Our Services

Product Information Management – Defined Back to Top

Product Information Management or PIM refers to processes and technologies focused on centrally managing product information, with emphasis on the data required to market and sell the products. PIM provides the combination of processes and technology to manage product data in one central hub and then synchronize it across the organization and supply chain. The goal of PIM is to streamline the data acquisition process from supplier and internal organizations, centrally manage and enrich that data, and then communicate consistent, accurate, and up-to-date information to all required distribution and sales channels. These channels include web sites, print catalogs and flyers, ERP systems, and electronic data feeds to trading partners all of which enhance marketing products and generating sales.

Heiler Software – Our Preferred PIM Solution Provider Back to Top

There are a number of approaches to resolving many types of information management problems, but when it comes to product information, the most robust solution is to implement a scalable, proven PIM platform product. After surveying the marketplace, Knowlysis has selected Heiler Software as our preferred vendor for this space. We’d be pleased to share our findings and how we came to choose Heiler.

For more information Helier Software, please see:
PIM Whitepaper »

Knowlysis PIM Services Back to Top

Knowlysis offers consultants, systems analysts, and engineers that have received hands-on experience in conjunction with Heiler Consulting, to ensure the most efficient and effective services delivery. We apply the same methodology as will all our engagements:

• Human and business process dynamics must drive any technology solution. It is important to understand the issues, motivations, and expectations of all stakeholders.
• Impartial and well-researched advice on the selection of technology must take into account both existing tools and new technologies.
• Strategic planning with an eye towards long-term objectives is more cost effective than multiple short-term fixes.
• Establish targets for metrics that provide clearly defined goals and scope for the project, allowing for more concrete design, planning and implementation.
• Leverage standards to lengthen the life span of the solution.
• Creating lasting client relationships that facilitate maximum mutual benefit over time that are in everyone’s best interest.
• Learn from each engagement

Whether beginning to evaluate your product information management needs or seeking to implement a world-class Heiler PIM platform, Knowlysis is prepared to join your team.

Knowledge-Centered Support Back to Top

The Consortium for Service Innovation is a a non-profit alliance of organizations focused on innovation for the support industry. Its work integrates academic research and emerging business trends with the members' operational perspectives. The result is innovative operational models that improve the customers' support experience.

One of the results of this effort is a model called Knowledge-Centered Support (KCS). KCS is a set of practices that integrates the creation and maintenance of knowledge into a set of clearly defined customer interactions. As a result, these practices specify a powerful process for continuous learning and improvement that is driven by the customer experience. Implementation of KCS best practices in the support center can pay big dividends.

To be clear, knowledge management is a process not a tool or technology. We can assist in the selection of an appropriate technology and then help to implement this process along with the tool. Through our experience with KCS, we conduct workshops designed to align organizational knowledge management processes with KCS best practices. We then execute an implementation plan with follow-up coaching and recommendations to ensure your success.

Consulting and Strategy Development Back to Top

It is important to access the current state of the impact of knowledge as it flows through the organization and assess the formal and informal processes that facilitate that flow. This sets a baseline to establish a starting point for process improvement. There can be great value in taking this step prior to any efforts to implement KCS Best Practices.

These services may include:

• Knowledge Assessment
• Evaluation of the current state and channels for knowledge assets
• Knowledge Management Strategy
• Mapping of an integrated knowledge strategy ensures that related projects (help desk, customer self service, enterprise content management systems, etc.) and enterprise initiatives are consistent and supportive
• Knowledge Assessment by Functional Area
• Evaluation of the knowledge support needs as they pertain to specific functional areas of the organization and mapping them to the overall knowledge management strategy.
• Knowledge Technology Assessment
• An in-depth accounting of current technology assets and how they meet the demands of the knowledge management strategy

Solution Deployment Back to Top

Process improvement often time requires technology upgrades to achieve the best results. While hopefully you now understand that technology alone isn’t the answer, technology improperly implemented isn’t much better. Knowlysis has a great depth of experience in the implementation of a software solution, with services including:

• Enhancement of Existing Systems
• Prior to rushing to new technologies, a thorough review of the existing platform may reveal an opportunity to enhance legacy systems in order to meet updated requirements.
• Selection and Deployment of New Technology
• Process Reengineering
• Training and Support
• Enhancing content management systems
• Content management systems offer a diverse range of advanced capabilities. By applying our information architecture skills, we can assist you to design innovative ways of managing and publishing content to a corporate intranet.

Best Practices - FREE Survey Back to Top

Often the biggest challenge in knowing where to begin to improve the performance and efficiency of a service desk is understanding the existing state.

Knowlysis is currently offering a FREE survey that will allow your agents to provide feedback regarding their perspective on the use of Knowledge Management within the Service Desk. We provide a short survey for your Service Desk analysts to complete, then compile the results and provide a one page report detailing how your organization matches up with industry best practices.

The proper implementation of Knowledge Management Best Practices has proven time and again to:

• Improve customer satisfaction
• Decrease new analyst ramp-up time and minimize attrition
• Maximize ROI of Knowledge Management investment

Contact Knowlysis today for a FREE survey and help desk analysis »

Strategy and Planning Back to Top

Whether you are in the early stages of planning your e-Commerce deployment strategy or are fine tuning a mature system, we can help you to effectively map a strategy to maximize your technology investment.

While some organizations find success with “home grown” eCommerce systems, we have found that there is much to be desired in implementing a platform from a dedicated eCommerce software provider.

For online stores with basic needs and a moderate number of products/transactions we recommend looking to a strategy based on the Infopia offering. Infopia Transact is a single solution that ties all your eCommerce efforts together. This includes the ability to sell on your website and marketplaces such as eBay and Amazon all from one place. It also includes the ability to increase customer lifetime value (CLV) and loyalty through a customer-centric Web presence and integration with Salesforce CRM.

For online stores that demand the most scalable, feature rich environment available, we recommend a review of the suite from ATG. ATG is the premier provider of personalized cross-channel commerce software and services, working with more than 900 of the world's leading brands to maximize sales and create lifetime customers across the Web, contact center, mobile, social media, in-store, and other key channels.

Our analysts are available to assist in the planning process that will not only meet current needs, but also put in place a vision for future growth.

e-Commerce Services Back to Top

Services offered that follow the strategy and planning stage include::

• Software selection and implementation
• Implementation planning
• Implementation team mobilization/Staff augmentation
• Project Management

Customer Service Support Back to Top

An often overlooked and critical feature for a successful e-Commerce site is the provision for easy access to supporting information, documentation, FAQ’s and other content valuable to your online customers and support agents.

Knowlysis has successfully implemented sophisticated systems for customer self-service that add significant additional value to the online shopping experience. Properly deployed, a self-service system empowers your customers to answer questions and complete transactions without costly agent support calls and email response. Such a system requires an analysis of the content to provide optimal usability and the inclusion of a natural language search tool and navigation capabilities, tightly integrated into the e-Commerce application.

Providing your support agents with quick and integrated access to this content allows them to work more efficiently, provide a higher level of service to your customers, and use the service interaction as an additional sales opportunity.

Knowledge Management for ITSM Back to Top

A tightly integrated Knowledge Base provides ready access to common solutions, known errors, and workarounds to expedite incident resolution.

BMC Remedy Knowledge Management (RKM) can improve staff efficiency, customer service and satisfaction, and business service quality. Call center efficiencies can be dramatically improved by providing agents with quick answers and solutions to their customers’ issues. In addition, Web-based self-service options allow employees or customers to find their own answers 24x7 using natural language search, which can dramatically reduce the number of issues directed to a service desk.

Knowlysis has developed domain expertise for implementing and integrating RKM into your Remedy ITSM suite. Industry best practices defined by the Consortium for Service Innovation define a methodology termed Knowledge Centered Support (KCS). We conduct workshops designed to align an organizations knowledge management processes with KCS best practices. We then execute an implementation plan with follow-up coaching and recommendations to ensure your success. These processes are facilitated by utilizing the Remedy Knowledge Management tool. Knowlysis services in this area include:

• RKM/KCS Best Practices and process alignment
• Implementation of RKM and integration into ITSM Suite
• Custom add-on tools for reporting, data migration and data conversion
• Self Help solutions
• Data Migration and Conversion
• Self Service Approaches and Solutions

For more information regarding these packaged services, please see:
Knowlysis Services for BMC Remedy Knowledge Management »

Content Management Back to Top

Organizations generate an ever increasing amount of content. In many cases, this content – from internal manuals, documents and customer data to marketing and product support information – represents the most valuable asset within the organization. In order to fully realize the value of this asset, this content must remain secure and easy to find no matter how many acquisitions, consolidations, or technology upgrades and transitions the organization might experience.

Knowlysis offers a full suite of services around all of the elements to a content management initiative:

Content Management System Strategy
As with any technology based solution, the first step is to evaluate the current state, user needs, and organizational objectives to inform the technology selection process. Knowlysis can work closely with your team to develop a CMS plan that considers current needs and anticipates future requirements. In the course of strategy development, a review of the processes that drive the creation and use of content is as critical as an analysis of the content itself. It is likely that a change management process as a part of the strategy will enhance the odds of a successful implementation.

Product Evaluation and Selection
With a wealth of technology choices from open source and well established software product vendors, the selection process can quickly become quite burdensome. With a depth of domain expertise in CMS, Knowlysis can significantly reduce the level of effort in the selection process – while better ensuring a proper match between requirements and budget.

CMS Implementation
With the CMS strategy in place and the technology platform in hand, the implementation step requires careful planning and staging to ensure success. Knowlysis can provide consulting services to guide your team through this process or provide the resources necessary to drive the entire implementation.

CMS Tune-up
A change in business focus, acquisition, or changes in other systems can be reason to reevaluate how well the current CMS is meeting needs. In this context, a CMS project may not trigger a full reengineering effort or the need to replace the existing product platform. A “tune-up” effort looks at how processes may become better aligned with the CMS as well as a review of the underlying technology.

Information Access Back to Top

The technology most readily associated with information access is the search engine. Traditionally, search technology has been applied to unstructured information in document and content management systems. Over time, search has gone much further, to include web and database content, as well as reaching into other applications for information in CRM and other legacy systems. As search tools have matured, there are expanded capabilities and a greater set of features available.

The increasing complexity of the demands for search in the context of information access requires a more thorough analysis of the information set, associated proprietary applications, business processes and how this relates to user requirements.

Search engines implemented out of the box without regard to these considerations rarely provide the best results. Knowlysis has a great depth of experience in sorting out this complexity for our customers. We recognize that at the heart of any search driven information access project is the goal of increasing the value of the content tucked away in enterprise repositories.

Information Architecture
Consistency and predictability in information access by users is usually far more than the implementation of a search engine. How the content is assembled has much to do with the ease of user access.

Information architecture is the art and science of structuring web sites, intranets, data stores, online communities and software to support usability, ease of maintenance, and maximize efficiency. By leveraging a solid information architecture foundation, users gain more value from the system and more easily find the information they need.

Knowlysis has a great depth of experience at creating information architecture that meets these objectives. Even if your in-house team will be doing the development work – our engineers can add substantial value by ensuring the design objectives meet best practices for proper information architecture design.

Methodology Back to Top

Knowlysis practices a modified Rational Unified Process methodology for software development. This iterative approach allows for rapid development and refinement of the end product while insuring quality.

As the project moves through the inception, elaboration, construction, and transition phases the following disciplines are utilized:

• Requirements Gathering
• Analysis and Design
• Implementation
• Testing
• Deployment
• Configuration and Change Management
• Project Management

Project Management Back to Top

Knowlysis adheres to generally accepted industry best practices and guidelines for project management activities. While these steps may be self evident, experience has shown that these standard procedures, if executed, will improve the project’s chances of success.

Most often, projects fail because of poor planning – which in turn causes a chain reaction of poor productivity. Active project management is the key to risk mitigation throughout the project. This is especially true for a project involving application development, where the framework of packaged product implementation is not an element.