India Inc's future belongs to the empires of mind'

WHAT is common to Exxon, 3M, Intel, Microsoft, McDonalds, Sharp, Boeing and Incyte Genomics? It is strategic knowledge management. Of course, each of them had their own way of knowledge management. Interestingly, all those strategies were highly successful and enabled these global corporates secure the place where they are today.
Explaining the intricacies of these strategies to the representatives of corporate houses here on Thursday at a daylong workshop organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), Dr B. Bowonder of the Administrative Staff College of India (ASCI), said it was the generation and transformation of tacit knowledge in an organisation that enabled it create wealth and capital.
While Exxon adopted the strategy of Knowledge Fencing by choosing not to freely share its knowledge with anyone, 3M chose the Knowledge Mutating strategy in creating the laser transparent adhesives for the DVDs.
Intel assumed the Knowledge Racing strategy wherein it created knowledge so fast that nobody could copy it.
In the case of Microsoft, it was the strategy of Knowledge Co-evolving that made the software giant emerge global leader.
Through this strategy, Microsoft works from hundreds of locations across the globe and evolves knowledge that becomes highly difficult for the competitors to replicate.
According to Dr Bowonder, the strategy of McDonalds was interesting where the company chose the Knowledge Cascading model and has been adopting it to as many franchises as possible in making pizzas and burgers.
While Sharp took the Knowledge Hedging model to insure its innovations and Incyte Genomics chose Knowledge Leveraging model, it was Knowledge Integrating model that was successfully adopted by Boeing. Interestingly, Boeing makes only wings of aircraft on its own and outsources and integrates all other parts of the flight from various players, he said.
To ensure competitive edge, Dr Bowonder advised the Indian corporates to create strong personal agenda for their staff, enhance knowledge diffusion, create the necessary climate for knowledge sharing, stimulate spaces that can facilitate knowledge exploitation, network with knowledge gatekeepers and share successful experiences.
Stating that in an ever-changing world it was the learners who inherit the future, he however, said the studies show that only 30 per cent of the people were found to be active learners while others live in a world that exists no longer.
Dr Bowonder admitted that knowledge is an asset imperfectly traded. Management of such a sticky asset was quite difficult compared to the traditional management practices.
Citing some examples of the most successful Indian corporate houses, Dr Bowonder said leveraging the existing knowledge, Titan has successfully produced speedometers for Ford.
While sharing the knowledge among its operating and designing workforce through field engineering services, BHEL has successfully redesigned its products.
Not disclosing the name of a small corporate that created radar invisible coating for the light combat aircraft, he said the company falls under knowledge creation model.
Adopting knowledge renewing model, Himalaya Drugs has successfully produced herbal-based anti-cancer drug and completed validation and clinical trials. The Central Drug Research Institute (CDRI) developed memory drug from `Brahmi' and protected the knowledge by obtaining patents for its efforts, he said.