A THESIS ON

STUDY ON MANAGING KNOWLEDGE WORKER AT WORKPLACE- A CASE STUDY

(FINAL REPORT)

(Management Thesis in Partial Fulfillment towards the MBA Degree)

SUBMITTED TO:

SUBMITTED BY:

SUSHANTA KUMAR DASH

ENROLLMENT NO: 8NBSM012

PROGRAMME: MBA

FACULTY SUPERVISOR: Miss. SIKATA SAILASUTA

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

TITLE ------------------------------------------------------- PAGE NO.

DECLARATION----------------------------------------------------------------- 3

PREFACE------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4

CERTIFICATE------------------------------------------------------------------- 5

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT------------------------------------------------------- 6

INTRODUCTION----------------------------------------------------------------- 7

LITERATURE REVIEW-------------------------------------------------------- 15

METHODOLOGY---------------------------------------------------------------- 19

ANALYSIS------------------------------------------------------------------------- 20

FINDINGS AND SUGGESTIONS--------------------------------------------- 41

CONCLUSION-------------------------------------------------------------------- 50

REFERENCES--------------------------------------------------------------------- 52

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DECLARATION

I Sushanta Kumar Dash, studying in ICFAI national college of Management, Sambalpur, declare that the project titled “A study on managing knowledge worker at work place- A case study” has been complied by me in partial fulfillment for award of Master Degree in ICFAI national college, Sambalpur for the year 2008-10.

I further declare that this project report has not been submitted to any university or institution for award of any degree or diploma.

Sushanta Kumar Dash

Enrollment No. – 8NBSM012

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PREFACE

Practical training is consider to be an essential part of all professional institution and those who are aspiring for MBA in marketing field practical training must necessary.

The main reason of management thesis for management student is to help them to understand and apply the theoretical studied, in the practical field of organization and in the area of specialization. It also helps them to understand actual organizational role, their management style, their work culture and how they deal with different types of situation in their organization.

Management thesis also helps the student to compare bookies knowledge with the practical knowledge.

I feel really proud that I have been able to handle the Management thesis, “A Study on managing knowledge worker at work place- a case study”. I learned lots of knowledge and experience during this thesis and in Human Resources field.

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Certificate

This is to certify that the management thesis title “A

Study on managing knowledge worker at work place- A

case study” Submitted by Mr. Sushanta Kumar Dash,

Enrollment number-8NBSM012 during semester-IV of the

MBA Program 2008-2010 embodies original work done by

me.

Signature of the student:

Name (in capital) ______________________________________________________________

Enrollment No. _______________________________________________________________

Campus______________________________________________________________________

Signature of the Faculty Supervisor:

Name (in capital): ______________________________________________

Designation: ___________________________________________________

Campus: _______________________________________________________

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I would like to take this opportunity to express my deep gratitude to all those who came out of their way to help me during the course of the project.

I am greatly indebted to my project head and I express my hearty thanks to my Guide, Miss. Sikata Sailasuta, HR faculty of ICFAI SAMBALPUR for his kind help in completion of the project.

Finally, I thank my parents who have constant inspiration to me throughout my life. It would not have possible for me to reach this stage without their support, thanks for my family and friends for their moral support.

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INTRODUCTION

The last decade has witnessed the emergence of the knowledge worker, a new kind of employee paid not to create, produce or manage a tangible product or service, but rather to gather, develop process and apply information. While a growing number of employers covet the contributions of knowledge workers, few know how to monitor and improve their performance.

To create an appropriate environment for knowledge workers, it's important to recognize the following: Knowledge workers are complex individuals who bring unique skills, intelligence and work methods. This makes it impossible to create a uniform system for encouraging and rewarding creativity.

Knowledge organizations provide workers with plenty of opportunity for personal and professional growth.

The goal is to allow knowledge workers full control over their work environment, so they can tailor it to maximize individual creativity. If that's the case, then, what is the role of managers in knowledge organizations? "[They] have to know how to make their employees more innovative, creative and functional,” Recruiting and retaining the right knowledge worker represents an ongoing challenge for managers. It's also important to provide continuous opportunity for training.

But the biggest challenge identified in Managing Knowledge Workers is devising systems for providing evaluation and feedback. Knowledge work is difficult to measure objectively, and, because it is often part of a long process, it's hard to gauge its effectiveness until a project is concluded. It can be helpful to divide jobs into manageable assignments that can be tracked and measured.

In this fast globalizing world, knowledge worker’s productivity is a key issue for increasing the efficiency of every knowledge oriented organization. Managing these workers efficiently makes companies competitive in achieving their targets. In this study we are able to know the different issues related to the knowledge management in workplace. Now-a-days the knowledge management practices are done in every sector/industry so my focus area is all the sector/industry in this present business market. As knowledge workers are the primary force for deciding which economies are successful and which are not, the key to an economy’s advantage is by increasingly its

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knowledge workers. So, to ensure that economies grow, their knowledge workers had better be doing a good job. Against this backdrop, managing these knowledge workers’ productivity effectively is an important task. Outside the kingdom of knowledge awaits an army of information. Nearly every day, everyone survives a flood of information that is trying to drown us in its depths. Either we come off from that flood soaked with knowledge or get so overwhelmed by the information that we get rather just plainly wet. Companies don’t just hire people; they breed a pool of knowledge talent. Some companies have the requisite resources to enrich that pool whereas others let that pool dry up. This simple realization about the ubiquitous term knowledge which is often used in today’s scenario in the manner of knowledge economies, knowledge organizations and more recently in other sector also.

Preparing this project has been an enriching experience in not only improving my understanding about the different sector, the various management technique used but also in understanding how important knowledge, information and data are in today’s scenario. This project helps me to understand why Peter Drucker had renamed employees as knowledge workers and stressed on Knowledge Management. That’s because Knowledge management prevents the organizations collective knowledge from perishing and it’s the employee’s knowledge that will help the organization achieve optimum organizational efficiency.

1. WHAT IS KNOWLEDGE?

What is knowledge? The answer to this question is not so simple and unambiguous. The word “knowledge” is commonly used in many different meanings (awareness, familiarity, understanding, comprehension, experience, etc.). To define knowledge, we can use the fact that knowledge is always knowledge of something, has its object, and knowledge of someone, has its subject. The object of knowledge is a certain sequence of symbols that describe elements and matters of the real world. We usually call this sequence of symbols “data”. The subject of knowledge is a source of knowledge (he/she/it creates, disseminates and mediates knowledge) or a receiver of knowledge (he/she/it acquires and uses knowledge). The subject of knowledge is able to demonstrate his/her/its knowledge in some way. One of the possible ways of demonstrating one’s own knowledge is to create and use purpose-built stores of data that we usually call “databases“. A typical subject of knowledge is a human being that creates and uses various databases in various forms such as documents, periodicals, books, paintings, pictures, multimedia presentations, computer systems and also (and maybe above all) in one's own memory.

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We create and use databases to collect, transfer, store, transform and present data in order to satisfy our actual information need. The information need means our demand to learn something new and is satisfied at the moment of use of information content of data. We use data, interpret data and ascribe some meaning to data. In this moment data changes into “information” that satisfies our actual information need and brings us profit. We can use information in the process of decision making (information reduces uncertainty or ignorance), in the process of communication (information makes possible to share its meaning) and in the process of learning (information supports generation and development of new knowledge). But if we want to use information, we must be able to interpret available data, ascribe some meaning to data and use the information content of data. And just this ability we have thanks to our knowledge. In view of above-mentioned facts we can define “knowledge” as our ability to use available resources of data or (if you like) information and our others skills, abilities and experience to solve problems in the process of decision making, communication and learning. From the organization's point of view, knowledge is the ability to achieve expected objectives. It is the ability to implement answers to questions why? How? What? Where? When? Who? How much? Etc. If the organization has answers to mentioned questions, it has information. If the organization has the ability to change answers to mentioned questions (it means information) into efficient and effective action that will lead to achieving expected objectives, it has knowledge.

Information and knowledge together determines the success of the organization. To have information means to “know”. To have knowledge means to “be able”. For example, if we know what product customers want, but we are not able to produce it efficiently and effectively, we can not be successful as well as if we are able to produce our product efficiently and effectively, but we do not know what product customers really want. To gain access to needed information, the organization usually uses quality information systems (IS). To gain access to needed knowledge, the organization usually employs qualified workers. Information stored in databases of information systems and knowledge stored in the memory of workers are strategic resources of the organization. If the organization wants to be successful, it must find out an efficient and effective way to manage both its information resources (i.e. information systems and their information) and its human resources (i.e. workers and their knowledge).

Available knowledge of the organization may be divided into explicit knowledge and tacit knowledge (Mládková, 2005). Explicit (expressible) knowledge is stored in databases of information systems. It is relatively easy created, shared and used. It can

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be managed through management of information systems and information and communication technologies (IS/ICT). Tacit (hidden) knowledge is stored in memory of workers. It develops from interaction of explicit knowledge and other knowledge, skills, abilities and experience of workers. It is not easy created, shared and used. It can be managed only through management of individual workers. So that Knowledge Management (process of managing knowledge) requires both efficient and effective Information Management and efficient and effective Human Resource Management.

TYPES OF KNOWLEDGE: EXPLICIT AND TACIT

Basically, knowledge is of two types. They are explicit and tacit knowledge. The term explicit knowledge can be defined as that component of knowledge which can be codified and transmitted in a methodical and prescribed language. For example, documents, databases, Webs, E-mails, charts, etc. On the other hand, tacit knowledge is personal, intuitive, contextual, and difficult to formulize, and record or articulate. It is built out of experience and is stored in the minds of people. It is estimated that tacit knowledge constitutes about 70% of all organizations knowledge and is difficult to identify and convert into real value unless a structured approach is adopted to manage knowledge through KM techniques involving intensive dialogues, discussions and sharing in teams. KM refers to management of knowledge. It is an important component of organizational intangible assets. Continuous changes in the market expectation and the demand for new products have replaced capital and labor intensive firms by knowledge-intensive firms. It is a concept in which enterprise gathers, organizes shares and analyzes its knowledge in terms of sources, documents and skills of the people. It is a process of increasing organizational intelligence through involvement and participation in the organization’s knowledge capital, for creating business value and generating a competitive advantage. KM is also viewed as a conscious strategy of putting knowledge into action as a means to increase organizational efficiency. In practical application, it covers identifying and mapping of intellectual assets, generating knowledge for competitive advantage, making large amount of corporate information accessible, sharing of best practices and technology within the organization which enables the above-mentioned, included GroupWise and intranets. KM, basically involves three components; People, Process and Technology. KM can be considered as a three legged stool, where the stool ceases to be functional even if one leg is not developed properly. People occupy an important place in the context of KM when compared to technology and processes because it is they, who create, share and use knowledge.

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(Figure 1: KM as a Synergy- People, Process and Technology. Source: www.emeraldinsight.com/fig/1190120202001.png)

2. WHAT IS KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT?

Knowledge Management is the process of managing knowledge (both explicit knowledge and tacit knowledge) in the organization. The objective is to improve storing, creation, sharing and use of knowledge in the organization and so improve performance of individual workers and the organization as a whole. Knowledge Management is concerned with the state of knowledge and with the flow of knowledge (Truneček, 2004). The state of knowledge is related to storing and accessibility of knowledge in the organization. Explicit knowledge is usually stored in databases of information systems and is relatively easy accessible. Tacit knowledge is stored only in the memory of workers and is not easy accessible. The flow of knowledge is related to creation, sharing and use of knowledge in the organization. Explicit knowledge is created, shared and used through information systems and information and communication technologies (IS/ICT). Tacit knowledge is created, shared and used through interaction and communication among workers.

The application of Knowledge Management in the organization results from the business strategy whose objectives and practices are specified in the information strategy and in the human resource strategy. The information strategy defines objectives and practices for managing information resources (i.e. information systems and their information). It determines the way of managing explicit knowledge in the organization. The human resource strategy defines objectives and practices for managing human resources (i.e. workers and their knowledge). It determines the way of managing tacit

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knowledge in the organization. The application of Knowledge Management in the organization leads to efficient and effective management of information and human resources and so leads to efficient and effective management of explicit and tacit knowledge.

3. WHO IS A KNOWLEDGE WORKER?

A knowledge worker is a worker that has some specific knowledge. This specific knowledge is fundamental to successful operation of the organization. The organization must employ a suitable knowledge worker to gain access to the specific knowledge (Mládková, 2005). A knowledge worker is able to use his/her specific knowledge in practice. The specific knowledge may be partly subconscious and a knowledge worker does not need to be aware of the importance of his/her specific knowledge to the organization. The access of others to the specific knowledge may be limited. Others do not need to be able to learn the specific knowledge because of lack of their own skills, abilities, experience, interest, time, money, etc. or their access to the specific knowledge may be restricted by certain rules.

If we want to decide “who is“ a knowledge worker, we must take into consideration not only one's own knowledge and his/her willingness to create, share and use the knowledge, but also one's job (role) in the organization. In other words, the particularity and importance of one's own knowledge to successful operation of the organization must be always viewed in the context of one's job (role) in the organization. Every worker who has required knowledge and is competent and willing to create, share and use the knowledge to perform successfully in his/her job (role) in the organization must be taken as a knowledge worker. For example, a knowledge worker may be a chairwoman as well as a Chief Executive Officer (CEO) if they have the required and specific knowledge to perform successfully in their jobs (roles) in the organization. If the CEO has lack of required and specific knowledge to perform his/her work, he/she is useless and redundant. However, the same is not true in the case of the competent and willing charwoman that works excellently and what is more; she brings up ideas that improve her performance. Such workers are required and the organization does its best to find, employ and keep them.

4. HOW TO MANAGE KNOWLEDGE WORKERS?

Following above mentioned facts, it is quite clear that if an organization wants to be successful, i.e. prosperous, competitive and flexible, its managers must find out an efficient and effective way to manage knowledge workers (below only workers). The

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workers own specific knowledge that helps the organization to achieve expected objectives. The knowledge, that is fundamental to successful operation of the organization, is mainly tacit (hidden) knowledge that is stored only in the memory of workers, is not easy accessible and is created, shared and used only through interaction and communication among workers. To gain access to the knowledge, the organization must find out an efficient and effective way to find, employ and keep qualified workers that will be competent and willing to create, share and use their knowledge to perform successfully in their jobs (roles) in the organization. In this case, the organization needs efficient and effective Human Resource Management (HRM) and proven HRM practices especially in:

Job design,

Recruitment, selection and orientation,

Performance management,

Compensation,

Training and development.

These HRM practices help the organization and its managers to create conditions for efficient and effective management of workers and their knowledge, including voluntary and mutual creation, sharing and use of knowledge in the organization.

WHY KNOWLEDGE MANGAEMENT?

It would also be of interest to assess as to why KM has all of a sudden become so important now. It would be sacrilege to say that there is something new about knowledge or management of knowledge. The importance of acquiring knowledge or the pursuit of knowledge has always been most sought after. One of the earliest examples of knowledge management can be seen in the Stone Age days when people sat around a fire in the evening and shared their experiences of hunting and gathering food.

However there are several factors, which have given prominence to knowledge management concept and theories, like never before. High levels of uncertainty and inadequate ability to predict the future course of events characterize the new world of banking. The entire gamut of business operations is becoming highly challenging. The current scenario is characterized by an exceedingly competitive environment and a fast changing market place where changes takes place at the Speed of Thought and banking is

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no exception to this. It is crucial to look at strategies that would give the best chance for survival.

Some of the factors are as under:

Globalization, Liberalization and deregulation have totally changed the face of financial markets. Banking today is experiencing a fact changing environment. The shelf life of products and services is getting shorter and shorter with requirements and aspirations of customers increasing by the day. Target markets are experiencing radical shifts leaving organizations with wrong products at the wrong time.

Knowledge is the only input that can help in coping the radical changes and take corrective measures before it is too late. Knowledge alone can accelerate product innovation and boost revenues. In today’s information-driven economy, organizations uncover the most opportunities –and ultimately derive the most value – from intellectual rather than physical assets. As such knowledge is rapidly displacing capital, monetary prowess, natural resources and labor as the quintessential economic resource.

Knowledge provides effective decision support. Effective knowledge sharing of past successes, failures, projects, initiatives enables better decisions creating more economic value for the organization.

Whenever an employee retires or leaves the organization, his experience and knowledge leaves with him too. Sometimes this knowledge goes to work for the competitor as well. It is becoming increasing critical for the organizations to somehow store this knowledge and retrieve it when required for correct decision making.

As the business environment changes, the assumptions, heuristics and processes associated in doing things also undergo a change. Organizations are often caught up in the past and continue to apply old practices, methods and processes which no longer apply. As such the need to unlearn old and non-relevant methods has become necessary more than ever before.

In order to respond to the competitive challenges, and accomplish assignments, spanning traditional boundaries and functional areas, cross functional collaboration is critical to success. Knowledge from diverse disciplines and personal skill based perspectives are necessary for creativity and innovation. Knowledge management encourages conversation and discussion and enables the

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process of creating, sharing and applying knowledge through varying degrees of collaboration.

LITERATURE REVIEW

According to the article (Knowledge Management: A Myth or Reality) By Mrs. N Padmavati we are able to know that there are certain myth and also some reality in the organizational knowledge management that are as follows;

MYTHS:-

Myth 1- Knowledge management is fresh

Many experts have written on knowledge management many years ago. Its practices have existed integrated view of many other facets of management, such as information resources management, intellectual capital measurement, and knowledge sharing via intranets, the learning and innovation.

Myth 2- You have to change the way you work

It is generally assumed that one has to change the organizational culture, strategic approach in an organization in order to implement knowledge management which is not true.

Myth 3- “Reluctance to share knowledge” is a major impediment

The recent enthusiasm for collaboration among employee goes against the grain. Knowledge management can facilitates collaboration, but the reluctance to share knowledge must be overcome.

Myth 4- There’s no obvious payback

One of the problems is that benefits are indirect (and often not foreseen)

Myth-5- Knowledge management is mature

Most of the knowledge leaders see the institutionalization of knowledge management as a long term activity, perhaps taking 5-10 years. Most organizations have been involved with serious implementation for much less time. In terms of overall life cycle, knowledge management is probably at the rapid growth.

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REALITY OF KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT:-

The goal of a knowledge management solution is to capture to the knowledge of people with expertise in specific domains and make the knowledge available for use throughout the enterprise. Thus realities are:

The cost are very visible (people, software, training, etc.), but the benefits comes later and are likely to be very diffuse.

It is very difficult to demonstrate whether particular bottom line improvements are the result of good knowledge management or of other factors.

Many knowledgeable people don’t have the time to share knowledge—it’s something they have to do in addition to their ‘day job’.

Established processes and pressures on teams are not conductive to knowledge sharing across organizational boundaries.

According to the article knowledge sharing dilemma by Angel Cabrera we are able to know that the ideas presented in this paper rely on two basic premises. First, a requisite for the creation of collective knowledge is the exchange of information among individuals and groups within the organization. Second, collective knowledge is an important source of competitive advantage. Consequently, fostering a rich flow of knowledge exchange within the organization can be an important source of competitive advantage. The question is: how can firms manage to encourage this information exchange?

Information technology experts have developed highly sophisticated tools (groupware, discretionary databases, intranets, and knowledge-management systems, workflow technology) to support the exchange of organizational insights across time and distance barriers. However, it has become clear that technology is only one of the ingredients for successful knowledge exchange. The other, even more important, requisite is that of a social environment which encourages or even enforces knowledge sharing.

Several scholars and practitioners have proposed heuristics that can help to create this type of social environment (Nevis et al. 1995). These include creating a climate of openness, showing a commitment to education and development, demonstrating involved leadership, creating a `knowledge-friendly' culture, reducing turnover, increasing organizational commitment, communicating the benefits of knowledge exchange, rewarding individual participation, and redesigning work processes and jobs.

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This paper has tried to offer a theoretical framework that allows us to address these possible interventions in a more congruent way. The frame-work borrows the concept of `social dilemma' from the social sciences. By treating a knowledge-exchange situation as a variation of the classic 'public-good dilemma', we can build upon five decades of empirical research in order to identify the organizational interventions that may have a significant impact on facilitating knowledge sharing.

While the value of sharing knowledge might be obvious to the organization, from an individual standpoint, sharing knowledge can carry significant costs which can even offset the potential benefits. The literature on social dilemmas provides several guidelines as to how to help a group shift towards a cooperative mode. Some of the solutions are aimed at restructuring the pay-off structure of the exchanges, by either reducing the cost of contributing one's ideas or emphasizing the benefits associated with exchanging personal insights with one's co-workers. Other solutions are geared towards increasing people's perceptions of efficacy that is, making people aware of the impact that their engagement in information exchanges can have on the performance of others. Finally, a third type of intervention tries to foster cooperation by enhancing employees' sense of group identity and personal responsibility.

The article by David W. De Long and Liam Fahey identifies four ways in which culture influences the behaviors central to knowledge creation, sharing, and use. First, culture--and particularly subcultures-shape assumptions about what knowledge is and which knowledge is worth managing. Second, culture defines the relationships between individual and organizational knowledge, determining who is expected to control specific knowledge, as well as who must share it and who can hoard it. Third, culture creates the context for social interaction that determines how knowledge will be used in particular situations. Fourth, culture shapes the processes by which new knowledge -with its accompanying uncertainties- is created, legitimated, and distributed in organizations.

Four Frameworks Linking Culture and Knowledge

Our research on knowledge management initiatives has shown that knowledge and culture are inextricably linked in organizations. Indeed; any discussion of knowledge in organizational settings without explicit reference to its cultural context is likely to be misleading. In addition, we found that culturally generated and condoned behaviors of both individuals and groups are often inimical to developing and leveraging knowledge.

To evaluate how an organization's current culture influences the creation, sharing, and use of knowledge, managers must first understand how culture actually influences

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knowledge-related behaviors. These four frameworks provide diagnostic tools for analyzing how culture currently affects a firm's knowledge-related behaviors. This is an essential step before deciding whether to adapt knowledge management objectives to the existing culture, or to try to change the culture.

1. Culture shapes assumptions about which knowledge is important

Cultures, and particularly subcultures (which will be addressed in the next section), heavily influence what is perceived as useful, important, or valid knowledge in an organization. Culture shapes what a group defines as relevant knowledge, and this will directly affect which knowledge a unit focuses on. For example, an advertising agency may give priority to human creative knowledge, while an auto parts distributor may value more structured knowledge embedded in supply-chain processes. These beliefs about which knowledge is most important do not occur in an organizational vacuum. They are shaped by values and norms.

2. Culture mediates the relationships between levels of knowledge

Culture embodies all the unspoken norms, or rules, about how knowledge is to be distributed between the organization and the individuals in it. Culture dictates what knowledge belongs to the organization and what knowledge remains in control of individuals or subunits. This is most evident when management tries to convince individuals to share the human knowledge they have so that it can be converted into more structured knowledge, which the organization will control. A common instance of this occurs when management tries to convince sales people to contribute their knowledge about individual customers to a common customer database.

3. Culture creates a context for social interaction

Earlier we said that culture shapes perceptions and behaviors. One way culture does this is by establishing the organizational context for social interaction. Cultures represent the rules (e.g., "Don't interrupt a superior." "Challenge every-one but the CFO.") and practices (e.g., meeting formats and frequencies, appropriate uses of e-mail versus voice mail), that determine the environment within which people communicate. These cultural ground rules shape how people interact and have a major impact on knowledge creation, sharing, and use. For example, a major bank was interested in sharing lessons learned from the many electronic commerce initiatives that had sprung up in its different divisions. But a lack of norms or practices. To support sharing this knowledge across

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units meant there was no organizational context where one group's valuable experiences were likely to be passed on to others in the firm. Thus the potential value of applying this knowledge elsewhere in the bank was being lost.

4. Culture shapes creation and adoption of new knowledge

Knowledge ultimately assumes value when it affects decision making and is translated into action. New knowledge is either adopted wholesale from external sources, often in the form of structured knowledge, such as a new software-driven manufacturing process, or it is created internally by taking information from the external environment and interpreting it in the context of the firm's existing knowledge to create new knowledge that becomes a basis for action. The corporate landscape is littered with examples of firms that had access to new knowledge about their competitive environments, but that failed to recognize its potential value.

Consider one well-known case. Ford's market research department produced what it viewed as new knowledge: "overwhelming evidence," in the form of projections, that the minivan would be a huge success as a new product in the automobile market. However, Ford's executives, particularly in the finance department, challenged the validity of this new market knowledge, labeling the minivan concept as untested and risky. In this case, the subcultures involved in negotiating the validity of the new knowledge failed to agree and act on the importance of the insights. And Chrysler, of course, went on to capture this major new market, with a product that essentially saved the struggling automaker from bankruptcy.

METHODOLOGY

For completion of the thesis work I have followed only secondary data because the study work is based upon the case study from the different sector so I have collected my data from journals, magazines, text book and internet.

ANALYSIS OF THE DATA19

Knowledge Management in India: Some examples

India has witnessed Knowledge Management (KM) in practice by some companies. Goodlass Nerolac, paint-maker, embraced Knowledge Management in March 2003 because a need was felt to capture knowledge from purchase patterns of customers and dealer insights. Along with money paid for the product, customers also provide a lot of information as their perception of the product and similar substitute products. The strategic challenge lies in designing an interface which will permit easy trapping of customer information. Know Net – the knowledge management portal of Larson & Toubro (a construction company) was set up to solve problems occurring at project sites. It uses KM to roll out real world construction projects at lower costs. Each employee in the organization has accumulated experience over the years and has unknowingly used it for problem solving or creating strategies. The strategic challenge lays in getting people to know ‘what they know’ and then share it with others, make it articulate and explicit. Infosys Technologies (software producer) uses its KM system to capture and template permanently the leanings from projects because software professionals tend to be mobile (Goswami, 2004).

Infosys has conceived, developed and deployed internally an elaborate architecture for KM, which aims to take the company to a ‘Learn Once, Use Anywhere’ paradigm. In mid 1999 a formal initiative for implementing KM was adopted and the vision was to ‘enable every action by the power of knowledge, leverage knowledge for innovation, empower every employee by the knowledge of every other employee, and to be a globally respected knowledge leader’. The challenge is to create direct people-to-people sharing mechanism.

KM at ICICI Bank

The rapidly changing business environment and the constant challenges it poses to organizations and businesses makes it imperative to continuously enhance knowledge and skill sets across the organization. ICICI Bank believes that building a learning organization is critical for being competitive in products and services and meeting customer expectations.

The ICICI portal “Wise Guy” was started because a need was felt to create and generate the culture of knowledge sharing. The need was sparked off by mass exodus of employees from their ‘Treasury’ moving towards the then greener pastures of the ‘Dotcom Era’. Whenever an employee moves, he does not leave behind him documented

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information about the job or client that he was associated with. This causes a lot of botheration for the new incumbent. He spends most of his time trying to build a foundation and begin his work – in other words it is the reinvention of the wheel. Another reason for introduction of this concept could be due to the fact that the merger of ICICI with ICICI Bank was in the offing. The “Wise Guy” portal could act as a common thread binding two different cultures enabling a smooth transition into a universal bank. ICICI Bank has branches spread all over the country. There are employees who have interacted only via emails and have never seen each other. They function as a virtual team. There was a need to bring about a common platform for uniting the people across the country and foster a sense of belonging. This need was not being fulfilled by the existing Intranet.

Initiating KM at ICICI

Having being convinced about the need for practicing Knowledge Management, the next important step for management is to go about putting it into practice. In ICICI it started by having a Coordination Group who sold the concept to the employees. The ‘Wise guy’ banner was floated in the company’s Intranet; it eventually became a part of the Intranet. Emails were sent out to all employees about ‘Wise guy’ and its features. Interested persons could get in touch with the system administrator for login password. The Coordination Group members comprised employees from the research group, HRD, ICICI infotech and the library staff. The concept initiated in April 2000. A dedicated team of 7 software developers worked on it using existing IT infrastructure. The first version went live on 15th June 2000 and the second was version made live on 15th October 2000. Between April and November it had 40,000 hits.

Intellect clearly resides inside the firm’s human brains. Elements of knowledge, skills and understanding can also exist in the organization’s systems, databases or operating technologies. If properly matched, intellect in each form is both highly leverageable and protectable. (Prahlad and Hamel, 1990) An individual may possess knowledge by sheer virtue of her being associated with the organization. This knowledge that she possesses is tacit in nature. However the explicit part of the knowledge is when associates know that she has knowledge about a particular thing. It is this tacit knowledge that has to be captured, codified and put in a common place from where all in the organization can have access and utilize it to their benefit. This is easier said then done. The first problem that is likely to crop up is the unwillingness of the owner of the knowledge to part with it. The second problem would be when the owner is willing to articulate it but the recipient is unwilling to absorb it.

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The “Wise Guy” portal began with articulation of that information which was explicit to only a few persons in the organization and tacit in general. No person was asked to share his/her tacit knowledge at this point. Sharing of such explicit information did not threaten anybody’s knowledge quotient and nor did anybody lose any personal power which comes from being knowledgeable in a particular area. Thus the contents of the portal were discussions, queries, edited contributions, books, training calendar, vendors, external and internal reports, events, and captured offline lectures/presentations.

The “Wise guy” at ICICI

When the site was introduced, awareness was generated by sending mails to all employees and by putting banners on the Intranet site, i.e. the ‘universe’. In order to sustain interest in the site, efforts are being made to acknowledge the contributions made by the users. Every month the top three contributors are selected on the basis of the contributions made in the last three consecutive months. For e.g. the contributions made in January, February and March are judged for awards in April, while the contributions made in February, March and April are judged for awards in May. Awards are on the basis of the number of contributions made, number of people who read that article/write-up and number of responses given to different queries. Cash prizes (K-cash points) are given and photographs of the winners get a place for a week on the site. E - Mails about the portal (both congratulatory and critical) are uploaded so that it generates discussion about the pros and cons of the system.

A personal corner exists on the Wise guy, whereby one can save searches or track ones level of involvement on the Wise guy or count K-cash points or update personal profile. The expertise that is mentioned in the profile helps in tracking people expertise wise. The people tracker can also track people on the basis of names, or departments or areas.

Each section in the Wise guy can be accessed only if one has a login-id (which is usually the employee code) and a password. Confidential sections, which are not for public view, are restricted by the administrator. This helps in building privacy, which is essential for sections containing client information. This is similar to Lowe’s (advertising agency) Mindstore (which permits general access) and Mindcircle (which permits restricted access) in the KM portal called Owle’s World.

The ‘Learning Matrix’ lets one upgrade ones knowledge at ones own pace. Out of the currently available 83 plans, an employee can select a few modules which s(he) would like to do in the given year. Some modules are compulsory for some departments/groups, while others are optional. The employee can keep track of what

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s(he) has registered for, how many have been completed and how many are pending. The ‘Scorecard’ keeps a score of programs completed and certificates obtained. The electronic version of the certificate can also be printed. (Goswami, 2004)

The Corporate Information Bank provides Company Research and Industry Analysis. The site also provides links to other useful databases as the MIT knowledge base, ICRA database, Banking Rules etc. all aimed at empowering the employee to make a rational strategic decision. Client tracker and Business tracker, which have restricted access, are helpful for new incumbent to the job to brief himself about the background of the client or the business in hand. However KM cannot be subservient to information technology. Thus the “Wise guy” has a human face also. Knowledge events are arranged by the KM Group from time to time where people can get to interact with CEOs or CFOs or Experts in a formal meeting which is announced beforehand. If the branches desire, a webcast is also arranged. The presentation is recorded and later transferred to the KM site.

Consequences of “Wise guy”

Wise guy has contributed to the organization in the following ways.

Creation of a common storehouse of knowledge

Online identification of expertise

Developed a sense of belongingness among the employees

Led to financial savings

Improved decision making ability

Empowered employees

Provided for personal skill upgradation

Helped plan career movements

Provided a platform for recognition of contribution made

To a large extent it is seen that these fulfill the needs of the technical and professional workforce by giving them a platform for airing their views, contributing as well as upgrading their expertise, a chance for public recognition and planning upward mobility. It has also achieved in being a learning organization.

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Benefit of KM for ICICI

KM at ICICI began on an experimental basis and carried on expanding and exploring, widening its ambit of operations. No additional funding was required and nobody was under compulsion to use the site. The relatively young age group of the employees and support provided by the top management had led to the progress of the concept of knowledge management. It has not made any model to follow unlike Wipro has done. At present it is in a state of growth and flux and new sections and links are being added in the Wise guy. Maybe in the next couple of years it will begin to consolidate and clearly define its objective of existence or else merge into the Intranet and be a part of corporate communications.

KM at Tata Teleservices Limited

Tata Teleservices is part of the INR Rs 325,334 crore Tata Group that has over 80 companies, over 357,000 employees and more than 3.5 million shareholders. With a committed investment of over U.S.$ 7.5 billion in Telecom (FY 2006), the Group has a formidable presence across the telecom value chain.

Tata Teleservices Limited spearheads the Group’s presence in the telecom sector. Incorporated in 1996, Tata Teleservices Limited was the first to launch CDMA mobile services in India with the Andhra Pradesh circle. The company swung into expansion mode and currently has a pan-India state-of-the-art network.

Having pioneered the CDMA 2000 technology platform in India, Tata Teleservices has established a 3G-ready robust and reliable telecom infrastructure in partnership with Motorola, Ericsson and Lucent. The company also launched GSM services in 2009.

Tata Teleservices’ bouquet of telephony services includes mobile services, wireless desktop phones, public booth telephony, and wireline services. Other services include value-added services such as voice portal, roaming, post-paid Internet services, 3-way conferencing, group calling, Wi-Fi Internet, USB Modem, data cards, calling card services and enterprise services. More than 12,000 TTSL employees can be found in and around 60 cities, splitting time between the company’s offices and customer sites. However, in recent years, its IT management found it challenging to maintain the high level of collaboration and information sharing that is critical to the organization’s success. “We’re a very dynamic, growing organization, and as we bring on new people and grow our business globally, we need to make it easy for people to securely distribute, access, and collaborate on information,” says Ashish Deshpande, General

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Manager - IT, TTSL. “So the need was to find a way to share information and best practices across the company. For us to become smarter and more efficient, we needed to be able to share knowledge across the company.

In September 2007, TTSL began its search for a new intranet solution, with the objective to bring all of the firm’s content and knowledge sources into one easy-to-use location so that employees could quickly find complete information, regardless of its location.

After evaluating available intranet options, the company decided to implement a solution based on Microsoft® Office SharePoint® Server 2007. TTSL engaged Microsoft® Gold Certified Partner, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) to develop the solution. TCS has extensive skills in building SharePoint applications. It architected, developed and deployed the complete application from end to end. “Microsoft's portal solution is highly cost efficient from our side as we have integrated and migrated many .NET solutions with Office SharePoint Server 2007,” says Shirish Munj, Chief Information Officer, TCS. “It reduces overall ongoing effort for maintenance and implementing new changes by 80 percent and enhances productivity using Office SharePoint Server 2007 out of box functionality.”

“Our primary focus was to make employees more productive by providing them access to tools, information, and people contacts faster and easier,” says Shirish Munj, TTSL. “Mind Beans, our knowledge portal, provides a standard framework for efficient knowledge management, communication, and collaboration.” Accessed through the intranet as well as over the internet, employees can access relevant information from any location.

Mind Beans, the knowledge portal provides several features such as blogs, communities and Gyan Bhandar or a knowledge repository that can be accessed and updated by employees. This allows sharing training experiences, whitepapers and case studies. In addition, the portal offers separate sections for employees to share and access best business or technology practices, breakthrough ideas and innovations.

The intranet portal includes Web sites and collaboration workspaces for each business unit which uses the content management features of Office SharePoint Server 2007 to publish its own information. Additionally, it helps gain visibility for yourself and your team using ‘Team Sites’ and ‘My Site’ and helps to make better informed decisions in the business.

A central repository stores all business information, giving users access to relevant information in real-time. It also provides easy search functionality to find the documents and other content that they may need. This serves as a self service solution and a common

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file sharing platform which effectively reduced the HR and admin work load. The system has therefore, found greater acceptability among employees.

Various applications currently reside on the intranet. These have been implemented using Office SharePoint Server 2007 features, custom web parts and user controls and deployed in medium server farm.

One of the applications manages library book transactions including registration, issuing, current status etc. There is an employee referral system for jobs posted on the intranet, which also acts as a repository of resumes for future reference. In addition to these, there is also a platform for raising concerns against unethical behavior in the company. It explains the Tata Code of Conduct and implements workflows to route various types of concerns to the relevant authorities. It provides up to date status reports on concerns raised, discarded, pending or resolved at any point of time.

Another application, which is accessible to all employees across locations, provides a unique way to buy and sell goods such household articles, electronic gadgets, vehicles, rent accommodation.

Using InfoPath forms, the company customizes many surveys including an online survey for new joiners. The solution also provides project space for every team and their relevant projects. Each team can make announcements, display project highlights, team members, team events, store and share documents, participate in the discussions, and manage team meetings.

Another portal facilitates better service to top corporate customers by maintaining the database of all commissioned links on a centralized server. This was the outcome of a Six Sigma initiative, designed initially for AP Circle’s Technology team; it captures customer and network details.

TTSL has also been able to create blogs and survey’s integrated with Microsoft Outlook, Picture Libraries, ‘My Site’, ‘Team Sites’ for all business units and project teams. It implemented Designer Out-Of-Box workflows for document libraries. Additionally, it also implemented workflows to send e-mails for changes in document libraries and lists.

Different options that were provisioned in the portal include:

Quick Search: Search based on specific fields like Mobile Number, Circuit Label, Customer Name, and Location.

Database Review: Quick reference of frequently used 15 fields from the master database.

Database Extensive: Displays all fields of the master database. 26

Customized Reports: Generates weekly and monthly reports.

Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 has created a robust and secure platform for collaboration. It can be accessed by employees over the Internet, thus making it truly efficient, secure and effective.

Benefits of KM at Tata Tele Service Ltd.

TTSL has experienced several improvements. The solution enables collaborative content development, information reuse, and enterprise search. In doing so, it has improved the productivity of, and collaboration among, consultants and business users, created new business efficiencies, and enhanced knowledge-management and security capabilities.

“Thanks to the new intranet solution, we are not only fostering employee efficiency by providing users with a more powerful, more versatile system, but while doing so, we are also saving significant sums of money,” says Ashish Deshpande.

Increases Work Force Efficiency

TTSL has seen an increase in the quality and efficiency of collaboration among geographically dispersed team members. “Increased efficiency enables our employees to be more responsive to users. They can now accomplish more tasks within the same amount of time, which saves the company resources in terms of development time and staff utilization,” explains Shirish Munj.

Two to Three-fold Reduction in Development Costs

“Microsoft Office SharePoint Portal Server lowers development costs by as much as three-fold through a huge jump in developer productivity,” says Ashish Deshpande. “A remarkably intuitive solution, employees immediately figured out how to search, browse, and share information, increasing productivity four times.”

In addition to the intranet’s built-in enterprise search capabilities and workflow tools, TTSL has standardized user interfaces. Simple tools reduce the learning curve and make technology adoption easier for new employees. This reduces the initial training burden on new employees, thus reducing the need to travel across locations to attend training sessions.

Enhances Employee Productivity by Four-fold

Since the solution provides a single repository for all of the company’s intellectual property, employees are now much more productive. The new intranet gives faster access

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to the right information, which helps employees streamline their processes and accomplish their tasks more quickly.

“Our implementation of Microsoft’s portal solution has been a huge success,” says Shirish Munj. “We spend less time searching for content; instead we focus on business initiatives, thus increasing employee productivity four-fold.”

Enhances Knowledge Management

Because its intellectual property is no longer splintered among several intranet systems, TTSL has been able to enhance its knowledge management capabilities. “Now that our intellectual property is better integrated and more accessible, we’re learning new ways to take advantage of it,” says Shirish Munj. “Our workforce is more efficient, and the collaborative use of our intellectual property has had an impact on our employees’ productivity.”

Improves Decision Making

Since all the data is available on a single platform, decision-making is more informed and qualitatively superior than when decisions may have been based on incomplete information. Having access to a platform that brings together data from heterogeneous sources into a unified, standardized view will help in reducing the time taken for analysis and decision making.

TTSL aims to exploit all the capabilities of the Microsoft Office SharePoint Portal to empower its employees and enhance a seamlessness, integration and efficiency.

KM at British Petroleum

British petroleum is the UK- based petroleum company this company had successfully implemented the Knowledge Management practices by the end of 2002. In 1994 BP launched the virtual Teamwork project (VTP), its first major KM initiative. The first step in VTP was to source the necessary equipment (Hardware and Software) required for the installation of the virtual team workstation known as ‘client’. The equipment included desktop videoconferencing equipment, multimedia e-mail, shared chalkboard, tools to record video clips (e.g. video cameras), groupware, lotus notes, a web browser and a document scanner. Most of the equipment had application-sharing features. The equipment was connected either trough ISDN lines or satellite links, depending on the requirement. There are five groups in the for the VTP those are as follows;

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Andrew project group: The group was establishing a new drilling platform for an emerging oil field.

Miller team: A mature oil field group.

Established network of experts: Who had already been communicating with each other by e-mail, newsletters and occasional meeting.

Virtual petro-technical team: A team of geo-scientists and engineers formed especially for the projects.

Business center network: this considered of five VT ‘clients’ placed in key BP offices around the world, each with a full-time “host”, whose job was to encourage its use at that location.

The entire VTP system is handled by a ‘Core team’ this core team has to look after about the proper training programme for the group members. Apart from explaining the technologies, a major part of the training time was devoted to encouraging the members to exploit the potential of the system to the maximum by applying it to their regular business operation. BP faced some challenges at the initial stage of the implementation of VTP. The company realized that the peer groups were not providing the expected value addition for the programme. There for, in 1995, to make the peer groups take VTP more seriously, the company made them responsible for distributing resources among the units as well as for fixing performance targets for individual business units. Though the business heads initially resisted this move, they soon realized the advantage of pooling and exchanging valuable information. This strategy leads to the successful implementation of VTP programme in British Petroleum and helps the company to fulfill their objective of implementing he programme.

KM at Tata Steel

Tata Steel, formerly known as TISCO and Tata Iron and Steel Company Limited, is the world's sixth largest steel company, with an annual crude steel capacity of 31 million tonnes. It is the largest private sector steel company in India in terms of domestic production. Ranked 258th on Fortune Global 500, it is based in Jamshedpur, Jharkhand, India. It is part of Tata Group of companies. Tata Steel is also India's second-largest and second-most profitable company in private sector with consolidated revenues of Rs

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1,32,110 crore and net profit of over Rs 12,350 crore during the year ended March 31, 2008.Backed by 100 glorious years of experience in steel making, Tata Steel is among the top ten steel producers in the world with an existing annual crude steel production capacity of 30 Million Tonnes Per Annum (MTPA). Established in 1907, it is the first integrated steel plant in Asia and is now the world`s second most geographically diversified steel producer and a Fortune 500 Company. Its main plant is located in Jamshedpur, Jharkhand, with its recent acquisitions; the company has become a multinational with operations in various countries. The Jamshedpur plant contains the DCS supplied by Honeywell. The registered office of Tata Steel is in Mumbai. The company was also recognized as the world's best steel producer by World Steel Dynamics in 2005. The company is listed on Bombay Stock Exchange and National Stock Exchange of India, and employs about 82,700 people (as of 2007). Tata Steel has a balanced global presence in over 50 developed European and fast growing Asian markets, with manufacturing units in 26 countries. It was the vision of the founder; Jamsetji Nusserwanji Tata., that on 27th February, 1908, the first stake was driven into the soil of Sakchi. His vision helped Tata Steel overcome several periods of adversity and strive to improve against all odds. Tata Steel`s Jamshedpur (India) Works has a crude steel production capacity of 6.8 MTPA which is slated to increase to 10 MTPA by 2010. The Company also has proposed three Greenfield steel projects in the states of Jharkhand, Orissa and Chhattisgarh in India with additional capacity of 23 MTPA and a Greenfield project in Vietnam. The TATA Steel story is a classic example of synergy leveraged through the inorganic route. In 2005, Tata Steel acquired NatSteel Asia. This helped the company not only to establish a beachhead in seven countries across the region, namely Singapore, Thailand, China, Malaysia, Vietnam, the Philippines and Australia, but also provided it with a customer base for close to two million tonnes of steel. As a brand, NatSteel's strong equity in the region was yet another strategic gain for Tata Steel. The company's strong human resources and management effectiveness is also an inheritance of immense value. Operationally, NatSteel's finishing facilities across the region provided Tata Steel with the necessary support for upstream capacity expansions in India, as well as access to knowledge and expertise in downstream processing of bars and wire rods. The acquisition of Millennium Steel in 2005, Thailand's dominant steel producer, still consolidated Tata Steel's gains from the NatSteel deal. Millennium's three operating units gave the company a cumulative capacity to produce 1.2 million tonnes of steel per annum through the electric arc furnace route along with a long products rolling capacity of 1.7 million tonnes a year. Geared towards the construction and automotive sector, Millennium provided Tata Steel strategic space in the heart of the ASEAN region, enhancing its market position in South East Asia.

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Knowledge Management in Tata Steel:

Tata Steel decided to embark on formal KM initiative in the year 1999. The beginning was made in July’99 to place a Knowledge Management (KM) programme for the company to systematically & formally share and transfer learning concepts, best practices and other implicit knowledge.

The emphasis on knowledge management was clearly demonstrated in 1999 while coining the vision statement of the company – which read “Tata Steel enters the new millennium with the confidence of learning and knowledge based organization” Then followed the new vision statement, co-created by the employees in 2001 (which again identified ‘Manage Knowledge’ as one of the main pillars in strategy to become EVA+ by 2007. This clearly indicated the thrust Senior Management wanted on an initiative like KM. The essence of Knowledge management is to capture the available abundant knowledge assets either in form of tacit (experience, learning from failure, thumb rules, etc.) or explicit (literature, reports, failure analysis etc.), to organize and transform the captured knowledge, and to facilitate its usage at right place and at the right time.

Phases of Knowledge Management

Starting from a small sapling in 1999, the KM system of Tata Steel underwent a lot of improvements, and changes. In the process, it passed through many learning phases to reach its current state. The various phases of KM spiral at Tata Steel are shown in Fig 2. In its latest phase, the Knowledge Management has been identified as one of the main enablers to make Tata Steel self reliant in technology which will enable the company become a global player in near future.

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Stakeholders in KM

Tata Steel aims at capturing knowledge from various working groups and outside agencies that play a major role in day-to-day functioning. The major stakeholders covered under KM being:

9 Senior Management

9 Officers

9 Employees (Supervisors & Workmen)

9 Customers

9 Supplier

9 Experts (In & outside company)

Opportunity of Knowledge Management

Tata Steel KM initiative is driven by its corporate KM group which attempts to cover all possible opportunities of knowledge generation in and outside the steel work. The primary source being:-

Day-to- day operations

Learning from failure

Published papers by employees(national and international publication)

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Task force/Consultants/Technical groups

Engineering projects

Knowledge sharing across the value chain

Tata Steel defines its value chain as a connected series of internal and external organization, resource, and knowledge streams involved in creation and delivery of value to the end customer. It includes the organization’s suppliers and customers. In fact, one of the organization’s strategic goals is to develop value-creating partnership with customer and suppliers. Tata Steel developed two programmes in particular to help manage knowledge across its value chain: the Customer Value Management (CVM) and its Supplier Value Chain Management (SVM).

Improvement activities

Knowledge generated through suggestions, small group activity

The most important milestone in the company's history is its transition from a company operating in a controlled economy to one that is flourishing in a globally competitive environment. The quality of Tata Steel’s products was not the best and cost of production was high. A culture of continuous improvement was ushered into the company. Apart from quality circles, value engineering and quality improvement projects, the Company undertook a programme called 'Total Operating Performance' (TOP) which help in increasing our focus of cost and improving throughput.

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Within the Tata Group, Tata Steel was in fact one of the first to adopt the Tata Business Excellence Model (TBEM). It helped Tata Steel to detail its business processes, benchmark with the best and improve them. In the last few years we have adopted several other initiatives such as TPM, Six Sigma, Aspire and Theory of Constraints. The Company is now in the process of bringing improvement initiatives under a single umbrella of Aspire T3 which comprises TOC, TQM and Technology to enthuse its people to newer heights of excellence.

ASPIRE includes improvement tools like Suggestion Management, VE, TOP, Six Sigma, TPM, Knowledge Management, TOC and some others. The broad improvement processes relate to TQM principles of Daily Management, Policy Management, Problem solving and Task achieving under the Aspire model.

The various improvement initiatives adopted by Tata Steel which are recognized as Aspire Tools are:

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Value Engineering (VE): Value Engineering is an organized approach for identification and elimination of unnecessary cost.

QIP, QC & Benchmarking: Tata Steel adopted Juran Trilogy concept for undertaking Quality Improvement Projects (QIP). Quality Circles (QC) are small group activities which involves first-line employees who continually control and improve the quality of their work, products and services. Benchmarking is a process of exploring for best practices and performances across the world and putting systematic efforts to bridge the gap.

Total Operational Performance (TOP): Total Operational Performance initiative was launched in 1998 with the help of McKinsey. Major focus of this initiative was on cost reduction, quality & throughput improvement.

Total Productive Maintenance (TPM): TPM is an approach to maintenance that optimizes equipment effectiveness, eliminates breakdowns and promotes autonomous maintenance by operators through day to day activities involving the total workforce.

Knowledge Management (KM): Tata Steel decided to embark on formal KM initiative in the year 1999. The beginning was made in July ’99 to place a Knowledge Management (KM) program for the company and systematically as well as formally share and transfer learning concepts, best practices and other implicit knowledge.

Define-Measure-Analyze-Improve-Control (DMAIC): The fundamental objective of the DMAIC methodology is the implementation of a measurement-based strategy that focuses on process improvement and variation reduction.

Supplier Value Management (SVM): This aims to reduce costs and resources in the entire value chain of supplier and Tata Steel. Value creation is focused through better understanding of customer (internal) requirements and supplier capabilities.

Quality Management Systems (QMS): Quality Management Systems as required, like ISO 9000, TS16949, OSHAS, ISO 14000 etc. are adopted by various units to establish basic management systems.

Small Group Activities (SGA): Small Group Activities (SGA) are promoted under daily management through SGA teams who meet, identify, discuss and implement small improvements (Kaizens) in the area of work. QC circles and

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TPM circles are known as SGA teams.

ASPIRE T3: ASPIRE T3 Launched in November, 2006 this initiative focuses on implementation of Theory of Constraints (TOC), Total Quality Management (TQM) and Technology. This will help the company to become more competitive and a global leader by achieving excellence in product & service quality. TQM & Technology will help to achieve superior product quality through process consistency, process capability and technological capability, whereas service quality is being focused through TOC implementation.

KM at Infosys

Infosys was incorporated as Infosys Consultant Private Limited on July 02, 1981by a group of seven professional. From the beginning, Infosys relied heavily on overseas business. One of the founders, Narayan Murthy stayed in India, while the other went to the US to carry out onsite programming for corporate client. One of the Infosys’ first clients was the US-based sports shoe manufacturer Reebok.

The goal of Knowledge Management (KM) in the Infosys context is that all organizational learning must be leveraged in delivering business advantage to the customer. This means that every Infoscians as employees are called whether at a customer site or at any of the Infosys offices or development centers worldwide; whether performing customer-fronting, strategic management or internal customer service roles, must have the full backing of the organization’s learning behind him/her. In other words, the organization aims to move towards a “Learn once, Use anywhere” paradigm.

Infosys’s KM vision is to be an organization where every action is fully enabled by the power of knowledge; which truly believes in leveraging knowledge for innovation; where every employee is empowered by the knowledge of every other employee; which is a globally respected knowledge leader.

In early nineties, Infosys realized that in order to sustain growth in the future, personnel with generic analytical skill and high learning ability were needed. Infosys decided to recruit such personnel and train them in specific job skill. Towards this end, Infosys established its in-house Education and Research Department (E&RD) in 1991. The main objective behind department was to provide high quality education and integrate it with career growth, to conduct research which would be of use to the company and evaluate new technologies and tools. In 1992, the E&RD encouraged Infosys employees to provide written documents about their experiences on the job, their learning on various

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topics relating to software development and use of new technologies, tips on living in other countries, etc. such information formed a part of what was called the Body of Knowledge (BoK). The BoK was regularly updated by the E&RD and department also contributed extensively to it. Print copies of BoK were shared among the employees. The E&RD was organized in to four group- programming languages & Methodologies, operating systems and networking, Database management and transaction processing and software engineering. This organization facilitated consolidation of knowledge and building of expertise. By 1995, the E&RD developed around 40 countries and had 12 faculty members. They handled about seven batches of fresh trainee engineers, with each batch comprising of 3o to 120 trainees. The department also organized some 30 short-term courses for Infosys employees every year.

In 1996, Infosys launched Sparsh, a corporate intranet. This enabled easy access to the BoKs and other information to the employees. The other contents of Sparsh were;

Online classes

Library catalogue

Body of Knowledge

Training information and administration system

Process asset

Yellow pages (also known as people knowledge map, a system through which employees could record their expertise based on pre-defined knowledge hierarchy)

The Launch of Kshop

In order to maximize value and maintain cost leadership in a highly competitive scenario, it was necessary for Infosys to use knowledge diligently. The company felt that knowledge dissemination should be carried out through a central system in order to maintain uniformity. These factors led to the introduction of Kshop, a knowledge portal launched in the year 2000. Kshop had four pillar- people, contents, process and technology. The four pillars facilitated creation, transfer and reuse of knowledge. Through Kshop, the scope of BoK whose creation and use was limited to one project was expanded to encompass the entire organization. The Kshop identified two types of contents- internal K-asset and external K-asset. Internal K-asset consisted of industry

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specific knowledge assets, body of knowledge, project snapshot documents, internal white papers and reports, reusable artifacts, discussion groups and chat sessions and internal FAQs. The external K-assets included glossary of business and technical terms, technology summaries, online journals and books, external white papers and reports, technology and business news, and external FAQs.

KM process at Infosys operated at three level- project level, customer level and organizational level. At the project level, every project management team had a project management coordinator with specific KM goals. At the customer level, all the customer accounts of the company had a Km road map for them. The teams catering to a specific customer, shared knowledge about the customer by orientation programmes, online discussions, and by collaborating on the projects. The organizational level knowledge sharing was carried out through Kshop. Through Kshop, the knowledge that teams gained at the project level and customer level was shared with the other employees.

KM at the Leading Irish Construction Organization:

Construction organizations rely on the knowledge, experience and skills of their employees, to execute construction projects as efficiently as possible. The capability of an organization to innovate and continuously improve depends upon the effective sharing and exploitation of its intellectual capital (Egbu, 2004). Knowledge management (KM) is now recognized for its potential to bring considerable gains to construction organizations, their projects and individual workers through social and technological interventions. If the construction industry wishes to improve profitability, reduce waste and inefficiency and offer better value to clients, Walker (2005) states that the industry must fully embrace KM. Essentially, there are two types of knowledge: explicit knowledge which can be readily codified into documented form, and can be managed as information; and tacit knowledge which is not easily visible or expressible, highly individualized and context specific, difficult to share and manage, (Nonaka and Takeuchi, 1995). The most valuable form of knowledge to construction organizations is tacit, accumulated experience of construction professionals, which manifests itself through social interaction (Kazi et al., 2005). In this context, the los of important insights and knowledge due to high staff turnover and unwillingness to share knowledge are persistent problems which need to be addressed (Tan et al., 2005). KM is considered to be in its infancy and is seen as a recent and evolving practice for construction organizations (Robinson et al. 2005).

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An in-depth study by Walker and Wilson (2004: 772) revealed “generally low comprehension and insights into knowledge management concepts.”

INDIVIDUAL KNOWLEDGE

Knowledge workers, who are at the core of KM, should be self-starters, continually striving for creative solutions and building on their educational qualifications and experience repertoire. They must be capable of learning and making sense of large amounts of complex information and must be sufficiently motivated to seek out opportunities and design their own work, often with little direction (Storey, 2005). Motivating individuals to learn and share knowledge can be particularly difficult in pressurized environments such as construction where time for reflection is limited (Jashapara, 2004). Storey (2005) discuses the management of knowledge workers in the context of training, empowering, and rewarding them, and more specifically the role of HR in facilitating the use of available knowledge and encouraging people to learn. Training and development is considered an important aspect of KM by Olomolaiye and Egbu (2004) who cite the need to equip employees with the skills to manage their own learning and development and the development of an effective Continuing Professional Development (CPD) plan. They also propose that awareness of KM can be improved by using training as a vehicle to focus on achieving quality, creativity, leadership and problem solving. Participation in continuing education, conferences and similar CPD activities can allow employees the opportunity to “reflect upon their work, trade stories and ideas with co-workers, or catch up on professional theory and practice (Grisham and Walker, 2005: 554).” The development of technical knowledge in the specialist subject area; personal transferable skills and attributes such as team working and problem solving; and general managerial skills are identified as the main areas of learning for professionals (Roscoe, 2002).

PROJECT KNOWLEDGE

Every day on construction projects, new problems are encountered and solutions arrived at which are rarely documented, the lesson learned residing only with those individuals directly involved in the problem-solving process (Kazi et al., 2005). By capturing and sharing project knowledge, the amount of reinventing the wheel and waste can be reduced, whilst improving project performance. Traditional methods for capturing lessons learned include discussion and informal meetings followed by documentation and registration on the project file (Mohamed and Anumba, 2005). In a case study of a Finnish construction organization, Kazi et al. (2005) identified a

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number of social processes for sharing project knowledge such as site visits, audits, and meetings.

ORGANISATIONAL KNOWLEDGE

In attempting to manage knowledge within construction organizations, there are three key types requiring consideration; product (technical knowledge), process (procedural and regulatory knowledge) and people (identifying people with specific skills and experiences) (Egbu and Robinson, 2005). Dainty et al. (2005) identified a number of HRM strategies for knowledge sharing within a large construction organization in Hong Kong as: informal knowledge workshops, knowledge exchange seminars, departmental meetings, site visits, summary reports, coaching and mentoring, communities of practice and an intranet. In addition to the provision of activities for sharing knowledge, “there must be opportunity for research, innovation and divergence from the ‘normal’ course (Orange et al., 2003).” The tension between learning anew, whilst also exploiting accumulated experience and knowledge is discussed by Jashapara (2004) who posits that such learning needs to be institutionalized at organizational level. That is, learning becomes embedded in organizational routines over time leading to changes in behavior, systems, structures and strategies.

KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT MODELS

There has been a lack of KM models developed specifically for construction; one of the most noteworthy to date has been the Knowledge Advantage (K-Adv) model (Walker and Wilson, 2004). Developed in partnership with industry, the K-Adv model was not adopted by the participating organizations as it was judged to be “too difficult to implement from the standpoint of challenging current competitive practices within organizations (Walker, 2005: 13).” In order to gain and maintain a K-Adv organizations require a coordinated approach comprising leadership, people infrastructure and an ICT enabling infrastructure. From the perspective of HRM aspects already explored in this paper, the model offers a number of concepts which can be aligned with the HR function, most obvious being the people infrastructure. The inherent differences in culture and differing business goals make it difficult to develop a generic KM system or model applicable to al construction organizations.

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FINDINGS & SUGGESTIONS

Throughout Drucker’s life he emphasized that the next level of economic growth needs to

be driven by knowledge work productivity—requiring that managers simultaneously

make their present Enterprise more effective, identify and realize its potential, and create

a different Enterprise for a different future. In so doing he suggested that business leaders

needed to continually shift resources from less productive to more productive areas

through better knowledge work productivity and innovation.

Manual work is visible, specialized, and stable, whereas knowledge work is invisible,

holistic, and ever changing. Unlike manual workers, knowledge workers use their

situational knowledge to get things done in a dynamic environment. They are almost

always formally educated and are called upon to run and change their functions and

organizations simultaneously.

Knowledge workers acquire knowledge—through a combination of education,

experience, and personal interaction—and then use that knowledge to holistically achieve

organizational goals in changing environments. This work is generally much more project

oriented than manual work, and Enterprise productivity improves faster when one area of

knowledge can be rapidly transferred to another.

One reason that knowledge work has been difficult to manage is because of its nature to

expand to fill the available time. It is also commonly stymied by organizational

disconnects within and across hierarchies. To manage the invisible and elastic nature of

knowledge work better, Drucker suggested that we think about it more systematically. He

advised that Enterprises strive to remove unproductive work, and restructure work as part

of an overall system to create a satisfied customer. In this light he suggested that

knowledge be organized through teams – with clarity around who is in charge at what

time, for what reason, and for how long.

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To create a working system to manage knowledge work more productively it’s useful to

compare and contrast Taylor’s thinking on manual work with Drucker’s on knowledge

work:

Frederick Taylor on Manual Work Peter Drucker on Knowledge Work

Define the task Understand the task

Command and control Give Autonomy

Strict standards Continuous innovation

Focus on quantity Focus on quality

Measure performance to strict standard Continuously learn and teach

Minimize cost of workers for a task Treat workers as an asset not a cost

The organization's success depends critically on a successful knowledge management. Knowledge assets are the knowledge that an organization owns or needs to own to achieve its goals. Knowledge equals information, extracted, filtered or formatted in some way.

Knowledge can be divided into two types. They are tacit knowledge and explicit knowledge. Tacit knowledge consists of the hands-on skills, best practices, special know-how, heuristic, intuitions, and so on. Tacit knowledge is personal knowledge that is hard to formalize or articulate (Polanyi 1973). The transfer of tacit knowledge is by tradition and shared experience, through for example, apprenticeship or job training. Tacit knowledge in an organization ensures task effectiveness -- which the right things are being done so that the work unit could attain its objectives. It also provides for a kind of creative robustness -- intuition and heuristic can often tackle tough problems that would otherwise be difficult to solve. Whereas tacit knowledge is implicit, explicit knowledge is

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rule-based knowledge that is used to match actions to situations by invoking appropriate rules. Explicit knowledge guides action by answering three questions: what kind of situation is this? What kind of person am I or what kind of organization is this? and finally, what does a person or an organization do in a situation such as this? (March 1994). Explicit knowledge is used in the design of routines, standard operation procedures, and the structure of data records. Explicit knowledge enables the organization to enjoy a certain level of operational efficiency and control. It also promotes equable, consistent organizational responses. Those forms of knowledge can be found in any organization. The organization however, is skilled at continuously expanding, renewing, and refreshing its knowledge in all categories. The organization promotes the learning of tacit knowledge to increase the skill and creative capacity of its employees and takes advantage of explicit knowledge to maximize efficiency. In effect, the organization has acquired a third class of knowledge - meta-knowledge- that it uses to create and integrate all its intellectual resources in order to achieve high levels of performance.

The organization adopts a holistic approach to knowledge management that successfully combines tacit and explicit knowledge at all levels of the organization. Tacit knowledge is cultivated in an organizational culture that motivates through shared vision and common purpose. Personal knowledge is leveraged with explicit knowledge for the design and development of innovative products, services and processes. Strategic vision and operational expertise are fused in creative action.

Where an organization's performance is heavily reliant on knowledge work then knowledge management is pivotal. Knowledge work emphasizes the use of professional intellect in activities which use individual and external knowledge.

Knowledge Management is a discipline that promotes an integrated approach to identifying, managing and sharing all of an organization's knowledge assets including unarticulated expertise and experience resident in individual workers. In other words, knowledge management is taking advantage of what you know. Knowledge Management involves the identification and analysis of available and required knowledge, and the subsequent planning and control of actions to develop knowledge assets so as to fulfill organizational objectives. Knowledge Management is not about managing or organizing books or journals, searching the inherent for clients or arranging for the circulation of materials. However, each of these activities can in some way be part of the knowledge management spectrum and processes. Knowledge Management is about enhancing the use of organizational knowledge through sound practices of knowledge management and organizational learning. Thus, Knowledge Management is a combination of information Management, Communications, and Human Resources.

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The purpose of Knowledge Management is to deliver value to organization. The basic goal of knowledge management is to harness the knowledge resources and knowledge capabilities of the organization in order to enable the organization to learn and adapt to its changing environment (Auster and Choo, 1995). Therefore, Knowledge Management practices aim to draw out the tacit knowledge people have, what they carry around with them, what they observe and learn from experience, rather than what is usually explicitly stated. Managing knowledge goes much further than capturing data and manipulating it to obtain information. Davenport (1993) explains that knowledge management process is about acquisition, creation, packaging, and application or reuse of knowledge. Some examples of each of these types of knowledge management process are:

Knowledge Acquisition: finding existing knowledge, understanding requirements, searching among multiple sources.

Knowledge Creation: research activities, creative processes in advertising, writing books or articles, making movies, and so on.

Packaging: publishing, editing, design work

Applying or using existing knowledge : auditing, medical diagnosis;

Reuse of knowledge for new purpose: leveraging knowledge in product development processes, software development.

I have described the concept of knowledge and knowledge management. Knowledge -based systems forge new partnerships that bring together the organization's capabilities to create and use knowledge, organize knowledge, and build infrastructures that enable the effective management of knowledge. Three groups of experts who need to work together as teams of knowledge partners are at the heart of the knowledge center. They are users, knowledge professionals including librarians, and technology experts. Users are the individuals in the organization who are personally involved in the act of creating and using knowledge. Users, including the professionals, technologists, managers, and many others possess and apply the tacit knowledge and explicit knowledge. The knowledge and expertise they have is specialized and focused on the organization's domain of activity. Through their coordinated effort the organization as a whole performs its role and attains its goals. Through their knowledge creation and use, the organization learns, makes discoveries, creates innovations, and undergoes adaptation. Knowledge professionals are the individuals in the knowledge center who have the skills, training and know-how to organize knowledge into systems and structures that facilitate the productive use of knowledge resources. They include librarians, records managers, archivists, and other information specialists. Their tasks include the representation of the various kinds of

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organizational knowledge; developing methods and systems of structuring and accessing knowledge; knowledge distribution and delivery; amplifying the usefulness and value of knowledge; knowledge storage and retrieval; and so on. Their general focus is to enhance the accessibility and quality of knowledge so that the organization will have an enlightened view of itself and its environment. The knowledge professionals design and develop knowledge products and services that promote learning and awareness; they preserve the organization's memory to provide the continuity and context for action and interpretation. The knowledge technology (KT) experts are the individuals in the organization who have the specialized expertise to fashion the knowledge infrastructure of the organization. The knowledge technology experts include the system analysts, system designers, software engineers, programmers, data administrators, network managers, and other specialists who develop knowledge based systems and networks. Their general focus is to establish and maintain an knowledge infrastructure that models the flow and transaction of knowledge, and accelerates the processing of data and communication of messages. The knowledge technology experts build applications, databases, networks that allow the organization to do its work with accuracy, reliability, and speed. In the intelligent organization, the knowledge of the three groups of users, knowledge managers, and KT experts congeal into a superstructure for organizational learning and growth. In order to work together in teams of users, knowledge professionals, and knowledge technology experts, each group will need to re-orientate its traditional mindset. Users will need to separate the management of knowledge from the management of knowledge technology. Knowledge technology in most cases has been heavily managed, whereas the management of knowledge processes -- identifying needs, acquiring knowledge, organizing and storing knowledge, developing knowledge services, distributing knowledge, and using knowledge -- has been largely neglected. Users need to understand that the goals and principles of knowledge management are quite different from the objectives and methods of knowledge technology management. Users could participate fully in these knowledge processes, not just as end-consumers of knowledge services, but as active agents in every activity of the knowledge management cycle, especially in clarifying knowledge needs, collecting knowledge, sharing knowledge, and transforming raw data into useable knowledge. Users should share the responsibility of identifying and communicating their knowledge needs, and not abdicate this work completely to the knowledge professionals (librarians) or knowledge technology experts. The most valuable knowledge sources in the organization are the people themselves, and they should participate actively in an organization wide knowledge collection and knowledge sharing network. KT experts are the most prominent group in today's technology-dominated environment. The management of knowledge technology has

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remained in the media's spotlight for many years. KT experts have become proficient at fashioning knowledge-based systems that dramatically increase operational efficiency and task productivity. At the same time, the same systems are equally well known for their inability to provide more holistic information about processes, subject areas, or even documents. Computer-based information systems concentrate on formal, structured, internal data, leaving out the informal, unstructured, external information that most decision makers require. KT experts need to move the user to the center of their focus -- develop a behavior-based, process-oriented understanding of the knowledge user in terms of their needs and knowledge use dispositions. People in organizations are not content with structured transactional data, they also want knowledge technology to simplify the use of the informal, unstructured information that forms the bulk of the organization's knowledge resources. They also want external data: knowledge to help them understand how the external environment is changing, what other organizations are doing, and how the organization is doing. In other words, users want a web of formal and informal data, internal and external data that are meaningful to them for cultivating insight and developing choices. The intelligent organization understands that the discovery and use of knowledge can best be achieved through strategic knowledge partnerships that combine the skills and expertise of its users, librarians as knowledge professionals, and KT experts. This collective synergy is necessary to weave an knowledge tapestry that draws together structured and unstructured, internal and external, as well as historical, current, and future-oriented knowledge; to create the tools and methods to access knowledge and select the best available knowledge sources; to design knowledge architectures based on a rich understanding of users' knowledge and communication requirements; and to integrate the organization's knowledge processes into a springboard for organizational learning and development. Through strategic knowledge partnerships, the intelligent organization can significantly enhance each of the knowledge processes that make up the knowledge management cycle.

The roles of knowledge professionals for knowledge management

Knowledge Management has emerged as a key concern of organizations. Librarians have long been regarded as part of the support staff of the organization, working quietly in the background, often uninvolved in any of the critical functions of the organization. Information professionals have to recast their roles as knowledge professional. In other words, librarians need to work as knowledge worker. Knowledge work is characterized by variety and exception rather than routine and is performed by professional or technical workers with a high level of skill and expertise. So those who exercise their intellects in

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any of these types of activities are knowledge workers. If librarian's work can be or is totally routinized, then they are an administrative worker (for example, gatekeeper), not a knowledge worker. That means that librarian's roles should be not limited to being the custodians or gatekeepers of information. Knowledge professionals will have to move from the background to the center of the organizational stage, to jointly hold the reins of knowledge management with users and the technology experts, to help steer and shape the knowledge policies, structures, processes, and systems that will nurture organizational learning. Knowledge professionals should be able to extract, filter and disseminate vital external knowledge. They also will design and develop workgroup application suites that are effectively platforms for knowledge management. Finally, they will work side by side with users in collecting and analyzing strategic intelligence; and to act as trainers and consultants who transfer knowledge gathering and research skills throughout the organization.

MANAGING INNOVATION

Risk management is a part of innovation

For an organization looking to introduce an Innovation Program there are two types of risk management required. The first risk management is that the culture of an organization may not have been well managed and an individual putting forward a well thought out constructive suggestion will be forced out by the corporate culture. This may seem incredible, but it actually happens. I will discuss this in later posts. The second risk is one of the processes of managing ideas and creativity. The process of innovation today requires the realization that knowledge workers deal with ideas, tools and creativity to innovate and often produce new intellectual property assets that are systems based and that the existing and traditional methods of management and control may not be able to readily cope with a new concept or process. Knowledge workers are often able to work around existing systemic controls (if they exist) to accomplish exceptional results (profits) and losses. This is why a formal evaluation process by the organization is required so that a team process is used and the risks of the change proposed can be identified, discussed and managed. Risk management processes that lag behind innovation can lead to disastrous results. Innovation management needs the right culture and leadership.

In a 'global world,' knowledge is crucial. It provides the basic framework to connect, collaborate, coordinate and communicate in a highly complex and competitive market place.

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India has done fabulously well so far in this era. Thanks to nation's topnotch educational institutions, we have been leading our way into Nirvana in globalization. Going forward it is up to the Indian companies to nurture its employees with training in new technologies, management mantras, concepts and ideologies.

In fact, many Indian companies do offer a decent career path and comprehensive training programmes as well. The only problem in all these training programmes is that they can be pursued only in India, the so called its off-site employees.

But companies fail to impart training and extend support in education to many of the employees working onsite at client's locations across world. The reason is the cost, effort and management of such a programme.

In this article, we would be able to know which could be adopted by firms to provide a seamless educational framework for its employees globally.

Knowledge Management (KM) has been a predominant trend in business in the recent years. Scaling-up research prototypes to real-world solutions usually requires an application-driven integration of several basic technologies.

Typical characteristics to be dealt with are: many logically and physically dispersed employees and knowledge sources, different degrees of formalization of knowledge, possible conflicts between local (individual) and global (group or organizational) goals.

Leverage on Open source -- No need to re-invent the wheel

Many organizations already have adopted an open source revolution that is questioning if there will be anything like intellectual property (IP) in software. We have already seen tremendous push towards the open source, where in companies have developed products and services at low cost, efficiently and quickly. Organizations could leverage the following of open source and develop a seamless knowledge management system, wherein knowledge could be imparted to employees all over the world. There are many content management systems (CMS) which are offered via open source licensing terms and conditions such as Mambo, Drupal, PHPNuke, DotNetNuke, etc., These content management systems are extremely flexible, in the sense that they can be customized based on organizational requirements. Another advantage is that the open source contributors for these open source frameworks are very active and vibrant. So if there are any issues with the CMS, the contributors -- or call them 'ambassadors' -- keep plugging away with new features and making it bug free and preparing for deployment on production systems.

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Organizations do not need to spend astronomical sums of money to build an employee-friendly knowledge management system. Moreever, any initiative in open source is good for the community, organization and the entire knowledge ecosystem. Furthermore, building on the experience, such knowledge management system portals, will help companies remain competitive and excel in winning key customer accounts.

According to me companies is that in a knowledge economy and highly competitive world, we cannot afford to be complacent and ignore the onsite folks. Companies should be able to leverage technologies available and provide a comprehensive training curriculum for both onsite and offshore employees. Such an environment will help organizations tremendously.

Some of the advantages this offers are:

It creates a global knowledge ecosystem for the company. It helps nurturing talent and reducing attrition.

It is easier to transition individuals on high worth projects.

It helps in transforming average resource to high caliber contributors for future projects in pipeline.

It helps in providing the resources for employees to be adaptable for demanding project assignments.

When a method or an approach is seen to be beneficial then people may seek to apply the method or adopt the approach because of the perception of benefit. The decision may be taken without the identification of a specific need and may be based on reported success by others. This approach to developing a Knowledge Management strategy takes a look at the sort of things people in organizations may wish to think about if they have taken or are considering taking a decision concerning the use of Knowledge Management.

PROACTIVE AND RESPONSIVE KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT

A KM programme will need to be both proactive and responsive. The responsive element may include investigating and solving business problems at the request of department managers that are currently experiencing particular operational difficulties. It will certainly be valuable to consider this more carefully and also to consider some. There is within this, an assumption that the KM programme is known at least across the company management group. That is, not only known of, but known to address and solve certain types of business problem. This is something that should not be taken for granted.

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Reactive approaches

The investigation, analysis and solution of business issues could suggest that there needs to be a toolkit available to a business KM team. The KM team would be expert users of a range of KM tools that are each suited to address particular classes of issues.

Dealing with Knowledge Related Issues

If there were never any knowledge related issues that arise or that could be identified then it may be very difficult to justify investment in a Knowledge Management activity. This is not strictly true because Knowledge related issues might not always be easy to see. A forward looking company (rather than one that is fire fighting) may require a Knowledge Management team to look for issues related to the knowledge resource that can improve the business.

Proactive KM

Knowledge Management should also and possibly mainly be a proactive undertaking. The reason for this is that there is often little known about the business knowledge resource and often any information that is available is held by certain individuals and not easily accessible to the business decision makers. The decision makers are the ones that should know about the knowledge resource so that they can account for this resource within the decision making process. So one of the main responsibilities of the Knowledge Management team is to find out about the knowledge resource and how it interfaces with all business processes. This activity may then become the main driver for the Knowledge Management team.

CONCLUSION

We are in a knowledge economy. Individuals compete with people all over the world. In the private sector, it is no longer necessary to belong to any particular race, caste or creed. To impact the bottom-line of an organization and an individual's goals and aspirations, the very basic necessity is to provide them with the basic requirements. And yes, knowledge management is as important as food, water and air.

In many global companies, comprehensive knowledge management system is already in place. The drawback is it has to be nurtured by the individuals only in majority of situations. For instance, majority of the knowledge base comprises employees' contribution such as case studies, lessons learned from projects, et cetera. Sure, I am not

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questioning the premise of a knowledge base, but the reality is not just about lessons learned after math successful projects. Current practices for managing knowledge at individual, project and organizational levels in ten of the leading Irish construction organizations have been identified through interviews with senior managers. These practices have been evaluated in order to assist in the development of a KM model specifically designed for these organizations. Based on this investigation, the following conclusions can now be made:

The need for the implementation of KM within every organization is well recognized, both globally and in the Irish construction industry, although uncertainty exists about how to address this need.

People are central to KM and the role of HRM is vital to creating a culture of knowledge sharing amongst employees and the development and implementation of KM practices.

Produce and conserve New Value - such as Intellectual Property Assets

Generate new Wealth and increasing returns

Increase Revenue

Open New Markets

Improve Decision-Making

Develop and implement New Business Models

Build More Profound relationships and ongoing Mind-Share with Customers - penetrate the mind of the customer

Lift Productivity, Efficiency and speed up innovation Unleash new Ideas and Creativity

Help create a more Adaptive, responsive, dynamic, flexible, organization. Facilitate the evolution of a more Intelligent Enterprise and produce smart engaging products. Gather superior Business and Competitive Intelligence

Avoid Waste and Duplication by encouraging Knowledge Reuse. Create a more knowledge aware, knowledge friendly culture, and Community of Practice(s)

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better suited to the emerging knowledge-based economy context

REFERANCES

For the preparation of this synopsis report of the thesis work I have followed secondary source of data. I have followed the journal, magazine and text book of ICFAI.

www.kmworld.com

http://www.epu.jpm.my/Bi/Speech/Vision

http://www.unc.edu/~sunnyliu/inls258/Introduction_to_Knowledge_Management.html

http://www.crito.uci.edu/noah/HOIT/HOIT%20Papers/TeacherBridge.pdf

http://www.ischool.washington.edu/mcdonald/ecscw03/papers/groth-ecscw03-ws.pdf

http://www.knowledgeinnovation.org/

http://www.managemente.com/

http://www.sveiby.com/library.html#market

http://www.deloitte.com/

 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knowledge_work_productivity

Books:-

Managing Knowledge Worker (ICFAI text Book) and magazines published by ICFAI publication

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