Knowledge Management Mastercard Essay

The company MasterCard is a technology company and payments industry leader. For over four decades, the company has been a driving force at the heart of commerce, making the global economy safer, more efficient, more inclusive and more transparent for all. Consumers, merchants, business partners and governments in markets around the world have reaped the benefits of our innovative products and solutions which, simply put, are designed to make life easier. The mission of MasterCard consists in imagining a world beyond cash and their mission is very simple: Every day, everywhere, Master Card uses their technology and expertise to make payments safe, simple and smart. In the last four decades, people and companies worldwide have changed their way of payment for goods and services. The rise of the electronic payments has fueled economic growth while delivering value to consumers, merchants and governments. From the earliest days of credit cards to the contactless and wireless payment options of today, MasterCard Worldwide has led the industry, driving this evolution. MasterCard works in a three channel method. Those 3 channels are: Franchisor, Processor and Consultant. In the Franchisor channel, products such as Maestro ®, Cirrus ® and MasterCard ® PayPassâ„ ¢ appear. With those products, the company affects more than 32 million establishments. The processor area makes operation with other companies and partners around the world in a simple and smart way. The big key point for these attribute is based on the fast network, one of the biggest VPNs of the world, offering not just agility, but also integration and trust. Least, the Consultant channel provides insights and solutions that promote a better and more competitive market. The research Inside the organization, the Product department and the Commercial department are directly linked. The first one is related to the care of the different products in many different categories that are offered by the organization, while the commercial area is primarily responsible for the customer relationship and supply of structured products to the product area. The commercial departments, responsible for all customer relationships, are divided to provide a better service by segmenting customers according to their importance to the business. For example, for Citibank, one of the most important banks for MasterCard, there are more than two, three people responsible for one client, while for minor banks, there is sometimes only one person responsible. This allows the commercial area to meet its customers by giving attention proportional to the size of each account, seeking solutions that fit in each case, so that one can be created, the best care possible. The product department is targeted through the products it offers, that way, the areas are divided by types of cards (traditional types such as debit and credit, corporate, pre-paid and others). Each group works to meet the needs of the commercial area, seeking the best solutions according to the demands. So we have two areas that work together, but have different focuses, which can cause disagreements about the best way to deliver a product to a given customer. That way, we can find a good topic to do our research based on this issue. Question Due to the analyses made on the previous topic, we can come up with the question for the paper. Why knowledge is not used by all parts? What can we do to improve this topic? Products and Commercial Departments Processes As said before, the process that the products department works is different from the commercial’s one. The products process is characterized by the division of groups and teams specialized in a specific product. That way, we can confirm that a wide knowledge is limited inside this department, but on the other hand, those groups have a high knowledge about a specific product. Differently, the commercial process is divided not by products, but by clients, issuers. So, those groups have a good flexibility when it comes to relation with the customers and so can have a wider knowledge. But, once this group works only with one client, it is possible that this client works with a small number of products, that way, the commercial group would not acquire knowledge in those other products. Tasks Within the tasks that the commercial department is responsible for we can highlight the following main topics: * Direct relationship with the issuers (Banks) * Project with issuers to enhance the number of MasterCard cards inside * Promotions * Campaigns * Raffles * Work together with different departments For the products area, we can highlight the following tasks: * Come up with new products ideas * Develop the product for the clients * Track the performance of the products KM Theory To illustrate the knowledge flow within the two departments, we are going to use a KM model that sustains and explains the formulation of a new departmentalization to enhance the performance of the company Figure 1: Observing, the General Knowledge Model (figure 1), we can make a comparison of that theory with the case that we are discussing. The Knowledge Creation associates entry of new knowledge into the system, and includes knowledge development, discovery and capture. For the MasterCard case, the Creation would be for both departments the new ideas of new products and also new ideas for product that already exist. That way, it would have do disparity of how those two departments work. Knowledge Retention includes all activities that preserve knowledge and allow it to remain in the system once introduced. Once the new idea is into the system, both parts have to work together to retain this concept into the system, and the only way for this to happen is if that both of the parts have the same knowledge of the concept (product) Knowledge Transfer refers to activities associated with the flow of knowledge from one party to another. This includes communication, translation, conversion, filtering and rendering. That part would be the most important of the process for the two departments. Here, the knowledge of one part would be transfered to the other, that way, the knowledge of the product would be the same for both parts. Last, but not least, Knowledge Utilization includes the activities and events connected with the application of knowledge to business processes. Data Using the Knowledge Acquisition tool, we can come up with important information and data. To start the KA analysis, is important to find out about the human reasoning process and the human cognitive system with its system constraints. After that step, is important to make a division in task characteristics and cognitive characteristics. That way, we can say that Knowledge Acquisition is about different methods to acquire and elicit knowledge; to make knowledge explicit; to stimulate knowledge transfer; to order, systematize and structure knowledge. That way, we can observe the different types of sources for knowledge acquisition. For the case in study, we can say that the way that knowledge is transmitted and acquire trough communication face-to-face between the product and the commercial department. Moreover, the knowledge about the products is also gain trough handbooks and organizational training. With those information, we can collect a data really important, the fact that knowledge is elicit trough structured (organizational training and presentations) and non-structured (communication face-to-face between commercial department and product department) ways. It is very interesting, that with this tool, we can observe that the knowledge both parts have about the same products is really different sometimes. As already expected, the commercial department has knowledge about sales attributes. On the other hand, the product department has more knowledge about the specific points and technological aspects of the product. To end this disparity of knowledge, a good choice would be to change the working ways in those areas, in other words, it would need a reformulation on the organization structure of MasterCard. Results * With the reformulation that was discussed before, the products would be created jointly, aiming each client and their own segmentation, making products no longer offered by the area of general commercial, but a specific form that would be created, allowing you to create a higher perceived value for the customers, since assembling products would create a synergy that would combine expertise in creating products possessed by product area with full knowledge of the client as the commercial area has. For this, the specialists of the products would have a greater knowledge of each type of product offered, reducing the segmentation of the area in premium products, and upscale retail and other products. So each specialist would be responsible for a niche within each client, allowing maintaining focus on the products he considers the most, rather than generalizing all segments within a specialist. This approach As described above, this approach is a way to get the specialists creating products together with managers of commercial accounts, specific products for customers, improving relationships and creating value for these. Moreover, we can say that with this reformulation, knowledge would be more used in the company and that way, the company would be more successful.