Case Study 3: Pfizer

This case illustrates the use of an Enterprise 2.0 tool, in the form of an internally developed wiki, to engage internal stakeholders in collaborative knowledge exchange.

Pfizer is the world's largest research-based biomedical and pharmaceutical company. It has a corporate headquarters located in New York, with several major research and development sites around the world, including one in Sandwich, Kent, United Kingdom which employs approximately 4000 staff.

The pursuit of innovative solutions and a knowledge sharing culture encourages Pfizer to embrace well-conceived and creative approaches to business practices. About 3 years ago, a small number of research scientists developed an internal shared knowledge repository using wiki technology, to help them work more effectively on their project. From those early origins, a company-wide application called 'Pfizerpedia' was developed.

Pfizerpedia (see Figure 1) acts as a central Web hub that colleagues can use to link, generate and search content authored by the global Pfizer community. Project teams may use the Pfizerpedia to share non-sensitive information both within the group and with the rest of the organisation, but it is not intended to be a system for sharing data or summarised/interpreted results related to specific compounds or projects.

 

Figure 1: Screenshot of Pfizerpedia homepage.

Its popularity has grown and it is fast becoming an online resource of first preference for R&D employees, seeking knowledge pertinent to their job role. Pfizerpedia now has over 2500 contributors creating over 5000 content pages. More than 3000 pages have received at least 1000 hits each. In total, there have been over 11 million page views and approximately 100,000 page edits since it was setup.

As the screenshot says, it is important to note that the Pfizerpedia does not replace any document management systems within Pfizer. Rather, it complements these systems by providing a way to easily link into them, while maintaining the security and authorisation controls to the primary documents.

The Development of Pfizerpedia

At its heart a wiki is just a Web content publishing tool. The concept was originally conceived as a means of providing the simplest and quickest way for non-technical users to publish Web content. The features that differentiate a wiki from most other Web publishing platforms provide some good clues as to where and how wikis are best used.

Enterprise wikis such as Pfizerpedia are often used for:

• collaboratively building documentation,
• creating and maintaining knowledge bases,
• project management,
• gathering tacit knowledge (knowledge not related to any specific project but essential to getting things done in an organisation),
• meeting management, from agenda to minutes and action items.

Popular pages on Pfizerpedia include: (i) a 'one-stop shop' for navigating the acronyms commonly used by the business; (ii) scientific 'centres of expertise' knowledge bases; and (iii) the Learning & Development 'homepage' with regularly updated information on training opportunities.

John Castledine, the Director of Learning and Development for Pfizer's Global Research and Development (PGRD) Division, reflected on Pfizerpedia's growing prominence as a learning tool by suggesting that:

For organizations that need to create and nurture an innovative culture, the development of an internal 'wiki' site can be an important element. It is certainly the case at Pfizer, where increasing evidence points towards the usefulness of Pfizerpedia in enabling our employees to share and access knowledge more quickly than before. The ability to publish freely attributed information online can help overcome any tendencies that may exist towards 'silo protectionism' or a bureaucratic approval process.

There are, however, important challenges, not least of which is dealing with the change ramifications of promoting organisation-wide access to new 'bottom-up' collaboration tools such as Pfizerpedia. This may also be viewed as an opportunity for HR professionals. John Castledine returned to this point:

There can be little doubt that for an organisation to encourage the adoption of enterprise 2.0 there must be a perceived overall benefit in doing so. To achieve sustainable change, it is vital that these benefits are presented from the frame-of-reference of the key stakeholders. We can partner closely with IT colleagues to help achieve this goal. For example, information over-load is a major concern for most colleagues. Hence without understanding RSS feeds, blogs become yet more websites to add to your favourites list. Similarly, wikis and social bookmarking (tags) offer welcomed options to reduce e-mail traffic within teams.

HR and Enterprise 2.0

John identified three steps that can be taken by HR to help drive the uptake of these Enterprise 2.0 tools.

First, early adopters (from both the scientific and IT communities) typically welcome wider interest. Hence there is a wealth of advice available within organisations for those seeking to better understand how to use the technology. HR colleagues should seek out such information, and experiment with applying these tools in their day-to-day roles. This builds awareness and credibility to partner effectively with the early adopters in wider deployment of these technologies.

In the case of PGRD Learning & Development, this approach also provided a 'quick-win' for enhancing communication with internal audiences. Creating an L&D page on Pfizerpedia provided an additional channel for advertising the training available to colleagues. With all L&D team members able to contribute to the site, more information is being shared than through traditional Web sites (e.g., all Level 1 training-class feedback metrics), and updates are published on a regular basis. This has proved popular with about 1500 hits every month.

Second, by definition the early adopters view new technologies from a different frameof reference to the majority of the workforce. Their enthusiasm alone is rarely enough to achieve a tipping point for organisation-wide uptake. Hence, the expertise within HR to guide culture-change programmes should not be overlooked.

Finally, there is a lot written about the changing expectations of Gen. Y versus previous generations entering the workplace. There is no doubt that a growing number of new starters will be familiar with Web 2.0 tools. Given that HR have a central role in talent acquisition and integration, there are clear opportunities to use knowledge of the available Enterprise 2.0 tools (such as Pfizerpedia) to help attract talent to the company.