1 Knowledge Management in the Financial Services Sector: understandings and trends in Australia Frada Burstein a Suzanne Zyngier b , and Zohdy Rateb c a School of Information Management and Systems Monash University, Melbourne, Australia Email: Frada.Burstein@sims.monash.edu.au b Knowledge Services, Email: sz@knowledgeservices.com.au c Fuji Xerox Australia Email: Zohdy.Rateb@aus.xerox.com Abstract Knowledge management is a difficult concept but one that is fairly well understood by the Australian financial services sector. These organisations are in the process of implementing some form of strategy to manage knowledge. Many organisations that do not claim to have a strategy to manage knowledge are implementing practical steps to do so. The results of this research are compared with previous research in this sector in the UK and Europe that has shown different understandings and strategies to manage it. Key words: Knowledge management, Financial Services - Australia, survey research 1. Introduction It is well recognised that the business environment is changing and is doing so at an ever- increasing rate. There is probably no industry more affected by these changes than the Australian financial services sector: A combination of: deregulation (then more recently re- regulation) has created a great deal of upheaval and for many operators an added compliance burden. Deregulation has opened the door to more competition, enabled by technology they picked away at the traditional value chain held by financial services companies. This presents financial services companies the additional challenge of redefining their core purpose and communicating an appropriate value proposition to the market. Increasing consumer sophistication compounded by new and evolving consumer value systems has added further stress to the disaggregated operations of financial services companies. In the face of all this uncertainty, risk and risk management become critical. Effective risk management is under pinned by managing processes of retention and sharing organisational knowledge. Knowledge management as a major strategic initiative for organisations that focuses on supporting sustainable development based on retaining core business capabilities and harnessing new knowledge. The aim of this research was to derive an indicative understanding of the status of knowledge management in the Australian financial services sector. To achieve this end two types of data were required. Quantitative data was required for a measurable indication of trends in knowledge management. Qualitative data was required to gather a rich picture of individual companies for comparative and confirmatory purposes. The quantitative data for the Australian financial institutions was derived from the study of knowledge management strategies in Australia conducted by researchers from the School of Information Management and Systems, Monash University (Zyngier, 2001).