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THE FRAMEWORK As figure 1 illustrates, there are five key elements in the knowledge management framework that impact the customer. First is the need for clear and fast communications. In the Internet world this is typically best achieved via electronic mail. The reason e-mail is so important is that it allows for not only customer to vendor communications in a rapid and asynchronous manner but it also enables collaborative communications among members of either the customer or the vendor teams. In both large and small organizations, data and information is dispersed, so there needs to be some sort of electronic glue that can pull these pieces together. E-mail can be the "killer application" that can connect key data to their knowledge management elements. The second element relates to storing information about the customer and the ongoing relationship with the vendor. This information has three dimensions. The first dimension is a profile of the prospect or account. This profile contains fundamental data about the customer such as official name, address, organizational structure, products offered, and the like. There may be various formal and informal sources for this data, but the knowledge management system needs to pull it in wherever it can find it. The second dimension fleshes out the customer profile with specific people information such as titles, contacts, and contact management data. This dimension depends a lot on the observations of the sales rep or account manager. The third dimension brings in the history and plans that the account may have. Again, both formal and informal sources are possible here. The third element in the framework focuses on the marketing encyclopedia as a source of potential solutions for the customer. The marketing encyclopedia refers to the repository of product and program information that a vendor needs to have quickly available for customer use. More and more we see this repository being made accessible via a Web browser. The ability to quickly search the encyclopedia and find the most meaningful and relevant documents is critical. Now sales teams can collaborate in building the appropriate customer solution from available product modules. The fourth element brings in the ability to satisfy the customer with consistent, cost-effective, and speedy order management and fulfillment. Customers often want to know the status of their order and whether it has shipped. Furthermore, logistics and detailed delivery information are becoming more important, especially as businesses move towards a JIT-type environment. The delivery and follow-through of the proposed solution can hence be tracked. Finally, the fifth element, support and feedback, allows a vendor to proactively address customer loyalty even after the order has closed. Here access to warranty and uptime data is key. In addition, resources focused on implementation and training need to be available quickly. The bottom line is that these five elements need to work together in order for the knowledge management system to be effective. Moreover, the ease and speed with which these elements interact make a significant difference. That is why, the role of Web-oriented tools, Internet standards, and a Web browser is growing. The Web interface has become a de facto mechanism for accessing and using data from a knowledge management system—a mechanism that is easy to use, easy to deploy, and easy to support. This framework can now be applied in various customer situations. SALES REP FOCUS The traditional environment for utilizing this knowledge management approach has the manufacturer's salesperson dealing directly with the prospective customer. Here the vendor sales rep becomes the focal point for the flow of information. In this context, standard sales force automation tools to provide ways to tap share information about the customer. The growing role of the intranet allows the sales rep to share his data with other team members. The intranet also enables marketing to deliver product and program information to the reps on a timely basis. This timeliness is especially important when the life of the product is relatively short as they are in the high tech arena. One challenge from a technology point of view is how to deal with the needs for mobility at the sales rep level. Here the concept of data synchronization is important. The sales rep keeps the data he or she needs on their own laptop computer and periodically synchronizes the data with what is on the main central computer. This allows them to keep up to date but still have the most recent information at their fingertips when they visit an account. At the customer-focus level, common databases and the intranet provide mechanisms for ensuring coordination among team members. For instance, the sales rep can share identified technical requirements with a systems engineer assigned to that customer account. This leads to a more timely and quicker response to the customer. Contact management can also be snared, enabling multiple sales people to stay on top of a prospect situation. Another additional characteristic is the availability of automated requests for proposals (RFPs) or requests for quotations (RFQs). Here the sales rep can draw both on data from the customer profile/contact management arena and on possible products from the marketing encyclopedia to develop a solution proposal for the prospect. This reinforces the relationship of the sales person with key decision-makers in the customer account. Finally electronic communication via e-mail allows the sales rep to continue to stay in touch with the customer. Prudential Insurance in its Launch Pad project equipped its own insurance agents with laptop capabilities for customer interaction [ 1 ]. Agents had access both to policy and premium information and to tools that could analyze and propose different insurance policy offerings to different customers. The tools also allowed agents to gather information and track client coverage to assist in identifying gaps in policy coverage. Hence, agents could mine the company databases for prospect opportunities and then move rapidly in proposing appropriate solutions. In another example, AlliedSignal through its Broadcaster system provided its 200-person sales staff with customer information culled from its data sources [2]. The system also provided order information so that the sales rep had a complete picture of the account and could be more proactive and effective in both understanding the customer situation and in positioning its product portfolio of antifreeze, oil filters, and other auto parts to accounts. It thus strengthened the expertise of the sales force and enabled them to use knowledge management to more effectively sell. A third example of this approach is embodied in the specialists that Hewlett-Packard (HP) uses to call on end-user accounts. As experts in specific product areas such as PCs or LaserJet printers, HP sales specialists utilize databases developed in Lotus Notes as their marketing encyclopedia to configure solutions for particular customer situations. Standard e-mail then becomes the mechanism for sharing information among various specialists as well as for communicating special deal information to field personnel. 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