Case Study: Infosys’ Knowledge Management Program And Challenges

Infosys: A Focus On Knowledge Sharing

As the firms indulge themselves in the consulting operations, technology and outsourcing business, Infosys is a very well known firm which knew that there was a need for it to invest in the knowledge management assets and practices (Narus & Seshadri, 2007). When Infosys was growing in a very speedy manner in the field of outsourcing, it led towards the global delivery model. This was the model in which the team members of the firm were circulated at the client sites and also to offshore Infosys software development centers across the world. Murthy and other founders very soon realized that the success of the firm is dependent on two pillars: the development of the intellectual resources and innovations which should be done continuously. This report focuses on the knowledge management growth that Infosys went through and the challenges it had to face in implementing the knowledge management base in the firm itself.

From the moment Infosys was found, its founders always have focused on knowledge sharing. In past years, there were multiple software developers who generally shared knowledge about projects when they gathered together. In the year 1992, there were some employees who raised the topic of knowledge sharing to Murthy. As a result, Murthy asked the managers to hold on to the brainstorming and training sessions whenever the projects complete and then also had asked them to document all the sessions (Singh & Yadav, 2018). Therefore, the generation of BOK was done. BOK was referred as the body of knowledge which was helpful in archiving these documents so that they could be used for future. Later BOK was changed in the electronic formation. As the years passed, the sharing of the knowledge went intensified within the employees. Hence, in 1999, a knowledge management program was incepted. The committee members involved Nandan and other members on board that involved some of the senior employees who had different profiles. The members were brought together for forming a strategy for implementation of KM. That committee defined the vision of the knowledge management system at Infosys.  After envisioning, the actions were taken in full power to take the knowledge management system to the next level altogether. They wanted to build the system which must have been full of knowledge for the new innovation.

Infosys made a great triumph in its knowledge management program as this program gave a good recognition to the firm and it became the most trendy knowledge venture in Asia for the years 2002 and 2003. With the success of this knowledge management, there were some of the challenges faced by the firm as well. With the initiatives of KM in collaboration with the other firms, there were questions being raised about the effect of the program on the performance of the firm. After being in the knowledge management program for four years, Nandan came to know that he would have to justify the commitment in terms of economy to the program. With the primary assessment, the knowledge management group conducted the polls annually and semi annually. There are some of the challenges which the firm faced in KM.

1. Lack of the defined Structures: KM has its own impacts on the operations of business. The firms always tend to lack when it comes to defining the standards and templates for the generation and capturing of data. There was also a lack of the well defined taxonomy makes it tough for all the staff members to search for the necessary and needed data in an easy way(Infosys, 2015).
2. Existing Information in Silos: The team management now days are done in Silos. The firms have scaled their operations according to that. This resulted in the compartmentalization of the data and information that is important within teams. All the employees know about their teams and they do acknowledge their areas of business as well. Hence, they miss the big picture in the KM. All this hinders the turnaround due to the time being wasted in looking out for the data while there is an urgent issues lying around.
3. Not the best usage of the technology: All the companies have unlimited tools for catering the set of needs for the particular area or a business unit. There is proliferation of the tools for catering the particular local as well as global needs. Due to the lack of centralized knowledge management tool, the information is sometimes restricted and it is not accessible to the team members of different areas or region. Here the licensing of the tool is very significant.
4. Local Best Practices: In the large firms like Infosys, it has been noticed that KM practices are adopted nationally by some of the teams. These best practices can be organizing the periodic share, sessions of learning or inviting the external trainers fort he job rotation and training purposes. However, the staff members felt that the best practices tend to exist in the small pockets and they should not be formalized as they limit the impact of the knowledge management system(Chari, 2015).
5. No focus on the documentation: In the world where it has become completely agile, the teams do not give much importance to the documentation. This was the same issue which was faced by Infosys as well. The tight execution deadlines were which were initiated by the team members of Infosys, actually decreased their focus on the documentation. This was because of the tight execution. The employees did not get much bandwidth to emphasize on the documentation process and knowledge sharing at the same time. This actually resulted in the assimilation of the tacit knowledge that was usually lost when the employee got separated from the firm(Kimble, 2013).

Inception Of Knowledge Management Program

There are two theories which can easily be connected to this situation and the case study of Infosys. These two can be the major contributors in the area of the organizational learning theory given by Chris Argrys and Donald Schon. As per both the researchers, organizational learning is a product of the organizational inquiry. This can be defined as the outcome expected at any time can easily differ from the original outcome. The teams would be engaged in the inquiry for understanding it and if required, would also solve the inconsistency. In the procedure of the inquiry related to the organization, the employee will have the interaction with the other members of the team and new learnings will generate at that point of time. Learning is hence a direct outcome of the interaction (Lloria, 2008). Both the researchers focused on the communication which goes son beyond the defined rules and the procedures. This approach given by both about the organizational learning theory was directly found on the understanding of the 2 modes of functions:

Espoused Theory: This theory can be defined as the part of firm which is formalized. Each firm tend to have the different instructions with respect to the way the staff members should conduct themselves for carrying out their jobs. Such instructions are mostly very particular and thin in spotlight that stops employee to create the path.

Theory – In – Use: This theory gives apt way in which things are done. The individual hardly ever follow the espoused theory & always will be dependent on the interacting & the brain storming to resolve any issue. Theory in use refers to lose and smooth and the communal way which the staff members use to solve the issues and hence teach (Thomas, 2016).

The objectives that Infosys had in its list at the time of facing challenges were that they wanted to increase the source of KM system. There were very less employees who were interested in creating and documenting their knowledge so that it is shared with other people as well. Hence, the objective of the firm was just to make the KM system or repository as spacious as it could be.

In firms that have about 10,000 people for the recognition, this can come as a very tough motivator for the employees. The knowledge management group initiated with the underplaying of the vitality of the KCU scheme and then added the score board on the Knowledge management system that displayed the top submissions of the type which is being searched by the employees. The scoreboard was updated monthly and names of the employees who won were tinted in the communication done corporately (Syed & Xiaoyan, 2013).

Challenges Faced By The Firm

To address the still higher level of the requirements of the employees, the knowledge management of the group initiated the focus on the organizational level benefits of the sharing of knowledge. The primary results denoted a 14% less defect rate in the previous schemes. Those projects were also taken to be on the low cost of quality metrics. The leaders of the project were also inquired for probable insight. Such benefits were highlighted so that the knowledge management portal was used by more and more members of the firm (Marque, 2006).

The majority of the team members were a drawback to the KM portal. The KM group then made the complicated move in consolidating the stand alone applications which were left untouched in the initial times. Such application were initially made and used by the special communities who were in reality very highly educated professionals (Lu, 2007).

However the creation of knowledge was always considered as the responsibility of the employees, the founders of Infosys realized that the management has a very vital role in the whole aim building of the KM Company. The knowledge which was created was very limited in the areas for supporting the members in some particular areas (Adaileh, 2013).

When the apt levels of growth & consolidation were attained, the organization initiated the strengthened knowledge sharing & application as the activities of business. The team within knowledge management group was allocated the duty for designing the apt sharing and application procedure. There were very strong behavioral problems that were linked with the obligatory sharing and application. Hence, the group realized that highly talented professionals could not be forced in sharing their own information (Sivasubramanian, 2016).

Conclusion

This report focuses on the case study of the knowledge management initiative taken by the firm Infosys in past years. The case study gives a background of the process as to how Infosys started the knowledge management system initiatives and the challenges it faced in the implementation of the system. People were not able to access the system nicely as there were issues being raised. Hence, there were some of the strategies which were adopted by the firm and these strategies helped the firm to take the KM portal to another level.

References

Adaileh, R. M. (2013). Knowledge Management Processes and their Impact on Organizational Performance “An Empirical Study in the Mining Companies in Jordan”. European Journal of Social Sciences , 38.

Chari, k. (2015). Infosys: Meeting the Knowledge Management Challenge. Journal of Information technology Education , 4 (2).

Infosys. (2015). Knowledge Management in the Globally Distributed Organization. Retrieved October 25, 2018, from 25https://www.infosys.com/consulting/features-opinions/Documents/globally-distributed-organization.pdf

Kimble, C. (2013). What Cost Knowledge Management? The Example of Infosys. Global Business and Organizational Excellence , 32 (3), 6-14.

Lloria, M. B. (2008). A review of the main approaches to knowledge management. Knowledge Management Research & Practice , 6 (1).

Lu, I. Y. (2007). Technology innovation and knowledge management in the high-tech industry. International Journal of Technology Management , 39 (1).

Marque, D. P. (2006). The effect of knowledge management practices on firm performance. Journal of Knowledge Management , 10 (3), 146-156.

Narus, J. A., & Seshadri, D. V. (2007). Infosys Technologies Ltd.: Growing Share of a Customer’s Business. Vikalpa , 32 (4).

Singh, J., & Yadav, P. (2018). Challenges and Strategies to Knowledge Management: Case Studies of Selected Companies. Retrieved October 25, 2018, from https://www.publishingindia.com/GetBrochure.aspx?query=UERGQnJvY2h1cmVzfC8xMzIucGRmfC8xMzIucGRm

Sivasubramanian, S. (2016). Process Model for Knowledge Management. Retrieved October 25, 2018, from https://www.lti.cs.cmu.edu/sites/default/files/Process%20Model%20for%20Knowledge%20Management.pdf

Syed, N., & Xiaoyan, L. (2013). The linkage between knowledge management practices and company Performance: empirical evidence. Journal of Industrial Engineering and Management , 6 (1), 1-7.

Thomas, P. (2016). Intention to use E-Journal; A Unified Theory of Acceptance and use of Technology Perspective. Journal of Research & Method in Education , 6 (4).