Critically analyse the approach to Knowledge Management at Tata Steel - Essay Example

Knowledge management was defined by Davenport (1994) as a process of procuring, sharing and using the knowledge in an effective manner. King (2009) on the other hand made his approach in an organizational perspective. He defined knowledge management as planning, organizing and motivating the human resources in order to control the systems and processes in an organization to make sure that all its knowledge associated assets are efficiently employed to achieve organizational goals. Davenport (2005) explained that knowledge management has become very crucial for an organization to gain competitive advantage over its rivals.

Knowledge is being considered as a commodity which is used by a firm in order to improve its product, services and operations process. Thus knowledge being an intellectual asset is increasingly appreciated by the organizations in order to ensure future growth and sustainability. Tata Steel first initiated the Knowledge Management process in the year 1999, with an aim to exploit the unused knowledge base in the organization. The company realized that the implementation of the knowledge management will bring about a holistic change in the entire organizational culture.

The company established an archive, where all the employees shared their experiences, knowledge and individual process via the intranet. As a result it created a knowledge repository which allowed all the employees to have access to each other’s knowledge and experience. The repositories of individual department were connected to the parent archive, so that any employee irrespective of his department could have access to the huge database of organizational data. After a year of establishing the knowledge repository, the company decided to introduce knowledge communities.

It acted as a public forum for likeminded employees where they could share individual experiences and participate in brain