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GROUPWARE

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KPMG PeatMarwick
givcsconsultants
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to'knowledgebasi
HEN KPMG Peat MaT-
wick consultants go to a
client's office, they take
75,000 professionalswith
them. That may sound a
little cramped, but we're talking in
virtual terms.
Over the past few years Peat Mar-
wick has been crafting a "knowledge
base" that allows its consultants to
get a helping hand from their col-
leagues around the world. The com-
puter system that supports Peat Mar-
wick's information access needs is
called Ihowledge Manager. It lets
employees make use of a vast store of
information and experiences about
practically everything associatedwith
the company's accounting and con-
sulting business."Down
Big plans: there on the battlefield, Frankhelpeddirectfirm'sassetsdownto a singlepoint.
Focused:KPMGPeatMaruvick's
Xiitf ; every professional that
.' '1. ., -*.\-r'-.r-, stands in front of the At the heart of Ihowledge Manag- access,present, and share informa-
, , c l i e n t i s P e a tM a r w i c k , "
.rrri er is FirstClass,a groupware system tion. FirstClass,which is being rolled
:(lnlrc'cr says Allan Frank, a Rad- from SoftArc Inc. in Markham. On- out nationwide, is a client-server
75,ooo nor, Pa.-based partner in tario. Peat Marwick also plans to application that runs on a Macintosh
clllplolccs charge of enabling tech- 's
incorporate Microsoft forthcoming server and supports Mac, Windows,
nologies. "We direct the Exchange Server and Internet access DOS, OS/2, and Unix clients. A Win-
combined intellectual assets of the technology into l(nowledge Manager dows-basedserver is currently in beta
firm down to a single point." to give employees a variefy of ways to tests.
 The groupware system combines is part of our culture to help each
electronic messaging, private and other."
public bulletin boards, database Knowledge Manager was key to
access,forms processing,and con- helping John Klaffl<y,a partner in
nectionsto public networks.It usesa Peat Marwick's Washington office,
file-based structure. rather than a seal a major technolog;rdeal with a
databasearchitecture.Connectionsto national real estateorganization.The
FirstClassserverscan be made via group was looking for a way to inter-
IPX,AppleTalk,or TCP/IPprotocols. connect real estate agents nation-
But the technology provides more wide and help clients searchfor prop-
than just a place to house data at erty anywhere in the United States.
PeatMarwick. "It is multiple piecesof Consulting firms that wanted the
information linked together with job had two weeks to respond to a
golden threads,"saysFrank."We are requestfor proposalslast year.
the quintessential knowledge organi-
zation. We don't sell widgets.We're Gustomized
Proposal
the product." Peat Marwick needed a blend of
And to say Frank is excited about skills in real estate,technologyinte-
sharing knowledge would be an gration, and business planning,
understatement.Ask him to define a among other areas,to bid on the job.
knowledgebaseand he'll describeit I(affky used Knowledge Manager to
as 'h dynamic organism," "a way to tap expertiseworldwide. Within days
synchronize neural patterns," and a team from Vancouver, Chicago,
"planets orbiting around concepts Washington,and other cities started
and ideas."Whatever metaphor you putting all the piecestogether.
prefer, it's all about responding to "We didn't want to put out a boil-
clients faster and better. er plate proposal,"saysKlaffky."Itrowl-
A little over a year ago, PeatMar- edgeManagerhelpedus put together
wick began aggressivelyrolling out a very customizedproposal."
FirstClasscompanywide.Nearly 12000 Peat Marwick provided the pro-
copiesofthe groupware have already spectiveclient with partner resum6s,
been installed and the company firm qualifications, specific real-
doesn't plan to stop until all.of its estateproject information, and other
professionalsworldwide are using. data that representedIGMG'scollec-
tive resourcesfor handling the pro-
HelpAt Hand ject. The entire proposalwas com-
From their PCs,Macintoshes,or pleted in four days, without the
laptops,consultantscan click on a geographically dispersed groups
number of different folders to gain meeting face-to-face.In fact, it wasn't
accessto hundredsofGbytesofinfor- until the team did a live presentation
mation. Folders contain detailed for the client that some of the part-
information on client experiences, ners met eachother.
proposals,resum6s,methodologies, "Knowledge Manager helps us
best practices,vendors,demos,and bring the best ideasfrom all over the
more. "Help Wanted" is one of the world to one individual client," says
popular folders on the system.Here, Klatriry,who notes that a day doesn't
any consultantcan post a requestfor go by without him using the system.
help on a particular project. "People "It really gives us a competitive ad-
usually get feedbackon their ques- vantage," he says. "Groupware is
tion within an hour," savsFrank. "It something that is fundamental to
our business."
Many of Peat Mar-
wick's competitors have
recognizedthe value in
sharing information and
have implementedLotus
Notes-the de facto stan-
dard in groupware and a
competitor to FirstClass.
'vllhile FirstClassand
Notes don't offer an
absoluteapples-to-apples
comparison, the two
companies are playing
on the same turf. First-
$howingtheway:0pening screen Manager Class is not the full-
ofKnowledge
fledgedapplication devel-
TBcsNoLocY SxepsHor
KPMGPEATMARWICK
Hoadquarleru:
NewYork
Bmlnest:Professional
servicesand
firm
accounting
Ilumber ol omployeesworldwide:
approximately75.000
TochnologygoahToincreaseemployees'
abilityto
accessandshareinformation
group
l(eyroftwrre: SoftArcFirstClass
ware;Microsoft Exchange Server(betah
Lotuscc:mail
l(eydatabaser:FirstClass
database,
0racle7 forfinancial
databases
llrrdwore platforns: C/lenfs:
Apple
PowerBook 180s,520s,540s, Macll, Mac
0uadra, PowerMac,IBMThinkPads,
Toshiba portables,IBMValuePoint desk
tops.,9eruers;Macintosh 0uadra840AV
andCompaq ProLiant
ilotwo*llnlr: Privatenetworkwith
dedicated T1and56Klines;Cisco4000
routers;Netware3.1protocols include
lPX,lP andAppleTalk
opment environment that Notes is,
says company co-founder Scott
Welch, but it provides many of the
most popular features of Notes-
group conferencingand E-mail.
There's a familiar saying around
SoftArc:"FirstClassis like Noteswith
better E-mail, minus comDlexwork-
flow management."It's a mouthful,
but it rings true.
Analysts and users applaud First-
Classfor its easeof installation and
administration, and its low cost.Serv-
er soft\4/are costs$95,and client soft-
ware is $79. Lotus recently slashed
the price of Notesto $275from $330
and rolled out a run-time client with-
out applications developmentcapa-
bilities for $155.
But that's only part of the cost,
says David Coleman, author of an
upcoming book on groupwareand a
principal at CollaborativeStrategies
Inc., a consultancyin San Francisco.
"Buying Notes is the least of the
cost," he says.'Administration and
support aswell as training and main-
tenance is greater than the initial
cost per seat."
Frank thinks Peat Marwick not
only chose a cost-efflectiveplatform,
but a more open one as well. "We
don't want to have to put everything
into a Notes database,"he says.
"Quite the opposite.We want users
to be able to tap into multiple data-
bases,file servers,CD ROMs,etc."
Peat Marwick isn't the only con-
sulting firm that has discoveredFirst-
Class. Booz-Allen & Hamilton has
used it for about three years."First-
Classis a low-cost groupware solu-
tion that requires little or no train-
ing," says Paul Lenk, groupware
manager at Booz-Allen,in Mclean,
Va. "We feel it has given us a compet-
itive advantage."
But Noteshas becomepart of the
corporatefabric for other consulting
firms. Price Waterhouse,Coopers&
Lybrand, and Andersen Consulting
are three of the biggest Notes users
in the country.
At Chicago-based Andersen,Notes
is the cornerstoneofAndersen'sl(nowl-
edge-Xchange, an information man-
agement system that allows consul-
tants to exchangeand sharedata.
"We use it to manage knowledge
and leveragepeople,"saysAndersen
CIO Charlie Paulk, who remembers
the days at Andersen when everyone
knew everyoneelse in the firm. "Peo-
ple knew if they had an insurance
question they could call me," Paulk
says.With 33,000people now work-
ing for the company,that's no longer
a feasibleoption, he says.
Networlr
Uniuersal
Paulk touts Andersen's global
reach as its competitive advantage.
"To the best of my knowledge, we
have the largest global implementa-
tion," he says."Our strategyis to say
that if we have a consultant in Kuala
Lumpur who is talking to a banker,
that consultant should have neces-
sary knowledge available."
Regardlessofthe platform the con-
sulting firms use, it is clear that Teamwork: KPMG PeatManruick s Klaffky
wona client
byusingKnowledge Manager.
groupware has become a critical
ingredient to the firm's success. 'A
ture," saysColeman. lot of group- repository of information. "We are
"Time and intellectual reasonare all ware users have a tough time with building an architecturethat is exten-
they have to sell, and groupware it." sible,"saysFrank.
helps leveragethose resources,"says But many of the consulting firms Key to its future plans will be
Coleman."It's absolutelycritical to today are providing employee incen- Microsoft Exchange,a scalable,NT-
their bottom line." tives and rewards for those who based client-servermessagingplat-
Adds Andersen's Paulk, "Clients share what they know form that will provide groupware and
today expect deeper competence. "Peopleusedto horde information, replication capabilities.PeatMarwick
They want accessto the experts." but now they are recognizedfor shar- is currently testing Exchange,which
ing," saysLenk. will likely take the place of the Lotus
Ghange
In Gulture Also, groupware has helped flatten cc:Mail electronic-mail software now
'vVhilegroupware has helped con- the organization, says Lenk. "Our used at PeatMarwick. "We don't see
sultants avoid re-inventing the wheel firm is made up of pockets of exper- [cc:Mail] as a long-term strategy,"
every time they get a new client, it tise where everyoneholds a piece of Frank says.
has also changedthe corporate cul- the puzzle. The interactive chat fea- Exchangeisn't expectedto be com-
ture of the firms. Traditionally, con- ture allows our junior staff to com- mercially available until later this
sultants were rewarded for their per- municate with senior management. year, but Frank saysthe architecture
sonal contributions and projects. It's used as an electronic meeting is flexible enough to start planning
They guarded their data carefully. place.The advantageis that it allows for it now.
But using groupwaremeans shar- us to get to the heart of the issues." Internet accesstools will also be
ing the work and the credit (IW May Peat Marwick hopes to keep a key to Peat Marwick's future. A
24, 7994,p. 52). "It's not easyto try competitive edge by providing new research and development team is
and change the organizational cul- ways to navigate through its vast working on ways to use HTML(hyper-
text mark-up language),a formatting
and hypertext linking technology,to
navigate across Internet databases
and World Wide Web home pages.
Inualuable
Access
Peat Marwick users will soon be
able to use the Mosaic Web browser
as a front-end interface to Knowledge
Manager.A consultant could open a
folder on best practicesin the trans-
portation industry.
By double-clicking on the name of
Copyrighto1995by CMP Publications,Inc., 600 CommunityDrive,Manhasset,NY 11030.Reprintedfrom INFORIVIATlONWEEK
one of the consultantson a project,
the user could then get more detailed
information and open a link to a fold-
er that contains information on that
consultant'squalifications.It's access
to information that is invaluable.
"The way we view Mosaic and
IITMI is it gives users the ability to
representknowledgein the sameway
we build linkages in our brain," says
Frank. "It will point to the samedata-
basesFirstClassdoes.But it wil be like
going into a library and not having to
look at an index hierarchically."
With FirstClass, Microsoft Ex-
change, and Internet accesstools,
Peat Marwick consultants will have
numerous wavs to collaborate and
share informition. Says Frank: 'As
knowledge gets placed into the
knowledge base, anyone can drink
ffom it."
And ifall goesas planned for Peat
Marwick, there will be a lot of con-
surtants
rining rl;,lli|fi,?r,n
"p "r
with permission.