KM as a Chemin Faisant: The Valtech Experience

Valtech is a Paris-based consulting firm established in 1993 and devoted to e-business technologies. The company was initially structured as a distributor of new information technologies to the French and European market, which secondarily provided training in the use of its products. Valtech now positions itself as a pure knowledge-transfer firm that instructs clients in the strategic use and development of cutting-edge electronic technologies. Valtech organized itself according to KM principles in 1993, but only became aware of KM as a formal organizing framework in 1998. While the adoption of KM is often “pushed” onto companies by the academic or consulting communities, Valtech pulled itself toward KM organizing logics by the New Age of business it defined for itself. It is in this way an excellent example of strategic commitment and organizational design from a KM perspective. It is also relatively unique in that most of the literature records KM adoption from a “push” rather than a “pull” perspective.