Everyday we come across judgments, opinions and reports about how Indian companies should focus on innovation to overcome the challenges they are facing today. They say how you should invest time and resources in research & development, how you should innovate the way your company, its employees and its business functions are managed but none of them stress enough on how to manage the knowledge, both internal and external, to enable you to achieve this. How to gather, arrange and apply your domain knowledge in inventing a new product/service/solution which is customized for an emerging market, or the managing expertise you have gained all through this years running your business in a dynamic economy like India to overcome the challenges while expending to a new geographic area or new market segment is never emphasized up on.
When we say we want to build a culture that is flexible and dynamic enough to respond to ever evolving market needs we actually have to build a workforce which can look out for and identify each and every opportunity to evolve your business and a practice of sharing the knowledge it gain through everyday activities vide the organization so that synergies develop between fragments of knowledge leading to innovation which could be a new product or a new approach to business or identification of an untapped opportunity. When organizations continuously develops and enhance such capabilities among its employees it leads to fulfillment of the ultimate objective of making innovation an integral part of its DNA to move forward, reorganizing and adapting to changing market needs.
Today companies all over the world realize the importance of managing the intellectual capital of the company and that is why they are in constant effort to figure out precisely what their customers want and how to get it to them before the competition does. Many companies in the West have reaped the benefits of appropriate Knowledge Management in the past but copying what they have done may not be the ideal solution in Indian scenario because of two main reasons. First, people being the core asset of any business there is an inherent difference in the way business functions are carried out and organized in India and in the West. Second, when we say about managing knowledge to innovate and reorganize from the expertise you have gained in the past through customization and service of foreign products/solutions we need to go one step further than the present concept of knowledge management. Other challenges Indian companies could face are the poor IT infrastructure both within and outside the company, attitude and lack of awareness of employees, lack of successful existing model in India and hurdles management may face implementing knowledge management as an enabler for their business goals.
The future lies in the knowledge-intensive processes. When you go to a customer, the biggest challenge is dealing with the perception of risk. It’s not only price, technology, or attrition of people – it’s also whether the customer feels comfortable. So you have to come through with deep credibility. No longer should India be just a source of cheap code/commodity/service, the country’s corporate should rapidly move into more complex operations at a fast clip.
