Online Case Study: Knowledge-sharing at Pulsewidth UK

Pulsewidth is a UK-based subsidiary of a US corporation, primarily concerned with the development of computer software, technological solutions consultancy and technical support. Formed in the mid-1980s, Pulsewidth currently employs approximately 1000 people. The company’s headquarters are in Bristol, with other offices in Glasgow and Nottingham. Its main functions are service, support and sales and marketing for its customers and partner organisations in the UK. The company also has loose operational control over an office in Bruges, Belgium and has a research laboratory located in Bath, which works in close collaboration with a local university. It is widely recognised as an ‘employer of choice’ and prides itself both on the diversity of its workforce and its employee-friendly flexible working practices to encourage a healthy work–life balance. Pulsewidth prides itself on an open, honest culture in which people can realise their potential.

Aside from its headquarters, the largest workforce is employed out of the Glasgow office. This workforce is mainly comprised of consultants, business managers, technical account managers and systems engineers, and the administrative functions that support the activities of these employees. Whilst part of Pulsewidth UK, the Glasgow office largely operates autonomously from the rest of the organisation. The vast majority of employees, whilst notionally based in the Glasgow office, typically work on client sites in Scotland, Northern Ireland and the North of England. They may, therefore, not visit the office itself for months at a time. As a result, Pulsewidth has recently been able to reduce the office space it uses by one-third by employing hot-desking and getting rid of its canteen. All these employee groups are typically involved in the process of securing and servicing client contracts, most of which run over several years. Business managers are not technical experts and are concerned with client relations, typically at a senior management level. They canvas for new business and, once a client is interested in the products or services that Pulsewidth offers, hand over to the technical account managers. Business managers do, however, maintain broad oversight of the projects. They are based in the Glasgow office for approximately 50 per cent of their time. Technical project managers are typically drawn from the ranks of consultants and have a broad technological expertise. They tend to be promoted on the basis of their proven ability to apply technical solutions to meet the needs of clients and to communicate these requirements to software engineers. Consultants have day-to-day oversight of the projects, typically working between several clients at any one time, primarily working ‘on the road’. Finally, the work of software engineers falls into two camps: first, working exclusively on a client site to install systems or software which can often take several months; second, providing technical support for clients post-installation. The software engineers are typically assigned to a particular client so that once initial installation is complete, they can provide subsequent technical support for that client. Senior management at Pulsewidth feels that this provides consistency of service. They are allocated work on the basis of prior assignments which means they tend to become specialised in particular areas of software development and installation.

Software engineers are graduates in a related discipline, typically recruited straight from universities with leading IT departments. During the graduate training programme, engineers are based partly in the office for formal training and also on client sites where they typically work with a ‘mentor’, a senior software engineer, to learn both the technology and informal processes of working on-site. New recruits often report that this is the most important aspect of their training. Once they have completed the graduate programme, they are then able to take work on client sites, typically working alone or in pairs. Where the project is particularly large, a small group of software engineers might be employed. Senior management has identified that it is typically on these projects that new innovations tend to emerge. Consistent with the ideas of continuing professional development, software engineers are encouraged to continually update their skills and knowledge by using the e-learning portal on the company intranet. This portal provides engineers with various learning modules – developed by a third-party e-learning provider – to develop their expertise and that they can ‘dip in and out of’ whenever they have the time. The HR information system automatically updates once software engineers complete a module.

The consultants, technical project managers and software engineers working on a particular project or for a particular client are notionally referred to as a ‘project team’ and, despite rarely meeting physically, communicate virtually using the latest in mobile technology. As a world-leading technological solutions provider, Pulsewidth prides itself on ensuring that its employees are equipped with the very latest in new technology to help them do their jobs, and whilst on client sites all staff have access to the Pulsewidth intranet. In order to aid innovation and new ideas, the intranet has a chat room for software engineers to swap ideas and to contribute to the solving of complex problems. The HR director has recently bought in a bespoke HR information system to aid managerial decision-making based on ‘more and better’ information concerning the distribution of skills and knowledge in the firm, the allocation of roles, responsibilities and projects among the workforce and employee and team performance.

In December 2010, an important and long-standing client of Pulsewidth Glasgow – Hercules Pharmaceuticals – informed the managing director of its decision to end its association with the company. The divisional director at the Glasgow office and the senior business manager were summoned to headquarters to explain the loss of this client which was damaging to Pulsewidth both financially and in respect of its reputation. They reported that the client felt a need to ‘freshen things up’ and get some people in with new ideas. They also reported that senior management at Hercules felt that Pulsewidth was simply offering up the ‘same old solution’ for every new problem.

Questions

1. Identify the knowledge transfer processes in place at Pulsewidth Glasgow. What is the principal focus of knowledge-sharing activity in the organisation?
2. What factors in relation to the organisation of work might have contributed to the problems which the client identified in choosing to no longer work with Pulsewidth?
3. What recommendations would you make to the HR director at Pulsewidth to improve the sharing of knowledge within the company and with its clients?
4. What factors might be considered problematic to knowledge-sharing in the wider organisation (Pulsewidth UK)?