Knowledge Management and Collaboration at Tata Consulting Services - Case Study Example

Name: xxxxxx Tutor: xxxxxx Title: Knowledge Management and Collaboration at Tata Consulting Services Institution: xxxxxx Date due: xxxxxx Introduction Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) is an Indian information technology service that provides a wide range of IT services, outsourcing and business solutions. Being among the global leading information technology consulting, business process and services outsourcing organizations, TSC Knowledge management system used knowledge management systems to attain a competitive edge within the competitive global business environment. Knowledge management system is defined as a class of information systems that are applied at the management of organizational knowledge. They are IT based schemes that enhance and support the organizational procedures of knowledge creation, storage, retrieval, transfer and application. Knowledge management entails every structured activity that improves the capacity of the organization to obtain, share and utilize knowledge in manners hat improve its success and survival. The survival of a corporation depends upon its interaction with the environment with respect to the individuals involved, the tasks, its structure and related technology. TCS has used knowledge management to identify and leverage the collective knowledge within the organization to help it compete. Growth of knowledge management systems at TCS and how these systems helped TCS in its business Knowledge management concept was initiated in TSC in 1995 and the corporate groupware knowledge management team created in 1998. At this time, its fifty Indian offices were linked via dedicated communication lines while overseas offices were linked via Net and Lotus Notes Domino servers. Also there was a browser front-end and Notes client through which employees could access knowledge repository that was located branch and corporate servers via the intranet. There was KBases also known as the knowledge repository which contained a variety of information on processes, line of businesses, projects and lines of technology (Bahra, 2001). Although the formal efforts of to establish knowledge management systems in TSC began in late 1990s, the unofficial, closely knit communities of practices had subsisted in the company since 1980s. In mid 1980s, there were databases, UNIX and mainframe. In 1993, there were 1,500 case studies for Mainframe and the next step entailed creation of PALs (Process Asset Libraries) which had information related to processes, technology and case studies for the project leaders. There was the development of Ultimatix, which is a web base electronic knowledge management portal. The KBases and PAL library were combined with Ultimax, which possessed sub portals for software efficiency improvement, quality management scheme, tools information and training materials. TSC also initiated several training programs like the continuous learning program, initial learning program, and the leadership development program. The (iCALMS) Integrated competency and learning management systems was deployed worldwide across all Tata Consultancy Services offices. Knowmax, was developed in 2007 utilizing Microsoft share point portal server The growth of knowledge management system at Tata Consultancy Services has greatly helped the company in its business. It has enabled the company to capture all overt knowledge. In modern days, the company has an Information technology history as well as experience memory for twenty years. Also, utilizing a people centric model, TSC has been able to propagate tactic knowledge amid their workers with a superior communication. Knowmax enables employees to upload helpful files that enhance them to expand their knowledge base and improve knowledge library of the corporation (Natarajan, & Ganesh, 2007). I-CALMS portal has numerous tests taken are taken by associates. It also contains numerous web training programs that employees undertake to understand several topics such as communication skills, Microsoft skills to SAP. TCS Communities of practices or CoPs which the company has created with the animator expert in the field of knowledge enables the company to assemble superior practices on diverse fields of expertise utilizing business case documenting problem and resolution. By using information management system, the organization have captured processes, technology, as well as case studies known as Process Asset Libraries which is aimed at capturing structure data in first wave (Bahra, 2001). Through utilizing collaboration tools, there is creation of emulation amid employees. Natarajan, & Ganesh, (2007), notes that a key to attaining returns on investment on information technology investment is training of users. JustAsk allows employees to easily reach experts. It acts as a link between workers who are searching for a certain knowledge or information and employees who know. Blog which is an easy, and quick and inexpensive setup offers easy access to information. It is adequate for list oriented items or news and is also a search engine that is friendly and is highly accessible to employees. The employees who use blog appears authoritative and this creates brand awareness, allows relationships building, and attainment of insight into employees. Blog also allows the reduction of the number of emails and calls which expand employee efficiency. Blog also Employees utilize My Site to develop sites incorporated in the interior IT infrastructure from a more intricate web presentation. TIP and IdeaStorm allows a large number of employees to check new questions or ideas, brainstorm and structure return (Meso, & Smith, 2000). Collaboration tools used at TCS and the communication and business benefits that TCS reaped from these tools TSC utilized a variety of collaboration tools for taking on account architectural features to the application of Web 2.0 tools. Laudon, & Laudon, ( 2010) argues that the Propel sessions brought together workers who had identical interests to undertake numerous activities so that they could balance their life with their work and hopefully incorporate both life and work as one. Naturally, TSC benefitted from propel sessions as a result of the fact that majority of the conversations held during the Propel sessions were based on workers business problems. The Propel session were held through camps and conferences, an initiative that stimulated transfer of knowledge among employees. Propel sessions Apart from taking into consideration the personal life of employees, TSC implement collaboration tool of sharing knowledge. LiveMeeting application enabled sharing of knowledge at project level. All project meeting were recorded on the Live Meeting application and stored within the project repository. Through recording all meetings using LiveMeeting application TSC was able to arrange a team trough which every member knew what was discussed. Propel was initiated as a revolutionary inference with the dual goals of facilitating exchange of ideas and assisting immediate problem, solving, whilst encouraging self development and bonding within and among members. Propel session also helped the corporation to create a culture of creativity, collaboration, and networks of relationships via its two models, the confluences and camps (Laudon, & Laudon, 2010). Confluence entails listening to voice of the worker within a team scenario, through developing a platform for open sharing of ideas on a pertinent theme. This is accomplished via a balance of introspection, interaction and fun, whilst inducing commitment to self development. A camp is a problem resolving platform that focuses upon cost, delivery and quality measures of throughputs leading to adoption and transfer of best practices in amongst and within relationships in the corporation. How Web 2.0 tools help TCS to manage knowledge and collaboration among its employees Web 2.0 tools entails social networking sites, wikis, blogs, video sharing sites and wikis that permits users to collaborate and interact with one another. According to Meso, & Smith, (2000), these collaborative technologies are being utilized by TSC to link the interior employees of the corporation to share expertise and knowledge that eventually benefits the customers and clients. These platforms engage workers and encourage them to provide innovative ideas and collaborate and discuss on the thoughts and control attrition. The TSC management also utilized web 2.0 platforms as a two way communication channel with workers and to invite thoughts from workers (Laudon, & Laudon, 2010). Tata Consultancy Services created a platform known as Ultimax which assists to consolidate interior schemes and take advantage of team and group knowledge. The company in this platform of personalized sites, wikis, and blogs that brings workers together and also assists workers to collaborate for the benefits of the organization. JustAsk which is similar to question and answer forum enhance the employees to openly ask questions and share knowledge. IdeaMax encourages workers to share their thoughts about a specific process or a technology (Housel, & Hom, 2002). Through the use Ultimax, the corporation incorporated fifty core applications aimed at streamlining internal collaborations and operations for over seven hundred business processes. It also incorporated internal processes, entailing finance, project management and human resource to support more than 100 employees. Adoption of the Web 2.0 technologies within the organization and their utilization by the employees on daily basis have resulted to superior operating margins as well as an increase in market share for the corporation. Workers dynamically take part in such initiatives which result to increased productivity and reduced attrition (Obaide, & Alshawi, 2007). How knowledge management tools changed some key operational processes at TCS, such as bidding for new projects, project development and implementation, customer service TSC have used enterprise content management components such as business process management, document management system, digital asset management, and enterprise report management that has enabled the corporation to manage content effectively and efficiently. In TCS, enterprise component management systems are supported by infrastructure constituents like collaborative tools, desktop application, portals and emails. The service oriented system enhances these diverse applications to be managed via services which are universal therefore enhancing the corporation to leverage the enterprise component management infrastructure for numerous applications or departments that the company deploys (Obaide, & Alshawi, 2007). TCS have used an enterprise portal and website such as PAL library, KBases and Ultimax which functions as a medium vial which all unknown and known stakeholders such as prospects, partners, customers, employees and suppliers interact with the corporation. Via the web site prospects, competitors and partners learn about services and projects of the firm. The website also enables TSC employees to be highly effective and efficient in their daily work. A portal or website being powered by web content management scheme has enabled the company to delivery highly personalized, dynamic and multilingual content to partners, suppliers and customers around the globe. This enables the knowledge of the entire company to be effective shared or utilized by every stakeholder (White, 2002). Web content management tools automate the complex procedures of generating, managing and publishing content to portals, web applications and websites. According to Housel, & Hom, (2002)the LiveMeeting application enabled sharing of knowledge at project level whereby all project meetings were stored and recorded in project repository. This web management solution also empowered all employees to be updated on issues discussed during the meeting and also helped to eradicate team bottleneck and permitted project members to streamline the overall web production scheme therefore enhancing the firm to capture, mange and efficiently utilize the knowledge of the company in bidding for new projects. TSC knowledge management system also enhances the company to have a view of technical skill set of its overall employee strength. The knowledge is greatly fundamental when the organization is bidding for novel projects. The process of bidding for software projects need each bidder to mandatorily illustrate skill set of resources he intends to staff upon the project. If a company has a proficient knowledge management system, it makes the bidding procedure and enhances the company to place bids together at a shorter notice. Collaboration tools such as, IBM’s Sametime and QuickPlace has enabled the company to execute its work better and faster than before. Web Based collaboration tools such as blog and Ultimax have enabled knowledge employees to coordinate, collaborate and communicate with one another. These tools also promote a flexible and dynamic atmosphere for bringing individuals together, permitting them to focus upon a complex objective, deliverable or outcome (White, 2002). With an integrated and unified enterprise platform that enhances superior collaboration and management of content, TSC has attained an improved return on investment. It has been capable of delivering benefits via cost savings, increased productivity and quicker reaching period to the market. Tata Consultancy Services have integrated enterprise content management with collaboration, a function that has enabled teams to work together dynamically toward a universal goal, whilst capturing, archiving and storing the content generated during the process of collaboration( Laudon, & Laudon, 2010). When accompany integrates collaboration tools and enterprise content management technologies, it is able to distribute teams to highly effective plan, strategize and also create consensus as they develop new products , coordinates the supply chain, incorporate their clients and work on major business initiatives. As content in stored in the enterprise content management repository, it becomes accessible by the entire organization. Individuals who are not within the project team are able to search for, reference, recycle and publish this information, thus eradicating redundant work whilst leveraging superior business practices (Willcocks, 2008). Management and organisational efforts required to achieve success with the use of a knowledge management system at Tata Consulting. Technology alone ant enable Tata Consultancy Services to be a knowledge enabled organization. Technology plays a significant role in management of knowledge within an organization , it is also essential to look at processes, people and the way technology is utilized to enable processes and individuals to create, utilize, recycle, safeguard and retire knowledge in the organization and also with every stakeholder. Therefore TCS must identify the three pillars of knowledge management which are People (people and culture) which address mindset and link to attributes of evaluating culture and people; Process (process, strategy and policy) which guide and facilitate efforts of individuals to use and capture knowledge within the company to accomplish business benefits; and Technology (technology and infrastructure) which are enablers that assist individuals to harness maximum of the knowledge management systems( Tiwana, 2002). The company can achieve a state of knowledge maturity through systematically addressing these three pillars of knowledge management and through constantly upgrading knowledge maturity to get to a state where it becomes embedded in business processes of the organization. This is a course of constant improvement ad should be managed by a swell-built maturity framework, that has the capability to assess as well as benchmark the numerous aspects of process, technology and people in a holistic way. Therefore, TCS must use the 5iKM3 model to manage these three aspects of knowledge management. This framework will enable the organization to describe every state of maturity and also addresses its goals. Additionally, it is capable of relating knowledge management initiatives with perceived business gains of every state (Chih-Ping, & Hung-Huang, 2002). A maturity model is important in TCS because it is usually a model and benchmark to evaluate and assess state of acceptance and maturity of knowledge management system which has the potential to influence business process and delivery. Chih-Ping, & Hung-Huang, (2002) notes that knowledge management is currently a very significant business decision that influences every touch point of business delivery. Corporations are now shifting from the primary aim of capturing tactic and explicit knowledge to incorporating the numerous applications which are managing transactional details resulting to business knowledge with content and document management systems. K-Audits is another organisational and management effort needed for the organization to attain success with knowledge management systems. K-Audits is a significant aspect of knowledge management and also of strategic planning, both on business level and enterprise units to maintain competitive advantage. According to Tiwana, (2002), the process of knowledge audit entails a through examination, investigation and analysis of the whole life cycle of the organizational knowledge, including where knowledge exists, and how it being developed. It assesses and measures knowledge flow efficiency, from knowledge creation to knowledge capture, to knowledge storage and access, to knowledge utilization and dissemination and to knowledge sharing and knowledge disposal. With respect to individuals, K-Audit measures the effectiveness of transfer of the tactic knowledge skills, when certain expertise or skills is no longer required. Conclusion Tata Consultancy Services have used knowledge management system to capture and harness organizational knowledge which has enabled it to adapt to the changing and competitive business environment. Knowledge management system has enabled TCS to harness organizational knowledge top increase its operational efficiency, enable innovation and to minimize rediscovery effort. Knowledge management tools has also helped the organization to optimize the processes and resources so as to maximize returns in all aspects such as return on customer, return on people and return on investment. By using knowledge management system acts as a medium through which customers, employees, suppliers and partners interact with the organization and learns about the projects and services of the enterprise and also enables the knowledge of the whole company to be effectively shared or used by all stakeholders. Bibliography Bahra, N, 2001, Competitive knowledge management, Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke. Tiwana, A. (2002), The knowledge management toolkit: Orchestrating IT, Strategy and Knowledge Platforms, NJ: Prentice Hall. Meso, P, & Smith, R, 2000, A Resources-based View of organizational knowledge Management Systems, Journal of Knowledge Management, Vol. 4 No. 3, pp. 224-234. White, D, 2002, Knowledge mapping and management, Idea Group Inc, Philadelphia. Laudon, C, & Laudon, P, 2010, Management Information Systems: Managing the Digital Firm, Eleventh Edition, Pearson Education Inc, New Jersey Willcocks, L, 2008, Outsourcing global services: knowledge, innovation and social capital, Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke. Obaide, A, & Alshawi, M, 2007, A Holistic Model for Knowledge Management Implementation. International Journal of Excellence in e-Solutions for Management, 1 (1), 1-22. Natarajan, G, & Ganesh, U, 2007, Unleashing the knowledge force: harnessing knowledge for building global companies, Tata McGraw-Hill Education, New Delhi. Housel, T, & Hom, S, 2002, Knowledge management for the telecommunications industry, Kluwer, Academic Publishers, Boston. Chih-Ping, W, & Hung-Huang, C, 2002, Design and evaluation of a knowledge management system, Software Journal, 19(3), 56-59. Read More