close to the customer as possible. We've
put this into a chart and I think the most
striking thing in this chart is the two-way
street between us and our customers.
Don't forget, the cliënt has a considerable
amount of knowledge that also can be of
Hans Megens of the Utrecht knowledge
management team
use to us. But it has to be reciprocal. And
to get that knowledge to them, you have
to put structures, facilitating structures, in
place. Basically, that is what we've tried to
do here in Utrecht.'
The chart shows clearly that
there are two distinct inputs
into the knowledge - one is
education, such as the
international relationship
managers course created last
year and other skill-building
courses, usually for front
officers. The other source is
the cluster of research and
other information generating
groups, such as APFT/FAR,
equity research and so on.
'One of the keys to bringing
all these things together is the
so-called Renaissance project
whicli is actually called
Insight,' Megens says. 'This is
the sort of system we need to
ensure people have the tools,
i.e. the information and
knowledge, they need to give customers
the best service. In addition, we have
also come up with another way to show
customers what we can do for them. It is
currently called the Utrecht knowledge
advancement team (UKAT), but l'm sure
the name will change once this team gets
down to work.'
The idea behind this team is very much
on a par with the market core team
approach - which, by the way, has
already been adopted on a European
scale. 'The UKAT team's role is to
provide our relationship managers with
an additional tooi,' Megens explains. 'In
the past, a credit-driven banker would
be expert in that product and would be
able to handle most cliënt contacts and
requirements single-handed, or with
some support. Today, we have so many
products, many of them extremely
complex, that you cannot expect
relationship managers to know
everything about all of them. Nor can
you expect him or her to know
everything about every single market
sector in F&A or other sectors we work
in here in the Netherlands. So what we
have done is created a team of people
who can bring together all the
knowledge a relationship manager needs
to have in order to service his customer.'
Again, Megens stresses the need to
organize around the customer. The new
team, which is headed up by Peter
Spitters, will be able to create customer
In the past year, new performance criteria
have been introduced for personnel
appraisal in Utrecht. These are divided into
four quantitative, or hard, and four
qualitative (soft) elements:
Qualitative
dient satisfaction
knowledge
team work
innovation
Quantitative
netprofit
solvency use
credit risk score
cross selling/product mix
presentations based on research and
knowledge. They will compile it together
with the relationship managers and
product specialists into a form that will
show the customer what we can do for
them. We did similar presentations for
Cargill and Continental. They proved
very useful. We are then able to give our
vision of the sector, the competition,
what finaneial needs we perceive in that
customer. Basically, this team represents
a deepening of our broader knowledge
on products, markets and corporates.
And even more basically, it shows to our
customers that we truly are a knowledge-
driven bank. And isn't that want we aitvM
to be?'
Harvard/Nijenrode
Courses: RMs
Renaissance/
APFT Knowledge
Management
Project
UKAT
APFT/FAR
Budget in Process Sss>
(1% per yr)
Specihc courses
Slack capacity
I in organization
I
L_ Market CTs meetings
f s' Product departments
Equity research
v 'V. Health care research
External network/internet
Fin. Markets research
RaboCare Team
