ROLE OF KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT IN TATA GROUP OF COMPANIES

INTRODUCTION

Knowledge management was introduced into mainstream business management publications in 1990’s by authors like Tom Stewart, Ikujiro Nonaka, and Hirotaka Takeuchi. They brought formality to the managing of knowledge and in the mid 1990 the Internet became the channel where knowledge management expanded greatly.

In recent years, knowledge management (KM) has evolved as one of the prominent management concepts. Many businesses and multilateral organizations were start developing its processes, tools and techniques to achieve better productivity and effectiveness from the intangible assets or intellectual capital of the organizations.

Managing knowledge is not something new in an organization but the concept of KM continuously evolve in the perspective of improving the management of knowledge resources by creating, storing, sharing, and transferring within an organization and outside world.

Since, knowledge management is a system designed to create, capture, share and leverage knowledge towards the success of the organization. Therefore, it is critical to ensure that the organization secure knowledge resources such as data, information and knowledge which was developed and obtained over a period of time.

Knowledge management deals with two types of knowledge, known as tacit and explicit. Both forms of knowledge are important for organizational effectiveness:

• Explicit knowledge also sometimes referred to as formal knowledge. Explicit knowledge can be packaged as information and found in an organization in the form of reports, articles, manuals, patents, pictures, images, video, sound or software which was created with the goal of communicating with another person.

• Tacit knowledge, also known as informal knowledge. Tacit knowledge is a personal knowledge embedded in individual experience and it is much more difficult to manage. As the experience and learning continues, tacit knowledge matures and evolves into new knowledge, which remains tacit within the individual or group until they document it in some fashion, making it as explicit.

An organization which embraces KM tends to benefit in several ways, prime among them being its ability to cut cost and time. Knowledge management has proven benefits across a business and it can be organized into the major categories of decreased costs, improved quality, improved sales and save time.

LITERATURE REVIEW

Knowledge management has a history of producing the kind of change businesses desire in terms of improving the communication of knowledge in order to achieve successful outcomes.

The Tata Group is an Indian multinational conglomerate headquartered in Mumbai, India. It was founded in 1868 and gained international recognition after purchasing several global companies. Tata companies with significant scale include Tata Steel, Tata Motors, Tata Consultancy Services  and many more.

Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) is an IT services, business solutions and outsourcing organization which ensures that no other firm can match. A part of TATA Group, TCS has over 324,000 of the world’s best trained IT consultants in 46 countries. In 2015, TCS was ranked 64^th as World’s Most Innovative Companies and is now placed among the ‘Big 4’ most valuable IT services brands worldwide.

Tata Motors Limited (formerly TELCO, short for Tata Engineering and Locomotive Company) is an Indian multinational automotive manufacturing company. Its products include passenger cars, trucks, vans, coaches, buses, construction equipment and military vehicles. It is the world’s 17th Largest motor vehicles manufacturing company, fourth-largest truck manufacturer, and second-largest bus manufacturer by volume^.

Tata Steel Limited (formerly Tata Iron and Steel Company Limited (TISCO)) is an Indian Multinational Stell making company.It was the 11th largest steel producing company in the world in 2013, with an annual crude steel capacity of 25.3 million tonnes, and the second largest steel company in India (measured by domestic production) with an annual capacity of 9.7 million tonnes after SAIL.

Today knowledge management has many applications and is useful in most any discipline in an organization . Therefore, in this paper I have presented on the importance and role of Knowledge Management mainly on three (3) subsidiary companies under TATA Group of Company based on the problem statements and questions raised.

PROBLEM STATEMENT 

1. Enterprises generate content as part of their day-to-day operations on the processes and customer interactions like proposals, costing, project plans, profiles and learning. It is mostly exists in the digital form namely text, images, graphics, audio, video or spreadsheets on personal computers, laptops, department servers, papers, and tapes. When content generated effectively tagged and stored for efficient retrieval it leads to formation the knowledge bank.However, as more and more content gets generated in storage even in the digital form, organizations face challenges in collating, tagging, identifying, storing, retrieval, reuse, archival and disposal of this content.

2. Specific business factors such as competitive marketplace and increasing of innovation rate leads to the raise of knowledge management. Ignorance of this could cost organization from achieving substantial savings , decline in human performance and losing over competitive advantage.

3. In business world when the dealers were not using a standardized reporting system. It was challenging for firm to keep track of the sales process across the large dealer pool to get a comprehensive and timely update about the pre-sales, sales, service & parts, customer contact, purchase, exception report, stock analysis and profit report on daily basis.

PURPOSE STATEMENT

To capture knowledge of different stakeholders of the organization as customers, shareholders, employees, suppliers and make it explicit so that other employees can take advantage because such sharing of information will enable continuous improvement on the process flow, quicker decision making and more cost saving for the organization.

RESEARCH QUESTION

1. How can an organization be effective and efficient in collating tagging, identifying, storing, retrieval, reuse, archival and disposal of their content?

2. How the knowledge present within a system can be harnessed to yield major benefits to the organization as well as to the people within it?

3. How Firm uses Knowledge Management in Automobile Industry to standardize dealers reporting system and develop understanding to build relationship with each customer to improve customer satisfaction and maximizing profit?

DISCUSSION

1.KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT AT TATA CONSULTANCY SERVICES

Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) has developed a broad Enterprise Content Management (ECM) landscape architecture. Enterprise Content Management has several components that enable enterprises to manage content efficiently and effectively. (Rao.Anand.,2004).

These are Document Management System (DMS),Business Process Management(Work Flow), Forms Processing(FORM), Web Content Management (WCM), Digital Asset Management(DAM), Enterprise Report Management (ERM), & Records Management (RM).

Fig 1 : Enterprise Content Management (ECM) landscape architecture

ECM components needs to be supported by infrastructure components such as portals, collaborative tools, desktop applications or email management. The service oriented architecture enables these multiple applications to be managed through services which are common thus enabling the enterprise to leverage the ECM infrastructure for various departments / applications that an enterprise deploys.

1.Document Management Systems

DMS is made up of software designed to manage all types of documents, including scanned, electronic and paper. It provides facility to capture, track and store images of paper documents. Documents are stored in an ECM repository facilitates search, retrieval, printing and distribution.

DMS enables users to reuse existing content that exist within an organization rather than work afresh every time they need to create something such as a presentation or a case study or a proposal. The users can :

• Check out – retrieve content (word processing document, power point or excel) from the ECM repository and make changes
• Check in – save the changed document as a new version

Therefore, the knowledge gets stored, reused and distributed within an enterprise.

2.Business Process Management (Work Flow)

Workflow system is defined as the automation of a business process where documents, information or tasks are passed from one user to another for action, according to procedural rules.

It offer many features or functionality that enable enterprises to capture and reuse knowledge that employees possess which helps directing the work to a set of highly skilled employees wherever they operate within an enterprise.

This leads to improved efficiency through ;

1. automation and elimination of many unnecessary steps,
2. better process control through standardized working methods,
3. flexibility by enabling re-design and faster training of users in line with changing business needs,
4. business process improvement by streamlining and simplification.

All these will lead to improved customer service, better monitoring through analysis, reporting and optimization, shortened cycle times and reduction of cost.

3.Forms processing (Forms)

Forms technology is a way to capture data from paper, web forms and electronic data streams so that the data is used in the back-end ECM and other applications in the organization for either data processing applications or data mining or getting data into an enterprise content management system.

Forms management is the process of capturing hand written data or machine printed data from forms with high accuracy and efficiency to get business-critical information from the forms. Scanning, image processing, image quality control, recognition to read machine print, handprint, cursive writing, marks and barcodes on forms and documents with unparalleled speed and accuracy are the functionalities of this technology.

Forms processing technology facilitates the processing of millions of forms maximizing the accuracy and value of information, speeding the capture process, increasing productivity and significantly reducing the cost as compared to the earlier manual operations.

4. Web Content Management (WCM)

An Enterprise website or portal that is powered by Web Content Management (WCM) system is capable of delivering dynamic, highly-personalized & has multi-lingual content. It is a medium

through which all known and unknown stakeholders namely customers, prospects, partners, suppliers and employees interact with the enterprise. Through the website partners, prospects and competitors learn about products and services of the Enterprise.

Besides that ,WCM solution also empowers non-technical users to create, manage, and publish their own web content without understanding the complexities of technologies of HTML or XML which streamline of the entire web production process, thus enabling the enterprise to capture, manage and effectively use the knowledge of an Enterprise.

5. Digital Asset Management (DAM)

Digital Asset Management (DAM) was designed specifically to manage digital assets. Graphics files, photos, presentations, design layouts, streaming audio or video and other assets are part of the content besides traditional documents.

This digital content delivers business value and Return On Investment (ROI) through innovative and specialized methods of storing, organizing, distributing, and tracking digital media across numerous delivery channels.

It also provide enterprises in all industries with powerful capabilities of promoting products & services, educating employees and establishing global brand recognition.

6. Enterprise Reports Management (ERM)

Report management is a electronic process of capturing, indexing /adding intelligence, archiving and distributing reports to improve access to importantl business information as enterprises reach a global scale.

Enterprise Report Management system transform report content into meaningful business intelligence, ensure that appropriate business users can extract the maximum value from report content, reduce operating costs, eliminate wasted materials, enable resources to focus on the most valuable tasks, increase accuracy & efficiency, promote security & customer service.

7. Records Management (RM)

Records Management is the activity of ensuring that content is kept (retention) for the appropriate amount of time and then destroyed or archived (disposition).

It can be electronic or physical document, content or object that is important to the organization and must be recorded and retained according to law, regulatory statute and business policy

Record Management, records retention and destruction schedules and actively imposes adherence as of the schedules.

2. KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT AT TATA STEEL

To managing organizational knowledge Tata Steel follows three strategies:

1. Knowledge can be contributed by an individual (codification)
2. Knowledge can be contributed by a team or a group of people (personalization).
3. Knowledge diffusion

The strategies enable capture and systematic storage of knowledge and derives the benefit of replicating best practices identified in the repository. This eliminates time wastage by trying to create something that someone else has already created.All these strategies ensured knowledge sharing across the entire value chain from to the supplier. ( Sabu M. Thampi. ,2005).

Tata Steel aims at capturing knowledge from various working groups and outside agencies. The major stakeholders covered under KM are the senior management, officers, employees, customers, suppliers and experts in and outside company.

Tata Steel decided to embark on formal KM initiative in the year 1999. They began to introduce knowledge management initiatives in the company to systematically and formally share and transfer learning concepts, and best practices. It started with a small group of people from within the organization. The group formed a “knowledge repository”, where all the employees shared their experiences and knowledge.( Sabu M. Thampi. ,2005).

A KM Portal was developed in the Corporate intranet to:

1. communicate all KM related matters across the company
2. online knowledge repository to the users who can submit, search and use knowledge pieces available on iT.
3. provides a virtual forum where employees can invite and involve other fellow employees or lead experts to discuss and solve the problems faced by them.
4. The portal also linked to relevant Indian and international standards, quality system manuals, standard practices and procedures also feature for ready reference of users.

One year after the knowledge repository was formed, the company formed “knowledge communities”, which was a platform for like-minded people to meet and share their experiences.In 2001, Tata Steel developed a “Knowledge Management index” to evaluate the performance of individual employee in the Knowledge Management initiative.Later, it linked performance evaluation to KM and used a balanced scorecard to monitor the performance of individual employees, divisions, as well as the organization as a whole in KM.( Sabu M. Thampi. ,2005).

Fig 2 : Road Map of KM @ Tata Steel

All these initiatives of seem to have paid off as in 2006 Tata Steel was recognized as Asia’s Most Admired Knowledge Enterprises (MAKE) Winner. It was the only steel company in the world to have received the MAKE award.(Sabu M. Thampi. ,2005).

3.KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT AT TATA MOTORS

The dealers for TATA Motors were not using a common process to record pre-sale contacts, leads, sales, purchase. Problem rises to keep track of the sales & purchase reports on daily basis and manage their customers.

Tata Motors designed a comprehensive Customer Relationship Management – Dealer Management System (CRM-DMS) solution specifically for their automotive industry. After the deployment, TATA Motors standardized, comprehensive and real-time report all throughout the supply chain. (Jagdish.C.Belwal ,2013)

To Manage Organizational knowledge at TATA Motors CRM-DMS software helps to (Prayney.Verma, 2012) :

1. Automate and streamline information on sales process from the pre-sales, sales, service & parts, customer contact, purchase, exception report, stock analysis and profit report on daily basis.
2. Generating timely Management Information System for better decision making, monitoring, inventory control and standardized reporting system among others.
3. Real-time online sales and purchase reports helped Tata Motors to have complete control over the business which help to keep track of the stock and at various dealer outlets which helped in planning future production. Control over inventory, sales, collections, financial accounting also made the supply chain management easier.
4. Collect the right information about their customer and organize the information for proper analysis and action. It needs to keep that information up to date, make it accessible to employees and provide the know-how from employees to convert that data into products so it will be better matched to customers need.
5. Centralized helpdesk to give resolution over call or email aid in reducing project cost. The multilingual toll free number could remotely provide them with timely resolutions and customers could call without incurring any cost. Tata Motors reduce downtime by getting immediate resolution over the call or email.

There are basically 3 aspects of CRM, which can each be implemented in isolation from each other.(Uzzal Kumar Borah,2013)

Operational CRM : Each interaction with a customer are added to a customer’s contact history and staff can retrieve information on customers from the database when required the main benefits of this contact history is that customers could interact with different people or different contact channels in a company without having to repeat the history of their interaction.

Collaboration CRM :Collaborative CRM encompasses the direct interaction with customers through a variety of channels such as internet, e-mail, automated phone (automated voice response-AVM). The objectives of collaborative CRM can be broad, including cost reduction and service improvements

Analytical CRM : Analytical CRM analyze customer data to optimize marketing effectiveness campaign, to design & execution of targeted marketing, cross selling retention and an Analysis of customer behavior to aid product and service decision. It also facilitate Management decisions on financial forecasting and customer profitability analysis.

CONCLUSION

After going through the knowledge management application in TATA Group of Companies(TGC) such as TATA Steels, TATA Consultancy Services and TATA Motors following are my conclusion:

• Knowledge management is an engine which transforms (TGC) knowledge into business value and as an attractive notation which provides massive business opportunities for them.

• Knowledge that is applied to problem solving and learning, forming judgments and opinions, decision making, forecasting and strategic planning; generating feasible options for actions to achieve desired results. All this applications are recorded and KM protects all intellectual capital of TATA Companies from deterioration, augments intelligence and provides increased flexibility.

• TATA Companies, embraces KM benefit in several ways, prime among them being its ability to cut cost and time. Knowledge management in each firm has proven benefits across their businesses significantly on decreased costs, improved quality, improved sales and save time.

• Last but not least, their KM solution considers people’s mindset, organizational culture, process rigor and flexibility, technology, and infrastructure to create a holistic picture of their KM capabilities.

CITATION

“Forbes. (2015). “Tata Consultancy Services on the Forbes Asia’s Fab 50 Companies List”

Rao.Anand.(2004). Knowledge Management using Enterprise Content Management System

Praynay Verma (2012). TATA Motors & its CRM Technology

Sabu M. Thampi. (2005).An Introduction to Knowledge Management

Jagdish.C.Belwal (2013). CMC helps TATA Motors to automate its Sales & Services

Praynay Verma (2012). TATA Motors & its CRM Technology

Uzzal Kumar Borah. (Vol. 1(12) May 2013).Customer Relationship Management: A tool for achieving customer delighting Indian Auto industry.