Infosys Technologies: The Implementation Challenges of

Knowledge Management Initiatives

Group: R-42 Submitted by:

Kavya SS PGP/14/276 Kritika Gupta PGP /14/277

Kulbhushan Baghel PGP/14/278 Lokesh Singh PGP /14/279
Mahtaab Kajla PGP/14/280
Agenda

Introduction - KM

Case Analysis

Influence

Learnings

Q & A Session

Presentation Time: 12 mins

Q & A Session: 3 mins
Knowledge Management

 Knowledge Management (KM) comprises a range of

strategies and practices used in an organization to identify,
create, represent, distribute, and enable adoption of insights
and experiences.
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knowledge_management

KM Cycle
Company Analysis

 Vision Statement "To be a globally respected corporation

that provides best-of-breed business solutions, leveraging
technology, delivered by best-in-class people."

Revenue: $1.6
bn FY ’05,
$5.04 bn FY’10

SITUATION ANALYSIS
Headquartered Workforce:
in Bangalore, 50,000 Year’05,
India 114,822 Year’10

One of the
world’s largest Infosys First Indian
Software Technologies company in
Development Ltd. Nasdaq-100
Contractors
Company Analysis

 “Knowledge belongs not only to those

employees who create it, but also to the
entire company"

CORE BELIEF
KM Program: Timeline

Kshop; ‘99 KM Prime; after ‘02

• Transferring • Information
Human Capital to Overload
Organizational • Low patronage • Higher Search • Identification&
Resources • Informal Cost for Reusable Fulfillment of
Communication Knowledge teams’ knowledge
need

Early Actions; ‘90s KCU; ‘01

KM Program

• Transforming • Creation of Intranet

employees knowledge Knowledge Portal –
into company’s Kshop
resources • Accumulation and
reuse of organizational
knowledge

’90 ’99
KM Program: Kshop

Employee Issues A
Low Patronage by Employees

Communication Media B
Communication by means of Informal Networks

Specialized Knowledge C
Proliferation of local repositories of specialized knowledge

Processes Issues D
No reinforcement and coupling of different processes
KCU Incentive Scheme

Started in 2001 by KM Group of Infosys

Primarily started to jump start contributions to Kshop

For Infosys employees who contributed or reviewed contributions to Kshop

Awards- KCUs which could accumulate and exchanged for money/prizes

KCU scores displayed on scoreboard

Increased visibility of prolific contributors

Advantages of KCU Scheme

 More than 2400 new knowledge asset contributions to

KShop : project proposals, case studies and reusable
software codes

 Almost 20% employees contributing atleast one knowledge

asset

 More than 1,30,000 KCUs generated

Problems with KCU Scheme

• Information overload

• Higher search costs of reusable knowledge.

• Heavy burden on limited number of reviewers resulting in quality degradation

• Destroying the spirit of community and asking culture within the company
First set of initiatives

 Major Focus:
 Decouple knowledge sharing from economic incentives

 Emphasis on recognition and personal visibility for

knowledge sharing contributions more than monetary
awards
 Formulation of new composite KCU score emphasizing the
usefulness and benefit of contribution to Infosys
 The contribution was rated by actual users also
 Demanding tangible proof to justify higher ratings
 Reduction in number of KCUs awards for reviewing
contributions
 Raised the bar for cashing in KCU incentive points for
monetary rewards
Second set of initiatives

 Major Focus:
 Improvement of KM Practices within project teams and
practice communities

 Modified project templates with automated tools

 Implemented Project tracking tool on Kshop to log details
and deliverable
 Enabled knowledge codification and extraction
Third set of initiatives

 Major Focus:
 Removing variances across project teams in
knowledge codification

 Introduced hierarchy of roles to broker knowledge sharing

between project teams, practice communities and wider
organization
 KM Prime
 Responsible for identifying and facilitating the fulfilment
of team’s knowledge needs for each project
 Ensuring that team codified and shared critical
knowledge gained during the project after project
completion
Third set of initiatives

 Knowledge champions
 Spearheaded and facilitated knowledge sharing and
reuse in critical technologies
 Swap stories on Kshop to Promote tacit individual and
team level knowledge and experiences.
Influence

 New contributors per quarter declined by nearly 37%

 Number of new knowledge assets contributed per quarter
declined by 26%(approx)
 Slowly new knowledge assets contributed, stabilized and
then increased at a more manageable pace
 Lower search costs reported
 Increase in quality and utility of knowledge assets available
Learnings

 Knowledge management requires much more than just

technology

 Attention to the cultural and social facets of knowledge

management

 Continuous campaigning required besides investing time

and resources to manage the content
Questions