Summer Internship Report - Final11111

Table of Contents
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Abstract .................................................................................................................................................................. v
1.1 Impact of Knowledge Management on Pre-Sales and Business Development .......................................... 1
1.2 Purpose of the Study ............................................................................................................................................................... 2
1.3 Industry Overview .................................................................................................................................................................. 2
1.4 Industry Growth: ........................................................................................................................................... 3
1.5 Challenges of the Industry ..................................................................................................................................................... 4
1.6 Overcoming the Challenges ................................................................................................................................................... 6
1.7 General Pre-Sales Process ............................................................................................................................................... 7
1.8 Company Introduction .................................................................................................................................................... 8
1.8.1 ZS Solutions: ................................................................................................................................................ 8
1.8.2 ZS Focus Industries ; ................................................................................................................................ 13
Chapter 2: Literature Review ........................................................................................................................... 14
Chapter 3: Research Methodology ............................................................................................................................................ 17
3.1 Research Methodology ......................................................................................................................................................... 17
3.2 Research Design .................................................................................................................................................................... 17
3.3 Type of Data Used ................................................................................................................................................................. 17
Chapter 4: Data Analysis and Interpretation .................................................................................................. 18
Chapter 5: Findings ........................................................................................................................................... 22
SWOT ANALYSIS............................................................................................................................................. 22
Chapter 6: Suggestions/Recommendations ...................................................................................................... 23
References ........................................................................................................................................................... 24
Annexures ........................................................................................................................................................... 25
Interview Transcript 1 ........................................................................................................................................... 26
Interview Transcript 10 ......................................................................................................................................... 37
Abstract
Knowledge Management is basically about getting the correct learning to the ideal individual at the ideal
time. This may not appear to be so unpredictable, yet it infers a solid bind to corporate procedure,
comprehension of where and in what structures learning exists, making forms that range authoritative
capacities, and guaranteeing that activities are acknowledged and upheld by hierarchical individuals.
Information the executives may likewise incorporate new learning creation, or it might exclusively
concentrate on learning sharing, stockpiling, and refinement. Remember that information the executives isn't
tied in with overseeing learning for the good of knowledge. The general target is to make esteem, influence
and refine the association's information resources for meet authoritative objectives.
A business is, in its true essence, a huge collection of knowledge and information. This is basically what's
behind the actual creation of the products and services, and its existence is marked as a web of insights and
ideas shared by the experienced people. It is in your documentation—your manuals, guidelines, lists,
databases, memos, and files.
Recently, Technology has had a great impact on knowledge management (KM), inspiring the ongoing
development of robust software platforms to leverage KM strategies. Knowledge management software is
still continuing to evolve in response to new demands and challenges.
Knowledge Management Group Overview ZS Associates' Knowledge Management group offers a broad
spectrum of Business Research, Pre-Sales, and other knowledge-based services to clients and internal
stakeholders. KM has emerged as one of ZS's distinctive competitive advantages, and a key enabler for our
consultants to have a lasting impact while addressing their clients' sales & marketing issues. Their services
are based on deep research and they bring together a unique combination of Knowledge Management,
Business Research, Life-Sciences and Clinical experiences.
Chapter 1: Introduction
1.1 Impact of Knowledge Management on Pre-Sales and Business Development
 Knowledge Management is the efficient management of Knowledge, which can be utilised in the
future by the Organisation.
 Meaning of Pre-Sales;
Presales is a procedure, or a set of activities typically done before a client is literally acquired, though
sometimes presales also extends into the period the product or service is delivered to the customer.
 Essentials of Pre-sales:
 Bid Process-
Bid process involves bidding of proposals by different consulting firm to win the
project ultimately.
 RFI- Request for Information
o It is a preliminary document which is used by the company, to basically locate

relevant facts.
o It is like a fact-finding document
o It is a document which states broad business challenges that any company is
facing
o Open ended type of questions is usually asked in an RFI
o The vendor usually tailor’s its response within the context of those challenges.
o A lot of times, the vendor will explain its position in the current market
scenario
 RFP- Request for Proposal
o RFP is a document that comprises of customised proposals, often made for a

for bidding process.
o An RFP informs the vendors, basically the customers wants & needs.
It is one of the most crucial documents in B2B.
o It is a document that asks vendors to eventually propose a probable solution to
a customer’s business query requirement or problems
o The appropriate proposed solution can only be efficiently provided if there is
sufficient detail to give vendors the context they require.
 RFQ- Request for Quotations
o RFQ is an even more elaborated and detailed document that drills down the
same specifications required by the company.
1.2 Purpose of the Study
The purpose of the study is to discover the impact of Knowledge Management on the Business development
and Pre-Sales. Knowledge management is a Comparatively new department in companies, and its main Job
role consists of gathering as much knowledge as well as information about a topic.
Knowledge management consultants mainly assist the organisation of any size to deliver tangible business
value from their widely researched knowledge; by designing strategies and frameworks, delivering KM
initiatives, and providing essential KM toolkits.
In this contemporary generation each department is growing at a fast pace, thus, the KM department is not
only limited to the above, it plays a major part in making an organisation successful by providing them
valuable business.
1.3 Industry Overview
The Knowledge Management industry in today’s contemporary world is growing at a fast pace and is lot
more well-informed given the current business needs.
Consultants came into existence to be able to provide opinion, advice, ideas and even implement them under
ambiguous situations or under those circumstances that the company may not have seen or been through.
But these consultants are polishing their expertise in the field of knowledge Management.
The role of consulting has evolved over these few years.
The four significant functions of Knowledge Management are:
o Information: The information and analyses that take the client’s world, industry, and market
position and make sense of it.
o Expertise: An experienced operator’s perspective on a problem and the different ways that it can be
solved.
o Insight generation: The rigorous, analytical application of expertise to data to come up with insights
that will help the company succeed.
o Execution of Information: The roadmap to choosing and implementing the changes to be made.
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1.4 Industry Growth:
o The “Knowledge Management Will Improve the results of the Small and Medium Industry” report
serves with all-inclusive, highly-effective, and thoroughly researched information in a properly
organized manner, based on the facts, about the Knowledge Management Market.
o The whole information from the scratch to the financial and management level of the established
industries associated with the Knowledge Management Market at the global level is initially acquired by
the dedicated team. The gathered data involves the information about the industry’s establishment, type
and the form of products it manufactures, annual sales and revenue generation, the demand of the
manufactured product in the market, marketing trends followed by the industry, and a lot more important
information.
Figure 1.1 (ZMR news blog)
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1.5 Challenges of the Industry
1. Keeping up with emerging Technology

Upgrades and new releases are continuing to get frequent when it comes to the technology.
Although there are consistent changes nowadays with the technologies we utilize, it does impart a sense of
urgency within us to keep up.
These Changes and updates in technology are a pain at first, but they eventually open doors for new
opportunities and can do more things for us in return.
2. Measuring Knowledge
Knowledge is not quantifiable, and it is far more complex because it is extracted out of human relationships
and experience. The focus here should be on the utterly distributed purpose rather than the literal results or
efforts.
3. Interpreting the Data Effectively and Efficiently

Interpreting the right Information at the right time is quite essential in Knowledge Management.
Information derived by one group needs to be mapped or standardized to be meaningful to anybody else in
the organization. The whole purpose will get destroyed if Knowledge is not used efficiently.
4. Increasing Competition and Pressure

Another common concern in the industry is increasing pressure of having a useful repository of knowledge.
Mentioned by almost 36% of consulting respondents, this threat is related to several other issues surfaced by
the sample, including increasing competition, globalization, commoditization and automation.
5. Designating a resource for Managing Knowledge
Selecting a moderator, community manager, or developer relations specialist is quite challenging.

Nobody wants to give the responsibility of the site to the wrong person, but without having run a community
in the past it may be unclear who owns what. Break your community’s goals out and determine who is
responsible for the success of each of those KPIs, from there you can delegate who will oversee managing
various pieces of knowledge.
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6. Increasing Turnover
There are two sides to this, and neither of them is very desirable. Turnover is inevitable, and sometimes the
responsibilities tied to your community can fall through the cracks. Keep a detailed log or manual of the
tasks involved to keep your knowledge management system running smoothly. You can also experience a
level of turnover at the user level. Some of your best users may have the time budgeted for you now, but
what will you do manage all of their expertise once they move on. Create clear and easy to understand
processes for data migration once people have left your company or no longer use your community.
7. Security
Securing the acquired knowledge is of primary importance. If the knowledge is leaked or transferred by
mistake, the effort of collection and compilation will be useless.
Security is the ultimate key to the technical efforts, the appropriate level of security has to be established.
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1.6 Overcoming the Challenges
1. Information should be available at ease
o No individual likes searching for long hours

o Information should be available easily
o The information should be made accessible
o There should be a one stop spot
2. Encouraging people to impart their Knowledge
o The desirable way to do this would be the more people get involved, the more people will
receive the benefit
o Individuals are not reluctant in helping others, so they will prefer the idea of sharing
knowledge and information of value
o This can be done by giving incentives and recognition to people who share maximum
knowledge
o With this method, an eye can be kept on the most valuable team member
3. Ensuring collaboration among team members and different teams
o This basically means that a common place should be made available for people so that they
can collaborate and generate great ideas.
o This is also one of the biggest challenge, so facilitating collaboration regardless of their
location should be achieved.
o A suitable example of solving this is to tailor the ideation process by identifying and clearly
making an outline of its different stages. This will keep the members updated and engaged, no
matter what team they’re part of.
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1.7 General Pre-Sales Process
Pre-Sales Process
RFP/RFI is rolled out by Client to the team
Team analyses if they have the right expertise to work

on the client problem shared by Client in RFP/RFI
The team is assigned experts who collaborate to work

on proposal response
Proposal Response is prepared and submitted to Client
Client evaluates and shortlists vendors for orals

presentations
Vendors give presentations on their proposal to the

client stakeholders
Note: During the Pre-Sales process the Knowledge Management team directly interacts
with the senior leadership on a regular basis.
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1.8 Company Introduction
ZS aims to be a leading global consulting firm in achieving measurable results across the sales-and-
marketing spectrum by delivering solutions that integrate Consulting, Technology and Operations.
ZS Associates (ZS) is a worldwide expert administrations firm headquartered in Evanston, Illinois that gives
deals and showcasing arrangements fundamentally serving in the Pharmaceutical and Healthcare enterprises.
ZS was established in 1983 by Prabhakant Sinha and Andris Zoltners, who cooperated as educators of
promoting at the Kellogg School of Management at North-western University.
1.8.1 ZS Solutions:
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9
Business
Technology Commercial
Value and
Strategy &
Access
Transformation
Customer -
Sales
Centric
Compensation
Marketing
Resource
Customer
Planning and
Insights
Deployment
ZS Practice Areas
R&D Growth
Excellence Marketing
Healthcare
Pipeline and
Ecosystem
Launch Strategy
Solutions
People and Marketing

Performance Execution
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1. Business Technology: ZS usually helps take a holistic approach to transform clients information
capabilities, taking into account factors such as your existing technology infrastructure, information –
sharing patterns, and interactions between IT and business teams by setting the foundation,
uncovering the information and insights and Democratizing data and analytics. All this is done by
using right data access and analytics to reengineer strategies in information domain.
2. Commercial Strategy and Transformation: ZS apply cross-functional expertise-from the initial

evaluation of a firm’s specific goals and challenges, and the environment in which it operates, to the
ongoing evolution of its commercial strategy that keeps you in lockstep with the market. ZS helps in
designing commercial strategy to resolve complex business problems.
3. Customer Centric Marketing: ZS helps apply preference-driven analytics and automated tech
solutions to develop and deploy a tailored customer strategy, delivering the right message at the right
time, and in channels that the customers prefer. It helps organisations to integrate better
communication and promotional effort.
4. Customer Insight: ZS helps leverage customer insights to define the benefits and values of each of
the offerings, and to develop competitive advantage, giving marketing team the knowledge, they
need to influence customer behaviour and improve the position in the market.
5. Growth Marketing: Customers today are bombarded with promotional messaging. As a result,
they’ve become focused on finding the relevant information that addresses their specific needs and
preferences and tuning out the rest. To successfully build customer relationships and increase
revenue requires a combination of art and science: Marketers need to gain a deeper understanding of
their customers—pulling from a wide and varied spectrum of information sources and so applying
the ensuing insights to create compelling messages and methods for growth.
6. Healthcare Ecosystem Solutions: In the U.S. healthcare ecosystem, providers are consolidating,
patients are increasingly empowered, and payers are playing a more and more prominent role in
treatment decisions. The healthcare industry continues its shift from volume to value, refocusing
payment models around the quality and cost of patient outcomes. Amidst this complexness, the old
models for life sciences organizations no longer work. They’ll help you reinvent the way you go to
market, from clinical development through to commercial, and They’ll give you the insights and
analysis that you need to prepare for what’s next.
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7. Marketing Execution: To engage busy, digitally savvy customers with meaningful, timely messages
offering solutions to an immediate pain point or business challenge, organizations are looking for
ways to significantly upgrade their marketing execution capabilities, enabling them to optimize
marketing investments, track their impact and adapt in real time. They’ll partner with you to leverage
the power of analytics to make real-time decisions, deliver the ideal customer experience and
maximize profits.
8. People and Performance: Today’s rapidly evolving marketplace is too complex to simply shuffle
your current team into new roles and expect good results. The modern marketplace demands new
strategies for attracting and managing the right talent for your business in real time. They’ll partner
with you to develop new, data-driven strategies for attracting, keeping and improving the talent you
need to meet your business goals.
9. Pipeline and Launch Strategy: The road to pharmaceutical commercialization has grown longer
and tougher to navigate, and a robust product pipeline is no assurance of success. They will work
with you to develop a customized road map that will improve drug development and
commercialization efficiency to help ensure your business’s profitability.
10. R& D Excellence: In this increasingly cost-conscious and budget-constrained healthcare

environment, pharmaceutical companies have to prove the value of their therapies to payers,
physicians and patients with real-world evidence. At the same time, randomized clinical trials have
become more costly and more complicated, increasing product development costs. They’ll apply
their strategic, analytic and technological expertise to your R&D challenges, helping you succeed in
clinical trials and improve the commercial performance of your products.
11. Resource Planning and Deployment: With your market and your business’s needs changing
constantly, and your customers’ purchasing processes continuously evolving, you need an agile
planning model with a thorough assessment of sales resources, and new ways to deploy them. They’ll
partner with your team to develop a customized resource plan, assist you in setting the plan in
motion, and then continually optimize your resource allocation to improve market share and
maximize profits.
12. Sales Compensation: Great sales compensation programs take into account what motivates
salespeople, how to promote desired changes in reps’ behaviors, what sales leaders and HR teams
need, and what the C-suite’s goals are—and they also consider how all of these may change over
time.
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13. Value and Access: The hurdles to a drug’s commercialization are growing increasingly challenging,
as payers, providers and patients demand more compelling evidence of both the health benefit (the
value) and the financial impact (the affordability) of treatments and therapies. Using a unique
combination of thought leadership, multidisciplinary approaches to value, structured frameworks and
client partnership, help you achieve commercial success in a rapidly changing environment.
 Resource Planning and Deployment
With constantly changing business’s needs and constantly evolving customer’s purchasing processes
the traditional sales resource planning models just aren’t effective these days. To stay competitive
there is a need of an agile planning model with a thorough assessment of sales resources, and new
ways to deploy them.
Resource Planning unit at ZS provides a customised plan to effectively manage and plan sales force
resources. ZS uses quantitative and qualitative information to assist purchasers develop the proper
client engagement models; a technique for implementing those models; and therefore, the
information, analytics and software system to control.
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Pharma and
Biotech
Medical
Business
Products
Service
and Services
Industrial Health Plans

Products and
and Services Providers
Consumer
Travel and
Packaged Industries Transport
Goods
High-Tech
Media
and Telecom
Financial
Energy
Services
Private
Equity
1.8.2 ZS Focus Industries ;

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Chapter 2: Literature Review
By: Sharma R (Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information Nanyang Technological
University, Singapore)
Leveraging Knowledge Management for Growth: A Case Study of Tata Consultancy Services
This case study is a review of knowledge management practices at Tata Consultancy Services - an
increasingly global IT consulting firm headquartered in Mumbai – which has enabled it to meet ambitious
growth targets over the past 5 years. The case also narrates some of the continuing challenges that confront
TCS and the potential risks pertaining to leveraging knowledge capital. The authors collaborated on this case
in order to develop learning insights on knowledge management in practice at global leaders across
industries. While open-ended in its conclusions, this case does reveal some of the dilemmas faced by
strategic management in adopting a suitable KM strategy for sustainable growth.
Research Paper II
By: Qing Cao Texas Tech University, Rawls College of Business, Lubbock, United States
Investigating the role of business processes and knowledge management systems on performance: A
multi-case study approach
In the ever-changing and competitive market place, organisations continuously need to improve their
competitive advantage. One method to accomplish this is to form collaborative networks. Drawing on the
task–technology fit theory, in this study, we explore the fit or alignment between business process (task) and
KM systems (technology) and its impact on KM systems utilisation based on multiple case studies.
Subsequently, we investigate the impacts of both the task–technology fit and KM systems utilisation on
individual and business performance. This paper contributes to the collaborative network/KM literature in
several ways. First, it extends the task–technology fit theory to an important context of collaborative
network/KM. Second, it replaces task with business process, which has the potential to help explain KM
systems’ success on business performance. Third, the paper explores the positive impact of task–technology
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fit on KM system utilisation and business performance. Fourth, the study provides insight into the future
development of KM systems & how to better align them with managerial purposes.
Research Paper III

By: Karl M. Wiig (Chairman, Knowledge Research Institute, Inc.)
Knowledge Management: An Introduction and Perspective
Leaders of successful organizations are consistently searching for better ways to improve performance and
results. Frequent disappointments with past management initiatives have motivated managers to gain new
understandings into the underlying, but complex mechanisms ‐ such as knowledge ‐ which govern an
enterprise’s effectiveness. Knowledge Management, far from being a management “fad”, is broad, multi‐
dimensional and covers most aspects of the enterprise’s activities. To be competitive and successful,
experience shows that enterprises must create and sustain a balanced intellectual capital portfolio. They need
to set broad priorities and integrate the goals of managing intellectual capital and the corresponding effective
knowledge processes. This requires systematic Knowledge Management. With knowledge as the major
driving force behind the “economics of ideas”, we can expect that the emphasis on knowledge creation,
development, organization and leverage will continue to be the prime focus for improving society.
Research Paper IV
By: Giovanni Schiuma (Professor in Innovation Management at DAPIT, University of Basilicata, Potenza,
Italy)
Managing knowledge for business performance improvement:
What is the role of managing knowledge within organizations? This is one of the fundamental research and
practical questions which has animated and moved forward the rich scientific debate around the management
of knowledge resources. This article aims to introduce the focus of the special issue. Its fundamental premise
is that organizations invest their scarce resources only if these investments are capable of enhancing the
business value creation capacity. Thus, managers are interested in managing knowledge not for the sake of
knowledge management, but because the planning, design, assessment and revision of the organizational
knowledge resources and processes can support the business performance improvements.
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Research Paper V
By: Rasula, Jelena; Vuksic, Vesna Bosilj; Stemberger, Mojca Indihar.
The Impact of knowledge management on organisational performance
Knowledge management is a process that transforms individual knowledge into organisational knowledge.
The aim of this paper is to show that through creating, accumulating, organising and utilising knowledge,
organisations can enhance organisational performance. The impact of knowledge management practices on
performance was empirically tested through structural equation modelling. The sample included 329
companies both in Slovenia and Croatia with more than 50 employees. The results show that knowledge
management practices measured through. information technology, organisation and knowledge positively
affect organisational performance.
Research Paper VI
By: Daniela Carlucci, Bernard Marr, Gianni Schiuma
The knowledge value chain: how intellectual capital impacts on business performance
This theoretical paper explores the fundamental issue of how knowledge management initiatives impact
business performance. Reflecting on the management literature in the fields of knowledge management and
performance management enabled the deduction of four basic assumptions, representing the links of a
conceptual cause-and-effect framework – the knowledge value chain. Drawing on the resource-based view
and the competence-based view of the firm, the paper identifies strategic, managerial, and operational
dimensions of knowledge management. The review of performance management frameworks discusses the
role of knowledge management in those models. These reflections allow linking knowledge management
with core competencies, strategic processes, business performance, and finally, with value creation.
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Chapter 3: Research Methodology
3.1 Research Methodology
The research methodology used in this is Primary and secondary research, in which information is gathered
and recorded by someone and later used by others for their research or project. It is basic or pure research
which is not aimed at solving a specific business problem, but it intends to expand the limits of knowledge.
Secondary data can be used as it is or it can be examined and reinterpreted based on the findings. Sources of
the data collection involves:
• Online: This includes online website data, online available public data like annual reports, research
reports, journal articles, online databases etc.
• Offline: This includes books, newspaper articles, annual reports, magazine, journals, conference papers
etc.
For conducting secondary research, I had contacted my colleagues so that they can assist me with the data
collection. I also did study various articles about Pre-sales and Business development to get a better
understanding of impact. The list of the data sources has been mentioned at the end of the report under the
references section.
3.2 Research Design
For the research I designed a questionnaire which had questions related to the Impact of Knowledge
Management, and then conducted a Personal Interview, the survey was conducted among 14 participants
who have been working in the Knowledge Management Department at ZS for a significant number of years
and thus their opinions are reliable and also who have newly joined ZS.
3.3 Type of Data Used
The data used consisted of Six questions which was respectively answered by 14 participants, who had
different viewpoints on the respective questions. The questions are as follows:
Report Title: Impact of Knowledge Management on Pre-Sales and Business Development
Q1. How will you define KM?

Q2. What is the value proposition of KM on Pre-Sales and Business Development?
Q3. What impact does KM bring to the Presale’s table and overall ZS as a whole?
Q4. What has been the evolution curve of KM since its inception.
Q5. How do you foresee the future and competitive edge of KM in the overall Consulting market landscape?
Q6. Please Share your experience with KM
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Chapter 4: Data Analysis and Interpretation
1. Designation
Figure 2: Designation of the Interviewees
INTERPRETATION: The above analysis depicts the Top Management was targeted in this research, thus,
60% people were interviewed from the top level management. The percentage of the middle level mgmt. and
analysts is identical.
2. How will you define KM?
Figure 3: Definition of KM
INTERPRETATION: Most of the interviewees believe that KM means facilitating easy access to
information, 36.4% interviewees feel that KM is a repository of information, and only 9.1% feel that KM is
useful for providing information in a formal structure.
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Figure 4: Value Proposition
INTERPRETATION: The analysis simply shows that most interviewees feel that KM helps speed things
up. Comparatively less number of people feel that Project management is one of the Value propositions for
of KM.
Figure 5: Impact of KM
INTERPRETATION: The analysis depicts that winning proposals is the greatest impact of KM, followed
by creation of Point of views and then assists in providing repeated business.
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Figure 6: Evolution Curve of KM
INTERPRETATION: The interviewees strongly believed that during the inception stage of KM, most of
the relationships were strictly kept professional and transactional, but since KM kept growing at a fast pace,
the relationships became more personal. Also, KM has played a crucial role in increasing the expertise and
skill sets of the employees.
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Q6. How do you foresee the future and competitive edge of KM in the overall Consulting market
landscape?
Figure 7: Future of KM
INTERPRETATION: The above analysis depicts that in future, KM will streamline business activities and
avoid reinvent the wheel, which basically means not repeating the already existing practices. Synthesize the
information in a structured way.

Figure 8: Experience with KM
INTERPRETATION: Most of the respondents have felt an enhancement in their personality, along with
giving ZS the credit for providing them as individuals with limitless opportunities, 18.2% people also feel
that at ZS, the work will never be monotonous since there is always varied work given to them.
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Chapter 5: Findings
SWOT ANALYSIS
 Growing Industry  The knowledge  Automation–  With Artificial

 Having a management It is possible to Intelligence
centralised process is time automate basic progressing, less
repository of consuming. knowledge people and more
information makes  This process collection now, technology and
the work easier, demands a freeing up analysts’ more operations
quicker and designated time to will be required.
accurate number of use/contextualize  Thus, it will
resources only for the knowledge for definitely be a
this work. specific purposes threat for people
who do this work,
gradually they will
only be required to
provide insights.
S W O T
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Chapter 6: Suggestions/Recommendations
KM as an Industry is gaining more and more importance with reference to Management Consulting
especially.
The adoption of advanced technologies such as artificial intelligence, machine learning and the Internet of
Things has embarked the knowledge management in the consulting industry to the next level.
1. People who work for the Knowledge Management need a consistent source of motivation, so that
they remain enthusiastic about their work
2. From being behind the curtains to becoming the base of any organisation, Knowledge management is
progressing towards success.
3. Idea generation and information synthesis can be best done by connecting with the experts, thus,
every individual short disseminate the knowledge they have.
4. The business should become more scalable and should be within the reach of talented individuals,
individuals who are passionate about collecting knowledge.
5. A one stop knowledge repository can reduce a lot of repeated work which is not required.
6. Impact created by KM
 Ensures access to the right knowledge for business users at the right time
 Enables efficient business processes with faster turnarounds
 Promotes a culture of social collaboration and innovation
 Enhancing quality and ability to collaborate by standardizing ways of working and enabling
discussions with leading experts
 Helps client team in responding proposals efficiently and effectively
 Supports in practice development initiatives
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References
1. https://www.emeraldinsight.com/doi/abs/
2. https://www.quandora.com/top-5-knowledge-management-challenges-handle-them/
3. https://bloomfire.com/blog/size-matter-knowledge-sharing-community/
4. www.zs.com/solutions.
5. https://www.ibisworld.com/industry-trends/market-research-reports/professional-scientific-technical-
services/professional-scientific-technical-services/management-consulting.html
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Annexures
Q1. How will you define KM?

Q5. How do you foresee the future and competitive edge of KM in the overall Consulting market
landscape?
(Note: Please find attached the Interview Transcripts below, the names and designations have been kept
confidential as per the interviewees wish)
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Interview Transcript 1
1. Best definition of KM according to me is; How you facilitate Access to knowledge within the
experts, connecting to experts or getting the right documents at the right time. Also, facilitating
access to knowledge when required so that it information can be disseminated.
2. The value proposition can be defined by an example.

Eg: An RFP is to be submitted in x weeks, and there are x questions to be answered, other questions
need to be answered, information which is standard needs to be provided, all teams need to work
together to maintain the Efficiency.
Current Scenario: one team takes the first pass and the impact is more effective and efficient
3. KM helps in putting the information in a formal structure
4. According to me the evolution curve is;

 When a company is small everybody knows everybody
 When we solve One problem for the client at one place it can be solved at another place as
well.
 In a company’s life journey, connecting with people and connecting knowledge becomes an
asset.
 Explicit and qualified knowledge still has the nuisance missing.
 When a company is small they do niche things
 In Small firms it is easier to connect
 As we grow we need more departments for connections.
 Working with ZS Leaders to make that happen over time. Current, coherent, correct
knowledge. Things have been added.
system is just an enabler,
5. Big things are probable to come like Artificial Intelligence

More and more info is available, but only bits of information is usable, thus, technology is being used
to synthesize the procedure.
6. My experience has been great, I believe in taking more and more initiatives. Initially we did not think
of doing pre-sales, but now we are doing. The intent has been to identify areas which need support.
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1. KM in a way is a team which is helping in the journey to evolve and explore, in parallel to.
 Multiple routes
 Collating information
 Maintaining the repository
2. KM is a key part: as the industry is Diversifying, connecting the dots from your previous work,
 What you have done in your past and what you are doing right now
 Acts as a connector between the inside out and outside in
3. Operations and all the RFPs cannot go further without KM being involved,
speeding up things:
Eg: New technology info KM
4. This team has been able to identify and build on its skillset across range of areas, that are key
enablers in any organization.
E.g.: When I had joined ZS, the first thing which I did was RFP Repository building
5. Some say it’s a captive centre, the nomenclature is very different

For any organization to evolve, use their existing knowledge, how they gather knowledge for their
future needs, company needs people who are going to sit down do this information collection,
reinventing the wheels, automation may overtake.
For consulting marketing, it is very important.
to be competitive in the market
6. It has been a nice journey, touched roles, I have been a part of the various teams like, graphics, CI, I
had a flavour of these things, it gives a high.
I think if your front end is shallow if you don’t have this backbone, you are forced to bring the
backend to the front end.
28
1. KM-
 Solving business problem & Applying different principles
 Avoid thinking from scratch
 Getting an idea from others experience
 Consistent manner
 Solving problems in a X way, and then Y way. X may be the best way
 Consistency in the way you solve the problem
 Managing and creating firm’s knowledge
2. KM ensures that there is a centralized way to access information
 Responding to the RFPs
 Quicker and helps things speed up
 Consistency
3. Helps manage information in a structured way,
 Helps manage Existing knowledge and Consistency in approach and increases time to
market.
4. 15-20 people team, in 8 years more than 200 people
 Growth – Initially except few folks, different things, now the focus is getting deeper, scale has
increased, building the expertise.
 Testimony to the kind of people we are hiring
 Different Variety of work: Forecasting in pharma, breadth of the work has increased to depth and
Staffing alignments.
5. KM has been a Key department for any consulting firm, even in the future the impact KM will
create is going to grow.
 Competitive edge & KM is no more a luxury
 Capture and structuring the information
 Note down the changes and react to the changes
6. Experience
 I have Grown in KM, and opportunities in KM are a lot, good opportunities from an earlier stage,
success and failures both are yours.
 Exposure to senior stake holders, gives great insights and builds one’s; persona
29
1. KM is a concept that principals of ZS created when they wanted a central repository of information.
For eg: Giving a solution to the clients
2. KM provides case studies, and ready matter: capability decks.

Knowledge that has been acquired, custodians of the knowledge
3. BD- proactive and reactive 90%, these proposals will go through the pre-sales team
4. The vibe of the place is different, pre-sales work is almost same
5. KM are the knowledge keepers, revenue will only be earned when they have relevant knowledge. AI
will change the overall situation of the KM market
6. Overall experience has been enlightening

30
1. KM-
 Managing tacit Knowledge
 It is an integral unit of ZS, it helps in developing and maintaining the expertise WRT to the
market, science and the industry
 Data sources, research, etc. is involved
 It is basically creating and understanding the science behind medicine, so that the company
can make more informed decisions
2. Value Proposition
 Pre-sales is a unit that helps in putting together the documents like RPF, RFIs, this helps in
selecting the partner to work with.
 These docs help ZS pitch their Point of view
 Pre-sales does win loss analysis
 Maintains a repository of a case study
 In addition to pre-sales, we work with several principals’ verticals; emerging pharma, oncology
etc.
 We help them in staying updated
 We help them validate a point of view
3. Help manage info in a structured way, existing knowledge, consistency in approach, increases time to
market.
4. I have known KM for 8 on 10 of its existence

In the beginning it was known as data providers and now thought partners. The awareness of
capabilities was small, relationship with onshore partners was transactional nature. Over time this
point of view changed, the teams started growing, the teams started developing expertise. Within
KM people are either aligned to a client or expertise.
In depth expertise or repeated work
5. A lot of manual work will be assisted by machines,

 Synthesizing the information
 Hard labor in reading the docs will increase
 KM is nicely placed with the technology
31
 We have a team that is looking into creating accelerators
 Teams are helping us become a fort runner

 KM is trying to take advantage of the knowledge that is there
6. Experience
 I have loved working in KM
 People with intellectual capital
 As an associate I always wanted to learn
 After getting a variety of work I developed expertise
 There was a point of time where I wanted to learn a subject
 ZS has been very flexible
 Overall experience has been very good
 It aligns to my interest, ZS makes it work
 Opportunities are limitless
32
1. KM is creating and maintaining the knowledge of an organization across various areas, and making
sure it is being used effectively by various stakeholders without having to re-invent the wheel
2. Given the breadth of RFPs the team works on across various areas, it is important to maintain a
repository of such documents which can help in knowledge sharing both – within the team and
outside the team
3. It can help in knowledge sharing both – within the team and outside the team
4. KM as a team has grown to more than double the size. More client teams are relying on KM for
information, and doing secondary research as required
5. It can become a front facing profile as there might be certain issue areas wherein client would like ZS
to conduct secondary research, and KM would be the best team to do so.
6. Having spent 3 years within KM, it has been a great learning experience. I have got the opportunity
to work across various areas and enhance my knowledge.
33
1. KM:
 A multi-faceted unit that supports works closely with all business units within ZS
 KM is more than just knowledge management, we are an essential part of the expertise centers –
providing research, presales and graphics support on crucial internal, BD and client activities
2. Value Proposition:
 We are the backbone of any opportunity, supporting it end-to-end, owning the entire proposal
development process
 We help onshore/client teams with our expertise in handling BD opportunities, project management and
liaising with stakeholders across various teams
3. See my above response to the above question, covers elements for this question as well
4. You can get this info from our introduction timeline slide
5. Future of KM
 The importance of KM is evident from the fact that almost all major consulting firms have an
expertise or knowledge center that provides them similar support as us
 KM or at times the CoE function is also cropping up in other corporate firms that are more product
oriented (Nestle, etc.)
 KM’s ability to be a centralized knowledge safekeepers helps in streamlining various activities for
any firm
 In the future KM will become even more essential to consulting firm as markets become more
competitive
6. I’ve personally have enjoyed my time with KM due to the nature of work and the amount of freedom
and responsibility provided to each member – empowering everyone to empower their stakeholders
34
1. Knowledge Management as the name suggests helps an organization in managing the ample amount
of knowledge and expertise gathered over the years. But, apart from just managing knowledge it
serves as an essential part of business development by working closely with all the business units and
providing them support in terms of research, presales, client activities and overall management by
making different teams work together.
2. KM provides end to end support by owning the entire business process and connecting with people
having expertise in required areas both onshore and off shore across the globe and providing support
in terms of project management.
3. Helps in providing repeat Business to ZS
4. The evolve program
5. The importance of KM is evident from the fact that almost all major consulting firms have an
expertise or knowledge center that provides them similar support as us:
 KM or at times the CoE function is also cropping up in other corporate firms that are more
product oriented (Nestle, etc.)
 KM’s ability to be a centralized knowledge safekeepers helps in streamlining various
activities for any firm
 In the future KM will become even more essential to consulting firm as markets become more
competitive
6. Project Management is something I have always wanted to do even before pursuing my MBA. KM
provides me with the similar kind of opportunity to pursue the career of my interest and build up my
skill sets according to the role.
35
1. Knowledge Management can be defined as a process of capturing, distributing and effectively using
knowledge. It is about making the right knowledge available to the right people.
2. KM helps in overall process of pre-sales not only in creating proposal responses for the clients but
also helps the client team in pitching their offerings. KM benefits: KM benefits:
 Knowledge base maintenance and access to past content like business rules, methodologies, data
dictionaries, approaches, frameworks, deliverables and thought leadership content
 Expertise Management
 Collaboration
3. KM impacts
 Ensures access to the right knowledge for business users at the right time
 Enables efficient business processes with faster turnarounds
 Promotes a culture of social collaboration and innovation
 Enhancing quality and ability to collaborate by standardizing ways of working and enabling
discussions with leading experts
 Helps client team in responding proposals efficiently and effectively
 Supports in practice development initiatives
4. Since I joined our knowledge management team evolved in many terms, few are mentioned below:
 Increase in number of employees in KM team
 More Collaboration within the teams i.e. more catch-ups, knowledge sharing etc.
 Team onboarding process is formalized
 More opportunities of growth for employees via evolve tool in which employees can choose their
own career path as per their interest
36
5. As knowledge is always and will play a major role as an asset in value creation and business success.
Based on my understanding scope of knowledge management is ever increasing since today
organizations rely on data and more strategic insights driven decision making. A well-defined KM
strategy enabled consumption of knowledge in a sustainable manner leveraging key enablers of
people, process and technology.
6. My overall experience with KM team in ZS is good. Here the people are very supportive,
collaborative in nature and helps you in smooth onboarding as well as your overall growth and
development. I have joined ZS approx. 1 year ago and since then I have been aligned with KM ops-
tech team, I learned a lot here in terms of stakeholder management, project and task management,
problem solving skills as well as build my knowledge-based expertise over the year. I have been
involved in various projects like research, RFPs, and other practice development projects and gained
real time experience in knowledge management. The team and the leadership here give me enough
exposure to build my expertise and grow myself professional.
37
1. KM is a unit or a team that handles all the:

 Business research requirements
 Access a repository
 Across domains
2. Given the wealth of deep expertise and knowledge, KM is one of the Pivotal.
Bring in relevant info and make relevant proposals
3. Turn around the process, the pre-sales cycle time becomes faster, getting the decks in order, client
experience, helps in winning ZS a lot of projects
4. KM was initially viewed as a support and enterprise team; the work is being valued and integration is
happening.
5. Extension of business analytics, these teams help remain the firms relevant, help offer more targeted
issues, everything from the research to insight generation. Help solves client problems faster and
efficient manner.
6. Generally, my experience has been very positive, I would like to the see things evolve
38
1. KM team in ZS helps the delivery teams, client, and expertise pods to share, access, and update
business knowledge and information.
2. The KM team plays a very vital role in supporting the delivery teams with their pre-sales activities.
Our role ranges from RFP support to research and maintaining sales document repositories. I think
the industry, vendor and competitor research work we do for delivery teams as part of their pre-sales
initiatives adds a lot of value. It helps them to understand the competitive scenario better, thus
helping them make a better pitch.
3. I think project management and orchestrating the entire RFP response process is the most impactful
thing KM brings to the table.
4. When I joined ZS few years back, KM was mostly collating information and sharing the same on
need basis. But with time, KM has generated a lot of trust and we now work directly with the
delivery teams to create PoV etc. and are an integral part of the core team. I think this trust is
evolving day by day and is giving us many opportunities to widen our avenues.
5. I think KM has been helping the consulting teams in solving unstructured and complex problems
through research and their subject matter expertise. I believe the role will continue to expand and we
plan to work on the client project directly while adding more value.
6. It was always a great experience working with the team. I got a chance to work on various reporting
and analytics RFP’s and work with several delivery teams. The research and experience work gave
me a lot of understanding of the reporting and BI universe.
39
1. Capturing tacit or external knowledge, disseminate it broadly and appropriately use it in an organized
manner, helping to improve the productivity of team
2. Value Proposition-
 Improved Business decisions – Seamlessly converts tacit to explicit knowledge so that knowledge
does not reside with specific people that helps to make effective business decisions
 Reducing time and providing real time information/data – Ensures access to the right knowledge
for business users at the right to avoid reinventing the wheel
3. Impact-
 Increase efficiency in business processes with faster turnarounds – It not only capture the
approaches, methodologies and frameworks, but also the deliverables and nuggets from the ongoing
projects and having the repository readily accessible for future reference
 Promotes standardization – Ensures that defined standard and processes to be followed by the
employees, this allows them to learn how things are done leads to predictable and high-quality results
and enables organizations to be consistent in how work is performed
4. The evolve program can be one of things since inception
5. Future of KM-
 Function as a centralized location for all the current and past knowledge – methodologies, business
rules, data dictionaries, approaches, frameworks, deliverables and thought leadership content
 By leveraging latest technology and techniques for knowledge classification and having a user-
friendly system (for accessing and sharing information) will help to integrate it in daily routine to
ensure addition of new knowledge on real-time basis
 Crowd sourcing enabled social model to create and consume knowledge in a sustainable and
dynamic manner leveraging technology
6. I have developed a lot of great qualities in my personalities and my expertise have been polished.
40
1. Knowledge Management function is an essential part of the organization which keeps track of all the
information related to different clients, market updates, internal company information etc. It is
responsible to capture knowledge after every project that is being executed in the organization.
2. Presales is an essential part of the overall KM Ecosystem. Presales is associated with working on
RFPs/RFIs which is the initial step of bring new business to the company. If our clients need to
outsource any work, they generally roll out a RFP/RFI to various vendors in the market and seeks
their solution to their problems. Presales team has the prime responsibility of working on these
documents and help our client teams to prepare a response on behalf of ZS. The real value that KM
can bring in the Presales process is by bringing existing knowledge and experience of working on
multiple similar RFPs/RFIs. It can save a lot of time as the deadlines that we usually get for
responding to RFPs is quite stringent.
3. By working on numerous proposals, Presales team members develop a good insight on the type of
problems that the client faces and what solutions were provided to solve those problems. Most of the
common sections which are generally a part of every proposal can be leveraged from the repository
we maintain. This saves a lot of time and effort for the team. KM can be the section owners for more
than 50% of the entire proposal response which helps save a lot of time for the PAM group and other
senior stakeholders.
4. Increasing expertise and skillset
5. Technology will ease things out.
6. I have had a great experience working with KM function. It is one of the rare functions in the
organization that gets to interact with the Senior Leadership on almost a daily basis. There is a great
sense of collaboration between the teams which makes the KM function extremely successful at ZS
41
1. Meaning of KM:
It is team of people who are working to create insights from all the information which is floating
across the organization and looking from a perspective from the industry’s point of view.
Transforming the information into digestible nuggets, breaking the mainstream style because at ZS
people should know what they are doing, (since one hand should know what the other is doing).
Collecting the vital information and sharing it across is the aim.
2. KM knows what is to be done, because of the experience, consolidated knowledge because we add
the winning contribution to the proposals. We know what will work or and what will not. We know
the perspective, pricing, competitors, nature and category of clients, we have learnt all this through
experiential learning.
3. Contributing to winning
4. We have expanded in terms of geographies and expertise.
5. I foresee less people and more technology and more operations. People might only be driving
insights.
6. It has been enriching, learning. The most enjoyable part is that you get to interact with quality
people. Coaching and mentoring employees has been an exciting part.

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Table of Contents

DECLARATION .................................................................................................... Error! Bookmark not defined.

1.1 Impact of Knowledge Management on Pre-Sales and Business Development

 RFI- Request for Information

o It is a preliminary document which is used by the company, to basically locate

 RFP- Request for Proposal

o RFP is a document that comprises of customised proposals, often made for a

 RFQ- Request for Quotations

1.3 Industry Overview

The four significant functions of Knowledge Management are:

Figure 1.1 (ZMR news blog)

1. Keeping up with emerging Technology

3. Interpreting the Data Effectively and Efficiently

4. Increasing Competition and Pressure

Selecting a moderator, community manager, or developer relations specialist is quite challenging.

1. Information should be available at ease

o No individual likes searching for long hours

2. Encouraging people to impart their Knowledge

3. Ensuring collaboration among team members and different teams

RFP/RFI is rolled out by Client to the team

Team analyses if they have the right expertise to work

The team is assigned experts who collaborate to work

Proposal Response is prepared and submitted to Client

Client evaluates and shortlists vendors for orals

Vendors give presentations on their proposal to the

People and Marketing

2. Commercial Strategy and Transformation: ZS apply cross-functional expertise-from the initial

10. R& D Excellence: In this increasingly cost-conscious and budget-constrained healthcare

 Resource Planning and Deployment

Industrial Health Plans

1.8.2 ZS Focus Industries ;

Chapter 2: Literature Review

Research Paper III

Knowledge Management: An Introduction and Perspective

Managing knowledge for business performance improvement:

By: Rasula, Jelena; Vuksic, Vesna Bosilj; Stemberger, Mojca Indihar.

The Impact of knowledge management on organisational performance

Chapter 3: Research Methodology

3.1 Research Methodology

Report Title: Impact of Knowledge Management on Pre-Sales and Business Development

Q1. How will you define KM?

Chapter 4: Data Analysis and Interpretation

Figure 2: Designation of the Interviewees

2. How will you define KM?

Q3. What is the value proposition of KM on Pre-Sales and Business Development?

Figure 4: Value Proposition

Figure 6: Evolution Curve of KM

Q7. Please Share your experience with KM

 Growing Industry  The knowledge  Automation–  With Artificial

Q1. How will you define KM?

2. The value proposition can be defined by an example.

3. KM helps in putting the information in a formal structure

4. According to me the evolution curve is;

5. Big things are probable to come like Artificial Intelligence

5. Some say it’s a captive centre, the nomenclature is very different

2. KM provides case studies, and ready matter: capability decks.

4. The vibe of the place is different, pre-sales work is almost same

6. Overall experience has been enlightening

4. I have known KM for 8 on 10 of its existence

5. A lot of manual work will be assisted by machines,

 We have a team that is looking into creating accelerators

 Teams are helping us become a fort runner

3. Helps in providing repeat Business to ZS