Buckman Labs Is Nothing but Net

"Effectively Engage with the Customer"

It's one of Bob Buckman's most repeated phrases: effectively engaged on the front line -- a constant reminder that knowledge transfer at Buckman Labs is not an end in itself. The whole point is to deploy knowledge at the point of sale -- to win business and to serve the customer. To Buckman, it all can be reduced to a simple ratio: "The number of people in the organization working on the relationship with the customer, relative to the total organization, will determine the momentum of the organization," he says.

For that reason, the percentage of the company that is "effectively engaged with the customer" is data that Buckman tracks religiously. In 1979, before K'Netix was launched, it was a mere 16%. Today, it's about 50%. By the year 2000, Buckman says, it will be 80%. The message is simple: the front line and the bottom line have everything to do with each other.

Buckman competes in a variety of businesses, from pulp and paper processing and water treatment, which makes up 60% of its sales, to leather, agriculture, and personal care. Arrayed against it are companies three to five times its size: $700 million Betz Laboratories of Trevose, Pennsylvania, for example, or $1.2 billion Nalco of Naperville, Illinois. And the industry is consolidating as customers like International Paper Company, Sherwin-Williams, Chinet, and Citgo, pare down their list of vendors to just a few -- from whom they expect more.

Under these conditions, Buckman's commitment to knowledge takes on a new urgency. Salespeople must have the right answer for each customer -- and fast. K'Netix makes that an everyday occurrence, an exercise in speed, globality, and interactivity.

Take the case of Dennis Dalton, who is based in Singapore as managing director of all company activities in Asia. According to the K'Netix archives, Dalton sent out a call for help last January 3 at 12:05 p.m.: "We will be proposing a pitch-control program to an Indonesian pulp mill," he wrote. "I would appreciate an update on successful recent pitch-control strategies in your parts of the world."

The first response came three hours later, from Phil Hoekstra in Memphis, and included a suggestion of the specific Buckman chemical to use and a reference to a master's thesis on pitch control of tropical hardwoods, written by an Indonesian studying at North Carolina State University.

Fifty minutes later Michael Sund logged on from Canada and offered his experience in solving the pitch problem in British Columbia. Then Nils Hallberg chimed in with examples from Sweden; Wendy Biijker offered details from a New Zealand paper mill; Jos* Vallcorba gave two examples from Spain and France; Chip Hill in Memphis contributed scientific advice from the company's R & D team; Javier Del Rosal sent a detailed chemical formula and specific application directions from Mexico; and Lionel Hughes weighed in with two types of pitch-control programs in use in South Africa. In all, Dalton's request for help generated 11 replies from six countries, stimulated several "sidebar conversations" as participants followed-up on new knowledge they'd just learned -- and catapulted Dalton into position to secure a $6 million order from the Indonesian mill.

The customer focus of the knowledge system is built into the design of K'Netix. For some of Buckman's core customers, for example, there are private forums where the conversation is about only that customer and the advice is tailored to its needs. In addition, the Customer Information Center contains all available information about the company's customers, including internal memos, documents, and sales orders -- a complete file cabinet on each customer.

"We have to be so tuned into our customers that we anticipate what they need," says Buckman. "If an employee is not effectively engaged with the customer, why are they employed?"

Knowledge-Sharing Is Power

Over the years, people have taught themselves to hoard knowledge to achieve power," says Buckman. "We have to reverse that: the most powerful people are those who become a source of knowledge by sharing what they know." But four years ago, when Buckman Labs launched its K'Netix program, the big unanswered question was, Would people share their knowledge?

"There was a sense of hesitancy in the beginning," remembers Alison Tucker, 36, K'Netix forum manager. "There were people whose file cabinets were filled with everything they knew, and that was their source of power."

Ultimately, what emerged was a carrot-and-stick balance, mixing visible incentives with invisible pressure, and an organization-wide bias toward teamwork and knowledge reciprocity. As one carrot, Buckman organized a one-time event in Scottsdale, Arizona at a fashionable resort as a celebration to recognize the 150 best knowledge-sharers. Those selected received a new IBM ThinkPad 755, a leather computer bag, and listened to a presentation by Tom Peters. Within the company, the high-profile event -- dubbed "The 4th Wave" -- sparked a good deal of discussion, particularly among those who failed to make the cut. The event served its purpose: in the weeks afterward, participation on the K'Netix forums increased dramatically.