Business Information Review

Leveraged finance is an important market for professional advisory firms such as investment banks, financial sector law firms and the ‘Big 4’ consultancies. As such, researchers and information professionals in these firms are often asked to research the market. This may be to produce a list of leveraged finance deals in a particular industry or jurisdiction, to find the size or composition of the market or to find expert commentary, including predictions for the future. In this article, Ian Hunter explains the ways in which leverage finance is defined, describes the leading sources and highlights some caveats to bear in mind when relying on the sources.

Competitive intelligence (CI) is important for businesses to remain competitive. Software technologies have been developed to make the CI process simpler. These software technologies need to be able to carry out CI effectively by performing all the stages in the CI Cycle, conforming to the British Standard software quality characteristics, extract information from large data sets by having certain Additional Features and be cost effective. Three evaluation frameworks were developed based on the CI Cycle, British Standard and Additional Features. This methodology and the marketing literature of the software were used to evaluate four CI software packages. Information on cost and availability of a free trial version was also taken from the marketing literature. From the evaluation results, the software were able to support at least one CI Cycle stage and at least one British Standard characteristics but none of them fully had any of the Additional Features. One of them has a free trial version, while two of them had information about the cost of their commercial version. It is recommended that before choosing CI software, CI practitioners determine and prioritize their intelligence needs and then test which CI software can meet them. Also, CI software vendors need to provide more information in their marketing literature on the cost and availability of a free trial version of their software and features pertaining to the CI Cycle, British Standard and Additional Features. The British Standard and Additional Features have not been used in the previous CI software evaluation studies.

The purpose of this study was to analyse knowledge retention strategies at selected banks in South Africa. A comparative analysis of knowledge retention strategies at two leading South African banks underpinned the focus of this study. The importance of retaining organizational knowledge assets is highlighted in this study. A survey research design was used to collect quantitative data from middle-level managers at selected banks. All usable quantitative data were collected from middle-level managers through the use of Survey Monkey and Zoomerang – an online survey platform. The quantitative data were analysed through the use of Microsoft Excel 2010. One of the shortcomings of using the quantitative research methodology was failure to ask probing questions where questionnaires were used. The study established that selected banks did not have formal knowledge retention strategies. From the findings, there was no specific knowledge management (KM) policy guideline to inform selected banks on how to retain organizational knowledge; however, there is was an acknowledgement of the presence of communities of practice, mentoring and apprenticeship, subject matter experts, leveraging retirees, knowledge portals and storytelling. In this study, originality was premised on setting down a major piece of new information utilizing the General Knowledge Model premised on four KM practices, namely, CREATION, SHARING, TRANSFER and RETENTION. These four KM practices should be recognized as fundamental pillars of KM.

An interview with Darron Chapman, director at CB Resourcing, on career management and development for senior executives in the knowledge and information management sector. Darron also gives his views and experiences on the recruitment marketplace for senior executives in this sector.

With the growing popularity of knowledge management (KM), many studies concentrating on KM have been carried out by researchers and practitioners. However, little attempts have been made to empirically investigate its status quo in manufacturing organizations. Thus, this article presents the results of an exploratory KM survey conducted in Malaysia’s manufacturing industry. The perception of importance and extent of practice of a set of KM constructs among manufacturing companies were investigated and the important findings obtained from the survey were highlighted. It is hoped that the survey results will give valuable insights to help practitioners in strategizing their KM efforts effectively and serve as a guideline for further research and development.