Q1: What is Knowledge Management? What factors consist of Knowledge Management?

What are advantages of Knowledge Management over Information Management?

Knowledge Management:

Introduction:

Knowledge management (KM) is the process of creating, sharing, using and managing the
knowledge and information of an organisation. It refers to a multidisciplinary approach to
achieving organisational objectives by making the best use of knowledge.

Knowledge management typically focus on organisational objectives such as improved

performance, competitive advantage, innovation, the sharing of lessons learned, integration
and continuous improvement of the organisation. efforts overlap with organisational learning
and may be distinguished from that by a greater focus on the management of knowledge as a
strategic asset and on encouraging the sharing of knowledge. KM is an enabler of organisational
learning.

Disciplines of KM:

1. Techno-centric with a focus on technology, ideally those that enhance knowledge

sharing and creation.
2. Organisational with a focus on how an organisation can be designed to facilitate
knowledge processes best.
3. Ecological with a focus on the interaction of people, identity, knowledge, and
environmental factors as a complex adaptive system akin to a natural ecosystem.

Dimensions of KM:

Different frameworks for distinguishing between different 'types of' knowledge exist.

1. Tacit knowledge represents internalised knowledge that an individual may not be

consciously aware of, such as to accomplish particular tasks.
2. Explicit knowledge represents knowledge that the individual holds consciously in mental
focus, in a form that can easily be communicated to others.

A model- Shown below- (SECI, for Socialisation, Externalisation, Combination, Internalisation)

which considers a spiralling interaction between explicit knowledge and tacit knowledge. In this
model, knowledge follows a cycle in which implicit knowledge is 'extracted' to become explicit
knowledge, and explicit knowledge is 're-internalised' into implicit knowledge.
Factors consisting of KM:

• Culture: One which is supportive of knowledge management, and the processes it implies
- particularly knowledge sharing.

• Infrastructure: Support systems, teams, structures, and collaboration.

• Measures: Developing a process and design for managing change.

• Technology: Can offer great advantages, particularly with the management of explicit
knowledge, as a collaboration tool, and as an expert locator.
Advantages of KM over Information Management:

• Focus on knowledge, understanding, and wisdom

• Deal with both codified and uncodified knowledge. Uncodified knowledge - the most
valuable type of knowledge - is found in the minds of practitioners and is unarticulated,
context-based, and experience-based.
• Technology is extremely useful, but KM's focus is on people and processes. IT is great for
transferring explicit, codified knowledge, but it's role in the transfer of deeper,
internalized knowledge is more complex. Since this kind of knowledge is passed from
person to person, through interaction, collaboration, mentoring, etc. and preferably in an
unstructured environment, IT tools for KM have to support this function. They are
therefore not merely passing on information, but also act as tools to bring people
together, to enhance communication, to allow the storage and transfer of unstructured
thoughts and notes, etc.
• Focus on locating, understanding, enabling, and encouraging - by creating environments,
cultures, processes, etc. where knowledge is shared and created.
• Is largely about know-how, know-why, and know-who
• Is hard to copy - at least regarding the tacit elements. The connection to experience and
context makes tacit knowledge extremely difficult to copy
Q2. Explain the business implications of Knowledge Management for corporations.

Implementing knowledge management (KM) allows many companies to gain a competitive

advantage over their competitors. However, many KM initiatives and projects have failed,
causing many organizations to lose a significant amount of money.

To gain competitiveness and improve business processes, many organizations have included
KM as a business strategy. They noted that reports of successful KM implementations have
resulted in financial savings, increased revenues, and increased level of user acceptance. For
example, the implementation of the Eureka database (KM database) in 1996 saved Xerox an
estimated $100 million. In 2000, sharing knowledge about packaging improvements allowed
Hill’s Pet Nutrition to reduce pet food wastage, and another KM implementation allowed
Hewlett-Packard to successfully establish and standardize consistent pricing schemes and sales
processes. Moreover, Holder and Fitzgerald reported that in June 1996, the Centre for Army
Lessons Learned knowledge base received almost 100,000 weekly hits, showing strong
acceptance of the knowledge base.

Although 84% of KM programs show no considerable impact on the adopting organizations,

reported cases of KM project failures are negligible. The media rarely mentions the names of
organizations experiencing KM project failures whereas the names of organizations with KM
project success stories are widely distributed. Although the modern economy highlights
organizational learning and active experimentation as corporate values, failures are
unmentionable. A failed information technology (IT) project can be defined as a project that has
missed the deadline by more than 30% and the final information system of which does not
meet the user’s requirements.

In fact, failures are difficult for people to digest. However, the beliefs of organizational learning
and continuous improvements should supersede the fear of and intolerance for failure. That is,
if failure is suppressed, ignored, or denied, users will not be able to learn from past mistakes.
However, success could be achieved when a key part of learning and development includes the
acceptance of failure. Starting knowledge groups, creating best practices internally, developing
technical libraries, discussion databases, and lessons-learned databases are part of many KM
projects. However, reasons for KM project failure or success are rarely discussed in these
groups or discussions. The results of this study could, potentially be included in organizational
best practices and discussion groups.

Many organizations implement KM initiatives based on other KM success stories and with the
view that having success factors and their best efforts will increase the use of their knowledge
assets and produce better management. KM project success factors are linked to an
organization’s knowledge and goals as well as their focus on employees who require a specific
knowledge. Moreover, KM project success factors relate to comprehensive communication and
commitment to KM by companies and organizations. Furthermore, following are the nine
factors that contribute to KM project success:
 1. Knowledge-oriented culture
2. Organizational and technical infrastructure
3. Senior management support
4. Link to industry or economics value
5. Modicum of process orientation
6. Clarity of vision and language
7. Nontrivial motivational aids
8. Some level of knowledge structure
9. Multiple channels for knowledge transfer.

Acknowledging these success factors and incorporating them into organizational initiatives are
important to organization operations.

Real time KM projects showed many success factors. For example, in a manufacturing company,
KM projects were constructed with the objective to cut corporate costs. In addition, a global
company developed a KM project with top management approval and a focused population of
users that caused a reorganization of the company’s structure. However, these KM projects
failed because they experienced difficulties related to culture, project management,
technology, and content.

As a result of KM not being defined properly in industry, many organizations and companies
have mistakenly separated critical IT infrastructure needs such as change management, e-
learning, process improvement, performance support, reengineering, and KM. In an effort to
increase performance, leaders of the organization KM initiative sometimes compete for
valuable few resources in a knowledge arena full of other strategic efforts. More importantly,
most employees and managers are lacking in knowledge about KM. KM can only enhance
organizational performance when understood and intelligently applied, including integration
with other improvement initiatives. Understanding basic knowledge process allows researchers
to understand KM.
Q3. Elaborate the type of technologies of Knowledge Management.

Knowledge management (KM) technology can be categorised:

Groupware—Software that facilitates collaboration and sharing of organisational information.
Such applications provide tools for threaded discussions, document sharing, organisation-wide
uniform email, and other collaboration-related features.
Workflow systems—Systems that allow the representation of processes associated with the
creation, use and maintenance of organisational knowledge, such as the process to create and
utilise forms and documents.
Content management and document management systems—Software systems that automate
the process of creating web content and/or documents. Roles such as editors, graphic
designers, writers and producers can be explicitly modelled along with the tasks in the process
and validation criteria. Commercial vendors started either to support documents or to support
web content but as the Internet grew these functions merged and vendors now perform both
functions.
Enterprise portals—Software that aggregates information across the entire organisation or for
groups such as project teams.
eLearning—Software that enables organisations to create customised training and education.
This can include lesson plans, monitoring progress and online classes.
Planning and scheduling software—Software that automates schedule creation and
maintenance. The planning aspect can integrate with project management software.[22]
Telepresence—Software that enables individuals to have virtual "face-to-face" meetings
without assembling at one location. Videoconferencing is the most obvious example.
Ontological Approach—An ontology-based knowledge model for knowledge management. This
model can facilitate knowledge discovery that provides users with insight for decision making.
Q4. Explain the Knowledge Management in ICICI bank
Background of the Study
The global economy has evolved through the industrial revolution, then to the information
society and is transiting to a knowledge or knowledge- economy. According to analysts of the
knowledge economy, the rules and practices that determined success in the industrial economy
need to be rewritten: at the level of firms and industries, in terms of knowledge management,
and at the level of public policy, as knowledge policy.
We have assessed the knowledge management practices followed in INDUSTRIAL CREDIT
INVESTMENT CORPORATION OF INDIA (ICICI), the concept of knowledge management practices
and given an overview of the banking sector in India.
The Banking Industry in India
According to the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), the banking sector in India is sound, adequately
capitalized and well-regulated. Indian financial and economic conditions are much better than
in many other countries of the world. Credit, market and liquidity risk studies show that Indian
banks are generally resilient and have withstood the global downturn well with a sense of
optimism slowly creeping in the banking industry expects that 2015 will bring better growth
prospects. This optimism stems from factors such as the Government working hard to revitalize
the industrial growth in the country and the RBI initiating a number of measures that would go
a long way in helping the banks to restructure. The recent announcements of RBI, it is felt, are a
clear pointer to the future of the restructured domestic banking industry.
Knowledge Management 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 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 Bank
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 ‘Wiseguy’ banner
was floated in the company’s Intranet; it eventually became a part of the Intranet. Emails were
sent out to all employees about ‘Wiseguy’ 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.
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 utilise it to their benefit. This is easier said than
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.
The “Wise Guy” portal began with articulation of those information which were 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 “Wiseguy” at ICICI Bank
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 Wiseguy, whereby one can save searches or track ones level of
involvement on the Wiseguy 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 Wiseguy 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’ let’s one upgrade one’s knowledge at one’s 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 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. 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
“Wiseguy” 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.
Benefits of “Wiseguy”
Wiseguy has contributed to the organization in the following ways:
1. Creation of a common storehouse of knowledge
2. Online identification of expertise
3. Developed a sense of belongingness among the employees
4. Led to financial savings
5. Improved decision-making ability
6. Empowered employees
7. Provided for personal skill upgradation
8. Helped plan career movements
9. Provided a platform for recognition of contribution made

To a large extent it is seen that these fulfil 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.

Conclusion
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 “Wiseguy”. 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.