Nortel Networks Article Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Nortel Networks - Article Example In 1994, two Nortel executives, anxious over the possibility of the company’s having an empty â€Å"war chest† of novel and innovative product ideas, instigated a restructuring of the company’s business processes. The aim of the stated was the facilitation of the process by which internally generated new product ideas could be evaluated and implemented. Within a span of just over 5 years, Nortel had successfully designed a process-oriented knowledge management strategic paradigm (KM) for its New Product Development (NPD) process.The above-mentioned restructuring was a complex process, involving a umber of clearly defined steps. The first of these steps was aimed towards the testing of the empty war-chest hypothesis through an in-house survey targeting all of Sales and Support, Global Service Planning, and Marketing and Development. An excess of 100 new product ideas were submitted within three weeks. The results, thus, proved that Nortel had the potential for a v ery rich war chest but, the absence of a process for the capitalization upon internally-generated ideas, constrained this potential. It was imperative, therefore, that the company design and develop a paradigm for the exploitation of its internal innovative capabilities.To leverage its knowledge base, Nortel formed a cross-departmental task force, Project Galileo, whose primary objective was the design of system for the facilitation of the new idea submission, evaluation and product development processes.