Published on October 18, 2021
Tata Elxsi has been successfully running its Knowledge Management (KM) programme and felt the need to find out how the programme, initiative, or service stacked up against the competition. The company planned to undergo the Open Standard Benchmarking (OSB) assessment to understand the following:
- The level and type of resources allocated to KM,
- The efficiency and effectiveness of KM activities, and
- Current and anticipated future outcomes
The performance benchmarking exercises with American Productivity and Quality Center (APQC), facilitated by Tata Business Excellence Group (TBExG), enables companies to identify areas for process and performance improvement. It also facilitates the creation of a culture of continuous improvement and transformation.
The purpose of the survey was to evaluate the inputs and outputs of the KM effort, including leadership, structure, and reporting relationships; KM staffing and expenditures; the tools and approaches used to enable the flow of knowledge; and measures of success.
The report highlighted key performance indicators related to KM in the categories of cost effectiveness, process efficiency and cycle time for Tata Elxsi compared to all participants against the 25th, 50th & 75th percentile along with the gap analysis.
Post the OSB assessment, Tata Elxsi will now uncover opportunities to improve:
- How their KM effort is managed and positioned,
- The level and type of resources allocated to KM,
- The efficiency and effectiveness of KM activities
The company is also planning to go ahead with APQC’s KM Capability Assessment Tool, which helps measure and evaluate the organisation’s KM competencies across four categories: strategy, people, process, and content & information technology.
The KM Capability Assessment Tool looks at everything from the KM strategy to how KM is funded, the governance in place, the processes and approaches, the technology, and the sophistication of the measures. It measures the KM programme against APQC’s levels of maturity, a five-step maturity model for KM programmes. The results will reveal the overall maturity rating for the KM programme, as well as the maturity rating in each of the 12 component areas, such as measurement, change management and IT.
Participant Speak
The APQC benchmarking activity provided us an understanding of our current strengths, gaps and opportunities for improvement for an effective Knowledge Management framework. The assessment helped us identify actions to enhance knowledge sharing and reuse capabilities and mechanisms to deploy knowledge to achieve business impact.
Mohan Kumar Narayanan, Lead - Knowledge Management, Tata Elxsi