Knowledge Corps: utopia or real?

With every major software firm having achieved the SEI CMM Level 5 stage

today, this once sought-after label is no longer a competitive differentiator,

but the basic price of entry into the global software marketplace. In the quest

for the elusive differentiator, each of the majors has now been striking out on

some new path or the other–PCMM, CMMI, coverage of the whole enterprise within

the ambit of certification, ISO 9000: 2000 standards, Six Sigma etc etc. But the

truly dedicated ones should and are taking on a different agenda, one that is

worth examining in some details for the readers of this column, the agenda of

becoming true Knowledge Corporations.

How does a true Knowledge Corporation work and what are the characteristics

it exhibits? A detailed study of the Customer facing functions in various IT

organizations was undertaken as part of a study at the IIT Mumbai’s School of

Management, which showed that there are four distinct types of Knowledge

Corporations…

n Organizations whose successes in getting

business have been largely due to either being first in the market with a great

product or idea and who have not really established any processes for Knowledge

Capture or dissemination even amongst current practitioners. The ability to

respond knowledgeably to customers or acquire new customers with knowledge is

lacking, and so is the ability to impart knowledge born out of experience to new

employees–Early stage or pioneering organizations exhibit such

characteristics.

n Organizations where there is some amount

of predictability in Knowledge Sharing at the service delivery level, but there

is little or no sharing of Knowledge within the sales community and also between

sales and service delivery. This results in generally satisfied customers but

poor replicability of success because of lack of Knowledge Inputs to the sales

force–These are characteristics of early stage organizations that have started

gaining customer traction but have not instituted formal processes of knowledge

management.

n Organizations which have

established through a combination of discipline and maturity, an Information

Sharing mechanism by which regular reporting, sales force automation and

updating ensure that at least the explicit information capture occurs on a

regular basis and is tapped for all customer related transactions–These are

characteristics of organizations that have begun the journey to becoming

Knowledge Corporations

n Organizations, which

reach a level where both explicit and tacit knowledge is shared between

employees of a specific function, and across geographies, functions and

hierarchies. These are the true Knowledge Corporations, where excellent

processes for capturing, storing, disseminating and using knowledge as a

competitive weapon in business are demonstrated at all levels.

Compare this to the SEI CMM Five Level model and some

interesting parallels become visible. How can an organization successfully make

this transition to Knowledge Corporations status as an add-on and complementary

initiative to the beaten track of SEI CMM Process Maturity? Clearly, just

process maturity is not enough as a key Factor. Building a Knowledge Corporation

will call for significant leadership maturity, use of technology for managing

knowledge and people empowerment and training as key factors for attaining and

sustaining success. Each of these factors will be analyzed in subsequent

articles in this column.

Ganesh Natarajan



The author is the global CEO of Zensar Technologies