The Knowledge Queen
Susan Leandri isn't a know-it-all, but she wants her database to be.
In 1992 Susan Leandri (pictured) was put in charge of an internal knowledge management project at Arthur Andersen, the world's largest accounting firm.
"The idea was to tap into the tacit knowledge of our experts and transfer that across the firm so we could help our clients with their business process performance," she says. With a small staff, she began building Andersen's Global Best Practices knowledge base. The staff interviewed consultants to find out what client companies were doing right, practices that could be adopted by other companies in other industries. Bit by bit, the company's experts began to turn to the electronic database as an everyday tool.
The Global Best Practices knowledge base breaks business into 13 elemental processes, seven of them management functions (like handling human resources) and six operational (such as understanding markets and customers). Each of these is subdivided into more specific tasks, like enhancing customer satisfaction, developing a sales forecast, retaining and motivating employees, and leveraging organisational knowledge. For each process there's a detailed write-up on the benefits of doing it right, with examples from Andersen's client experience, along with tips, tools, and performance measurement ideas.
Leandri is now a partner and managing director of the Global Best Practices unit. Her 70-person staffâ€"one-third of them business writersâ€"continues to update the database, interviewing company experts and standardising the presentation of their knowledge. This has become increasingly important since 1998, when Andersen turned the internal tool into a commercial offering. "Clients asked for access," Leandri says. For an annual subscription feeâ€"from about $50,000 for 10-person access to $150,000 for 100 peopleâ€"outsiders can now get advice.
Today, with more than 20,000 pages of content and benchmarking tools for more than 150 universal business processes, the knowledge base has become "the No. 1 asset in the firm," Leandri says. "Indirectly, it has generated millions" in revenue for Andersen by helping its consultants serve clients.
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