TIONSHIP THROUGH KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT

Transcription

1 Dehi Business Review X Vo. 6, No. 2 (Juy - December 2005) BUILDING THE BUSINESS RELATIO TIONSHIP THROUGH KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT Damini Grover* Subhash Banerjee** ORGANIZATIONS are facing the probems, cross cutura aiance, mergers and acquisitions. The earning age demands judgment, autonomy and compex thinking right from the shop foor to the top management. The tenuous reationship between the IT organization and business presents a major chaenge for business organization. Focus has been made on reationship management maturity mode that was generated as a part of an action research project; the outcomes of the action research show the resuts of this reationship management initiative after one year and present maturity mode that gives practitioners a knowedge management too for enabing the gap to the bridged. This can be used, via further action research, to study both knowedge and reationship management in the IT discipine. Introduction Knowedge earning is one of the important keys to success. Every humans being from his/her birth gets into the process of earning. Organizations are now facing the probems of goba competitions, cross cutura aiances mergers and acquisition, TQM and fast changing equation of power. The present earning age demands judgment, autonomy and compex thinking. Managers across the gobe are busy in re-orienting themseves with strategic initiatives that coud meet the upcoming chaenges; strategic initiatives have to be both for becoming a goba eader as aso retaining the eadership. Strategic (Harish, 2001) can be framed by acquiring knowedge with regard to. Customer both interna and externa that the organization wi be serving in the future. Different modes of motivation and methods of maintaining and nurturing harmonies, organizationa cuture, so as to keep the empoyees at work. Competitions moves and strategies. Ski and capacitates required being cutivated in the empoyees to ead the organization to occupy a high ground in future. Knowedge Management Fuctionaries (Bahotra & Giriraj, 2005) CKO Chief Knowedge Officer He is the prime mover of the knowedge management (KM) initiatives in the organization. This roe is payed either by chief executive himsef or the head of HRM division. * Professor, IILM Institute for Higher Education, Gurgaon (Haryana), India. ** Manager (HRM), Nationa Counci for Cement and Buiding Materias, Faridabad (Haryana), India. 69

2 Damini Grover and Subhash Banerjee Chief Knowedge Officer (CKO) Knowedge Coordinator Knowedge Knowedge Administration Sponsors Partners Consutant Subject Matter Speciaist Boundary Spanner Community Managers Community, Team Work Groups Knowedge Broker Data Base Administrator Mentors, Participants Knowedge Sketpic Subject Matter Speciaist He is to approve contributions made by individuas / groups and assure quaity in esson in terms of readabiity, understandabiity, use of a common anguage etc aso responsibe for keeping track of new deveopments. Knowedge Administration (KA) are responsibe to hep authors. KA are experts in the way knowedge eements have to be documented inked, structured and organized. Data Base Administration He deveops poicies, standards and procedures as we as the architecture of the knowedge management systems (KMS). He is the fina authority to deveop support and maintain the technica impementation of the knowedge base ensures that it conforms with genera IT standard and effect modification of the knowedge base structures. Knowedge Broker A knowedge broker is person heping participants to ocate the knowedge or experts needed. He is a navigator to transfer wide KMS. Boundary Spanner He has to network fieds of competencies and broken contacts between experts in different fieds needed to reaise new business ideas or between communities. They are responsibe for the deveopment of an inter-functiona and inter-discipinary network of reationship and thus are contact persons for the brokering of contacts with in and outside organization Knowedge Sponsor Knowedge sponsor is a senior executive of the organization impementing knowedge management who identifies with KM concepts. Community Manager He is the originator of a community sometimes spit into a sma group of peope who initiated the community. He has the ast word in the set up of poicies and norms e.g. about participation in the community. 70

3 Dehi Business Review X Vo. 6, No. 2 (Juy - December 2005) Mentor Mentor are person responsibe for the deveopment of new taent and for instiing their own tacit knowedge in new empoyees through a kind of informa apprenticeship mentoring is a deiberate pairing of a more skied or experienced person with a esser skied or experienced person, with the agreed up on goa of hearing the esser skied person grow and deveop specific competencies. Mentoring function are ike career functions such as sponsorship exposure, visibiity coaching, protection and chaenging assignment as we as psychoogica function such as roe modeing acceptance and confirmation, counseing and friendship which enhance sense of competence, identity and effectiveness in a professiona roe. Consutant He is speciay trained interna or externa person who interact with a member of the organization in order to improve the performance or motivation of the atter. Coordinator The responsibiity of the coordinator is to ensure that knowedge processes are carried out with in their area and oversee that knowedge created with in their unit is harnessed and spread across organization unit. Wisdom Circes Knowedge management heps in enhancing organizationa effectiveness there are organizations that are putting the concept of wisdom circe to practice knowedge management. Wisdom circe is a group of nominated individuas from various functions, having impact on the organization wisdom codes hep in minimizing turn around time in strategy formation and ead to a continuous earning, utimatey eading the organization to be a earning centre and achieve competitive advantage. Mr. Peter Senge s book on earning organization that made the term concept of knowedge management (KM). According to him Peope continuay expand their capacity to create resut they truy desire: where new patterns of thinking are nurtured; where coective aspiration is set free, and where peope are continuay earning how to earn. Some of the exampes of Indian business organizations which have turned out to be successfu in practicing Knowedge Management are as foows: Satyam Computer Service (India), an ISO 9001 company, envisaged itsef as a company wherein peope are constanty earning how to earn together. For impementing knowedge management it has formed a core group comprising of various working groups from distant circes to debate on how knowedge can be acquired. The group is supposed of deveop a prototype that woud hep capture and everage knowedge and made accessibe to a associates in the organization and the group came out with creation of corporate wide intranet having unique features as mentioned beow: By repacing many routine administrative works with eectronic versions on the intranet Satyam has reduced various administrative costs. At Satyam intranet is used for training and communicating with associates. Browser based ibrary information and avaiabiity of experts on the corporate intranet makes the earning process ive and meaningfu. New job opening are posted on the intranet giving equa opportunity to a the aspirants. An onine feedback mechanism is maintained to take care of empoyee s grievances and vision compass, software deveoped by Satyam enabes associates to manage their performance with facts and data. 71

4 Damini Grover and Subhash Banerjee Last but not the east, Satyam intranet is creation and maintenance of knowedge repository thus Satyam turned itsef as earning organization practicing knowedge management successfuy. The tenuous reationship between the IT organization and the business presents a major chaenge for business organization, especiay in the area of knowedge management. The business IT gap can often be traced to a ack of knowedge of each other s issues and communication norms. Poor practice in these areas resuts in negative effects on knowedge sharing, eading to poor co- ordination of work practice, project management deficiencies and defective information system. Here we present a reationship management maturity mode that was generating as part of an action research project. It was designed to hep a arge financia services firm carry out an extensive effort to bridge this gap. The major focus of this program was to improve the reationship between IT and business via improved knowedge sharing. By addressing weaknesses in traditiona IT driven approaches that have been reguary noted by knowedge management researchers, this innovative program accounts for the socia networks between peope in order to ensure that the right knowedge is shared at the right time across these networks. Over time, the program began to achieve its intended one - team mentaity goa and a knowedge sharing cuture as the reationship management approach heped both business and IT personne buid networks that spanned the boundary them. The outcomes of the action research show the resuts of the reationship management initiative after one year, and present a maturity mode practitioners a knowedge management too for enabing the gap to be bridged. This cab be used, via further action research, to study both knowedge and reationship management in the IT discipine. Major Shortfa in Knowedge Professiona Predicted by Anaysts Trained IT manpower needed to fi 5 miion new jobs by 2012 Whie India is riding high on the current goba outsourcing wave, eading to a major growth in the ITES-BPO markets, it may not be entirey smooth saiing for the nascent industry in near future. Our siver ining, it appears has a dark coud behind it and the dark coud has taken the form of a sever manpower shortage, expected to hit the sector over the next few years. Whie India is taking with pride about its great manpower edge in the area of IT/ITES service, this giant poo of skied professiona it appears is not a sef renewing resource. Industry watcher are aready cautioning industry captain about the growing demand suppy manpower gap in the IT sector, which coud to be a major impediment to further deveopment of the market. In the ast two years when owing to the overa goba economic downturn, the IT domain witnessed a significant owering of mercury and turned from hot to a cod market there was a substantia dip in the number of peope acquiring reevant ski for this segment. The student community, feeding on hype centered around the demise of the IT industry was the first to abandon ship and give up training for this segment. Today, when the IT market has once again done a vote face, pacing the industry at the top of the job generation adder, skepticism sti persist about its viabiity as a career destination, preventing students and professiona to come focking back. Anaysts insist that it wi take a whie for the IT fever to pick up once again and for IT jobs to reacquire their earier shine and edge. These dynamic market conditions, where issues such as IT education are getting pushed to the back burner, are eading to even greater uncertainty about avaiabiity of industryreevant professiona. Requisite Manpower: Key Growth Driver According to eading goba business inteigence firms present in India, the Indian ITES sector is expected to grow at a CAGR of 44.2 percent during the period, achieving revenues of US$ 64 biion. The IT services exports segment is expected touch US$ 55 biion with a CAGR of 24.8 percent in the same time frame, with the domestic IT services market recording annua growth of around 31 percent over the next eight years. Together, a three markets wi og in revenues of US$ 148 biion and momentum of 35 percent. On the manpower side, the requirement numbers are equay ambitious. 72

5 Dehi Business Review X Vo. 6, No. 2 (Juy - December 2005) Whie the country currenty empoys around professionas in the are of IT exports, persona in the domestic IT services market and peope in the ITES BPO segments, the numbers are expect to jump substantiay by 2008 and grow unto a vast need by By 2012, anaysts say, India wi have a requirement of professionas in the IT export market, 1.11 miion in the domestic IT industry and a hefty 2.50 miion in the ITES BPO sector. In a, around five miion new IT/ITES jobs wi be generated over the next eight years (sources: NASSCOM- McKinesy 2004 Study/Ministry of CIT task Force Report). Ski Sets Trends: Who s Needed? The trends indicate that very specific ski sets wi be required by the IT industry over the next eight years. Tomorrow s enterprises, expected to be competed connected, wi need professiona equipped to impement and manage networks. Simiary, security wi aso become a priority. The impacts of the 9/ 11 acts of terrorism in the US, escaating virus attacks and natura disasters have ead to a more serious consideration of security issues within goba organization. Security has become a matter of board room discussion and companies are being to invest substantiay in securing their vita information assets. The outcome of these trends is that new job profies are emerging within the ICT sector. By 2012,the popuar IT careers are ikey to be those of Citrix Certified enterprise administrator, Sun certified system administrators, check point security administrators, Cisco certified network professiona, Microsoft certified systems administrators, Certified information systems security professionas and Red hat certified engineers. The eading technoogies avaiabe wi continue to be the key deveopment patforms. Customers wi need increasingy compex and scaeabe soutions that offer muti vendor and cross- patform appea. The software deveopment segment wi continue to generate a significant number of jobs with a arge number of professiona required in various new and emerging segments. The expectation is that by 2007, the ICT industry demand for java professionas wi touch three miion. Some of the order si sets required wi incude C# and Visua Basic. net and peope trained in appications deveopment, database management, hep desk end user support, internet/ intranet deveopment, networking, project management, systems/security anaysis, database administration, Internet/Web architectures and networking. The buk of the professionas wi be absorbed by the hep desk and networking segments (which wi account for 28 percent and 23 percent of the avaiabe jobs by 2007). A recent study on IT jobs by India s eading IT association NASSCOM has added further insights on manpower requirement in the future. The surveys indicate that the popuar patforms for software deveopment over the next few years wi be enterprise software (35.1 percent), net /Java/j2ee (22.2 percent), SQL (12.5 percent), Unix (17.7 percent), C ++ (11.4 percent). Cobo /CICS/DB 2 (10.8 percent), CRM (6.7 percent), Business inteigence / data warehousing (6.7 percent), Linux (5.8 percent), EDA/ASIC/VLSI (5 percent), ASP (4 percent), EAI (2.4 percent) and Content management (1.9 percent). India s student community needs to pay heed to these market deveopments and future job trends. A major career opportunity awaits them within the IT/ITES industries. They need to wrest this potentia with both hands and gear up for what ies ahead. Simiary, Business Organizations coping with goba competitions arisen due to shift in externa environment shoud not behave ike an Ostrich rather they shoud keep their antennas straight to sensitize what is occurring and what is probabe to occur in the environment. Management Consutants are ooking for new terms to describe techniques which are competent to make an organization progressive. Some of the terms are: Progressive Cuture, Business Transformation, Re-engineering Organisation Learning, Learning Organisation Wisdom Circe and Knowedge Management (KM) Concusion HRD systems of an organization practicing or wiing to practice knowedge management ought to be framed as foows: Conceptuaizing organizationa vision and communicating it a the members of the organization. 73

6 Damini Grover and Subhash Banerjee Creating organizationa cuture that motivates promotes and rewards peope to create, share and use knowedge. Recognizing empoyee s persona efforts for taking chaengers, finding innovative ideas for doing the task in different ways and rewarding them accordingy. Drafting compensation structure that supports specia arrangement of bonuses and incentives for those who seek or generate knowedge and utiize it effectivey. Designing information systems that take reguar feedback to guarantee ongoing information fow. Chaking out performance management system that is based on evauation of empoyee s performance as we earning. Conducting education programmes for training and deveopment. In sum, it is time for organization to be fexibe and thoughtfu enough to open new ways of recruiting, retaining and motivating empoyees who are keen to earn, and can contribute to their growth and deveopment. In an increasingy competitive market, surviva and prosperity of business wi depend criticay on the quaity of knowedge appied to the business processes. In such a scenario there is a great chaenge before HRD peope, to depoy the intangibe asset (knowedge) of the members to the organization, if they reay wish that their organization shoud be in business, and meet the chaenges of tomorrow, successfuy. If an organization aspires to be a earning organization, it shoud have a taste for earning and respect for knowedge. Lord David Cecre has observed appropriatey that The first step to knowedge is to know that we are ignorant. References Kumar, Harish, et a., (2001), Knowedge Management An Inevitabe Function of Organisations Indian Journa of Trading & Deveopment, Vo. 31, No. 2, Apri - June 2001 pp Bahotra, A.S. (2005), Knowedge Management Functionaries, Productivity News, May-June, pp Haker, Giriraj G. et a., (2005), Knowedge Management: A Chaenge for the 21st Century, Indian Journa of Training & Deveopment, Vo. 35, No. 1, (Jan. - March), p