Domain Knowledge as Corporate Resource of Financial Firms

It is almost a cliche to say that we live in a knowledge society and that knowledge is an important resource of firms in their production of goods and provision of services to their clients. However it is not so easy to find many examples showing the use of domain knowledge in financial companies. This paper reports the case of how a vehicle lease company in the Netherlands combines the use of domain knowledge and information technology into an expert system to automate the control of vehicle maintenance activity. The results benefit all parties concerned. The lease company can control the vehicle repair and maintenance works more efficiently. For the customers, it is higher rate of vehicle utilisation, greater safety and lower costs. The dealers who carry out the repairs and maintenance can do their work faster, and are paid immediately and automatically via the banks, resulting in lower administrative costs. The case story suggests that domain knowledge can be perceived as a corporate resource and its utilisation can produce values for the stakeholders. We propose that financial firms (1) see themselves as knowledge system, as a network of knowledge nodes serving their customers, (2) consider knowledge intensive firms as their role models. We draw on an idea of Friedrich Hayek who perceives the economic problem of society as a problem of the utilisation of knowledge not given to anyone in its totality. The paper concludes by discussing some organizational obstacles on the road to re-invent banks into knowledge systems.