Knowledge management; Organisational change; Balanced scorecard

It was the beginning of March 2003. Monica Singer, CEO of STRATE, the organisation that did electronic settlement of all equity trades in South Africa, was planning the way forward for the balanced scorecard driven knowledge management intervention that STRATE had implemented over the past eight months. At the beginning of 2002, most of the knowledge about STRATE's business had resided with the consultants that had helped to establish STRATE and the IT systems that were so critical to its functioning. It was a situation that could not continue, and Singer had asked Nihilent, a firm of business consultants, to help her to remedy the situation. What she had initially thought would be a simple knowledge transfer exercise had resulted in comprehensive organisational transformation, and she was delighted with the outcome. Now STRATE was about to merge with the Universal Exchange Corporation (UNEXcor), an organisation that settled bond transactions electronically. Singer, who was to become CEO of the merged company, wanted to roll out the system that Nihilent had implemented to UNEXcor employees when the companies joined. Yet the process had been demanding: one that had required time and trust from all in the firm. Singer knew that it might be more complicated to institute the system amongst UNEXcor employees and get the necessary buy-in. Should she take a big-bang approach and simply tell the UNEXcor employees that this was the way it was going to be? Or should she adopt a more phased approach, trying to earn their trust beforehand