Published on July 19, 2016
Twenty six participants from 10 Tata group companies attended a two-day Knowledge Management workshop organised by Tata Business Excellence Group (TBExG) on July 12-13, 2016, at Jamshedpur. This workshop, which saw participation from company BE Heads, company Knowledge Management experts, Strategists and Practitioners, was organised on the request of Tata companies which wanted a better understanding about the Knowledge Management challenges, solutions to such challenges and a structured Knowledge Management strategy and framework. The workshop focussed on sharing Knowledge Management practices from various Tata and non-Tata organisations. It provided Tata companies an opportunity to understand and appreciate different Knowledge Management approaches, distil best practices and identify them for deployment within their organisations.
Day 1 began with a welcome address by NK Sharan, Vice President, TBExG, which focussed on the objectives of the workshop. This was followed by the keynote address by DP Deshpande, Managing Director, Tata Sponge, in which he threw light on the importance of Knowledge Management in the organisation and how its objectives should be linked to overall business objectives so as to get buy-in of all stakeholders.
A Srinivasan, Vice President & Global Head Enterprise, KM & Internal Process Audits, TCS, and R Saravanan, Consultant - Process Design & DEG - Core KM, TCS, elaborated on how the company uses Knowledge Management to deliver value to customers. They also shared the evolution journey of Knowledge Management in the company, along with the guiding principle and solution approach that it had adopted.
An exciting presentation was then made by Jagdish Ramaswamy, President - Corporate Business Excellence, Aditya Birla Group (ABG), in which he shared the Knowledge Management framework and structure followed in ABG. Next up was Ajit Maleyvar, HoD – Business Excellence & Chief Quality Head, TPDDL, who threw light on how the company is leveraging the Best Practices programme by identifying relevant practices from EDGE portal and customising them for adoption with the help of process owners.
The last session of the day was from Darcy Lemons, Senior Advisor, APQC, who joined through a web-based call to give an overview on the fundamentals of Knowledge Management and how to a develop value proposition for it. She also shared best practices in the subject from her organisation.
In the first session of Day 2, Nidhi Basu, Lead - Knowledge Management, Corporate Business Excellence, Tata Motors, shared how the organisation is redefining the Knowledge Management approaches. She talked about the current challenges in the area, and how the organisation is designing its Knowledge Management strategy and framework to support critical business needs. Ravi Kumar, Head – TQM, Tata Steel, then threw light on how the company had benefitted through various Knowledge Management approaches and also the improvements made in the approaches through evaluation and learning.
Next to take the stage was Vinod Kumar, GM, TBExG, who took sessions on the Knowledge Management framework, critical knowledge needs and knowledge approaches, followed by breakout sessions to engage participants in identifying critical knowledge gaps. He also updated the participants on what TBExG has done so far for sharing best practices within the group using platforms like the EDGE portal, EDGE webinars, customised workshops, learning missions and the adoption process.
Abraham Stephanos, Managing Director – TSPDL, then gave a CEO’s perspective on Knowledge Management, talking about how knowledge needs to be captured from analysis of failures and repetitive mistakes, so that it can be used in process improvements to enhance organisational competitiveness.
Bringing the two-day workshop to a close, Sanjeev Singh, AVP, TBExG, interacted with the participants and shared his takeaways from each session. Feedback received from the participants was encouraging, with many indicating that they would implement the learnings in their respective organisations.
To know more about Tata Best Practices programme and to take part in similar workshops, contact Vinod Kumar at vinodkumar@tata.com and Devraj Chattaraj at dchattaraj@tata.com.