COLLATERAL REPORT

ON

KNOWLEDGE
MANAGEMENT
AUTHOR – K.GANESH

ASSISTANT TECHNICAL MANAGER

BIRLA 3M LIMITED, BANGLORE

SUBITTED TO:
SIR TUSHAR BAPAT

(FIELD WORK SUPERVISOR)

SUBMITED BY:
SHREYA JAYANT DEOCHAKKE

DHRM 2010-2011

ROLL NO: 07
 INTRODUCTION

“The man who does not read good

books has no advantage over the man
who cannot read them” – Mark Twain

INTRODUCTION:-
The information flow to a common man has happened mostly through the
television in the 1980s and with the advent of Internet, the speed at which
the latest information can be reached has increased many fold. Besides,
internet possesses unique advantage of providing knowledge on any topic,
say Art to Zebra in other words, from A to Z. This new tool has become a
great boon to companies for rapid dissemination of knowledge throughout
the organization.

In today’s era of globalization, in order to respond and adapt to the rapid

fundamental changes in the global economy, organizations facilitate faster
knowledge transfer in support of their business objectives. Future industry
leaders will go beyond that by acting on an understanding that their
business in knowledge.

Although knowledge management has always been an important part of

conducting any business enterprise, the recent rise of interest in this subject
is the result of increasing importance of information and knowledge as a
component of business products and processes. In the present day,
competitive, information-based economy, however knowledge management
is rapidly becoming the most important part of conducting a business. As
companies reach parity with each other in traditional factors of product
differentiation, such as product quality and price, they are increasingly
depending on innovation, discovery and new products to hold or gain
market share.

DEFINITION:-
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. Such insights and experiences
comprise knowledge, either embodied in individuals or embedded in
organizational processes or practice.

• Knowledge Management is the art of creating value from the

intangible assets of an organization

• Knowledge Management consists in the identification, optimization,

and dynamic management of the intellectual assets possessed in
explicit or implicit form by persons or communities

• Managing knowledge = managing mindfully an end to end, cycling

process that links data, through information and knowledge, to action

• Knowledge management is the deliberate and systematic coordination

of an organization’s people, technology, processes, and organizational
structure in order to add value through reuse and innovation. This
coordination is achieved through creating, sharing, and applying
knowledge as well as through feeding the valuable lessons learned and
best practices into corporate memory in order to foster continued
organizational learning.
KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT – EMERGING CONCEPT:-

Yes, knowledge management is the hottest subject of the day. The question
is: what is this activity called knowledge management, and why is it so
important to each and every one of us?

Like water, this rising tide of data can be viewed as an abundant, vital and
necessary resource. With enough preparation, we should be able to tap into
that reservoir -- and ride the wave -- by utilizing new ways to channel raw
data into meaningful information. That information, in turn, can then
become the knowledge that leads to wisdom

Before attempting to address the question of knowledge management, it's

probably appropriate to develop some perspective regarding this stuff called
knowledge, which there seems to be such a desire to manage.

1) A collection of data is not information.

2) A collection of information is not knowledge.
3) A collection of knowledge is not wisdom.
4) A collection of wisdom is not truth.

The idea is that information, knowledge, and wisdom are more than simply
collections. Rather, the whole represents more than the sum of its parts and
has a synergy of its own.

We begin with data, which is just a meaningless point in space and time,
without reference to either space or time. It is like an event out of context, a
letter out of context, a word out of context. The key concept here being "out
of context." And, since it is out of context, it is without a meaningful relation
to anything else. When we encounter a piece of data, if it gets our attention
at all, our first action is usually to attempt to find a way to attribute meaning
to it. We do this by associating it with other things. If I see the number 5, I
can immediately associate it with cardinal numbers and relate it to being
greater than 4 and less than 6, whether this was implied by this particular
instance or not. If I see a single word, such as "time," there is a tendency to
immediately form associations with previous contexts within which I have
found "time" to be meaningful. This might be, "being on time," "a stitch in
time saves nine," "time never stops," etc. The implication here is that when
there is no context, there is little or no meaning. So, we create context but,
more often than not, that context is somewhat akin to conjecture, yet it
fabricates meaning.

So, in summary the following associations can reasonably be made:

 Information relates to description, definition, or perspective (what,

who, when, where).
 Knowledge comprises strategy, practice, method, or approach (how).
 Wisdom embodies principle, insight, moral, or archetype (why).

KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT OBJECTIVES:

1) Facilitate a smooth transition from those retiring to their
successors who are recruited to fill their positions.
2) Minimize loss of corporate memory due to attrition and
retirement.
3) Identify critical resources and critical areas of knowledge so that
the corporation “knows what it knows and does it well—and
why.”
4) Build up a toolkit of methods that can be used with individuals,
with groups, and with the organization to stem the potential loss
of intellectual capital.

KNOWLEDGE APPROACH:

 Knowledge management is the concept under which

information is turned into actionable knowledge and made
available effortlessly in a usable form to the people who can
apply it.

 Leveraging collective wisdom to increase responsiveness and

innovation.

 A systematic approach to manage the use of information in

order to provide a continuous flow of Knowledge to the right
people at the right time enabling efficient and effective
decision making in their everyday business.

 A knowledge management system is a virtual repository for

relevant information which is critical to tasks performed daily
by organizational knowledge workers.
MULDICIPLINARY NATURE OF KM:

Knowledge management draws upon a vast number of diverse

fields such as:

 Organizational science.

 Cognitive science.

 Linguistics and computational linguistics.

 Information technologies such as knowledge-based systems,

document and information management, electronic
performance support systems, and database technologies.

 Information and library science.

 Technical writing and journalism.

 Anthropology and sociology.

 Education and training.

 Storytelling and communication studies.

 Collaborative technologies such as Computer Supported

Collaborative Work and groupware, as well as intranets,
extranets, portals, and other web technologies.
 Knowledge management is a business activity with
two primary aspects:
Treating the knowledge component of business activities as an
explicit concern of business reflected in strategy, policy, and
practice at all levels of the organization; and, making a direct
connection between an organization’s intellectual assets—both
explicit (recorded)

Tacit (personal know-how)—and positive business results and a

different definition. Knowledge management is a collaborative and
integrated approach to the creation, capture, organization, access
and use of an enterprise’s intellectual assets.
IMPORTANCE OF KM:
 The major business drivers behind today’s increased interest in
and application of KM lie in four key areas:

1. Globalization of business. Organizations today are more global—

multisite, multilingual, and multicultural in nature.

2. Leaner organizations. We are doing more and we are doing it

faster, but we also need to work smarter as knowledge workers,
adopting an increased pace and workload.

3. “Corporate amnesia.” We are more mobile as a workforce, which

creates problems of knowledge continuity for the organization and
places continuous learning demands on the knowledge worker. We
no longer expect to spend our entire work life with the same
organization.

4. Technological advances. We are more connected. Advances in

information technology not only have made connectivity
ubiquitous but have radically changed expectations. We are
expected to be “on” at all times, and the turnaround time in
responding is now measured in minutes, not weeks.
KM FOR DIFFERENT CONCERN AS UNDER:

Individuals

Communities

Organizations

For the individual, KM:

 Helps people do their jobs and save time through better

decision making and problem solving.

 Builds a sense of community bonds within the organization.

 Helps people to keep up to date.

 Provides challenges and opportunities to contribute.

For the community of practice, KM:

 Develops professional skills.

 Promotes peer-to-peer mentoring.

 Facilitates more effective networking and collaboration.

 Develops a professional code of ethics that members can

follow.

 Develops a common language.

For the organization, KM:

 Helps drive strategy.

 Solves problems quickly.

 Diffuses best practices.

 Improves knowledge embedded in products and services.

 Cross-fertilizes ideas and increases opportunities for

innovation.

 Enables organizations to stay ahead of the competition

better.

 Builds organizational memory.

MAJOR CHALLENGE:

 Some critical KM challenges are to manage content

effectively, facilitate collaboration, help knowledge workers
connect and find experts, and help the organization to learn
and make decisions based on complete, valid, and well
interpreted data, information, and knowledge.

CONCLUSION:
 KM is not necessarily “completely new” but has been
practiced in a wide variety of settings for some time now—
albeit under different monikers.

 Knowledge is more complex than data or information; it is

subjective, often based on experience, and highly contextual.

 There is no generally accepted definition of KM, but most

practitioners and professionals concur that KM treats both
tacit and explicit knowledge with the objective of adding
value to the organization.

 Each organization should define KM in terms of its own

business objectives; concept analysis is one way of
accomplishing this.

 KM is all about applying knowledge in new, previously

unencumbered or novel situations.

 KM has its roots in a variety of different disciplines.

 The KM generations to date have focused first on containers,

next on communities, and finally on the content itself.