Improving Management Control and Business Performance through Knowledge Transfer Partnerships

Many companies have made significant investment in enterprise-wide information systems in an attempt to work faster and smarter. However, large corporate systems such as ERP, CRM and SCM produce large amounts of data but often little information. Companies are beginning to explore the potential of new products and technologies, which can exploit their corporate databases to improve management control and assess the impact of key business decisions. This article examines how the knowledge transfer partnership (KTP) scheme has allowed two SMEs to focus on extracting key performance information in certain areas of their business, and how a third company has been helped by the scheme to develop new software products in this field. It reviews both the development and application of these tools, as well as the value of the KTP scheme as a vehicle for innovation and change.