The Knowledge Summit of the CII is always a great place for the rivers of knowledge, from CEOs, academicians, consultants and visionaries to flow into a body of practitioner wisdom that assembles at the confluence! This year?s edition held in Mumbai epitomised the best of thinking that prevails in India today?thinking that could solve the dilemmas that face industry as it struggles for growth in a weak economy, find solutions for everyday problems of dealing with too much of data and information and potentially even build the truly inclusive India that many of us dream of!
While Adi Godrej (CII president), IT CEOs Infotech?s BVR Mohan Reddy, Accenture?s Avinash Vashistha and Tech Mahindra?s CP Gurnani and Uma Ganesh of GTT emphasised support at the top for the proliferation of knowledge and learning across Indian organisations, the timely input of eminent consultants, Noshir Kaka of McKinsey and Tom Stewart of Booz provided the participants the tools to build a coherent knowledge strategy that could place knowledge at the centre of all organisation processes and reach out to transform the expectations and attainments of external as well as internal stakeholders.
However at the end of a glorious exchange of ideas over two days through eclectic panels, workshops and master classes, the icing on the cake was an emotional exhortation by Padmashri awardee IIT?s Deepak Phatak to the audience to think of India and adopt young underprivileged Indians into the knowledge community and give them a chance to dream bigger dreams.
In that last point lies the true power of knowledge management. After many decades of struggle with the basic task of information management, we have reached a stage in most companies where business intelligence and analytics are actually working, providing sliced and diced inputs to CXOs for accurate decision making. Availability of such capabilities inside the firm enables knowledge managers to deliver tools not only through customer and dealer portals on the demand and supply side but also potentially to a full community outside the four walls of the organisation. The immense capability of our human resource leaders and many willing CXOs could be leveraged through technology to power Centres of Excellence in University campuses and help students immerse themselves in the vast ocean of corporate knowledge even before they graduate and start looking for jobs.
A superb new initiative in the US created by serial entrepreneurs Monica Chandra and Bob Phillips called TurnRight Advice Solutions has already launched a full technology platform to enable students in colleges in the Eastern part of the US to connect with mentors all over the US.
Today most enlightened corporate executives are looking for avenues to engage with the younger generation and they would like to do it without travel and all the hassles that entails. Technology enables mentors and mentees to have interaction without leaving either of their locations and the rich advice that practitioners can provide is now freely available to ambitious colleges and students in well packaged and delivered formats.
It is path breaking initiatives like this which will truly supplement the large budget outlays for skills and education announced by finance minister Chidambaram in his development and inclusion budget and this needs all well-meaning Indians to get off the fence and plunge into the education challenge in our country. A couple of non-profits like NES are already experimenting with technology for recognition as well as mentoring of students but this is an area where significant funding from excellent entities like the National Skills Development Corporation could change the face of youth aspiration our country.
Back to the corporate agenda and the relevance of knowledge management today when collaboration and analytics tools dot the landscape of information technology is at a peak! A research study shows that the amount of data being thrown from all sides is the equivalent of reading over 170 full newspapers every day for a year. The loss of information and knowledge in this data inundation has caused a potential loss of revenue of over $30 billion to Fortune 500 companies alone and the benefits of embracing comprehensive knowledge management systems cannot be over emphasised. For this to happen, knowledge management has to move from the IT manager?s dashboard to the corner office and get the leadership focus it deserves.
Corporate chiefs seeking to implement KM as a collaboration enabler across and beyond their organisation will do well to refer to the research completed a few years ago at IIT Bombay which had established that there is a clear path towards knowledge management maturity that can be pursued by organisations. The first activity should be a comprehensive optimisation and in some cases total reengineering of business processes to ensure that knowledge flows are not orthogonal to the process flow.
Then comes the case for judicious incorporation of technology to speed up the knowledge exchange. The role of leadership itself will change as the organisation moves from a knowledge initiation phase through knowledge actions and progresses towards maturity from benevolent support to front line action but throughout the process a culture of learning and sharing has to be maintained. Truly a noble endeavor for the organisations of tomorrow!
The writer is vice-chairman & CEO of Zensar and a member of Nasscom?s Chairmen?s Council