BISY3005/ISY3005/ISY305 Knowledge Management Report Analysis

This report analyzes the Knowledge Management (KM) initiatives implemented by Reliance Industries Limited, an Indian multinational company. The report explores the organization's challenges in managing and disseminating information across its various divisions. The KM initiative, Reliance KMS, a knowledge capturing and management portal, is examined in detail, including its features and benefits. The report discusses the operational and conceptual issues faced during implementation, such as the need to create a culture of knowledge sharing and the challenges of changing employee mindsets. Furthermore, the report assesses the success of the KM initiative, including metrics such as business impact, assisted service, and self-service, as well as the positive impact on employee engagement and knowledge sharing. The report concludes that the KM initiative was successful in creating a common platform for employees, saving productive time, and fostering a culture of knowledge sharing within the organization.

RUNNING HEAD: KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT
KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Author’s Note:

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Describe the organization and explain the problem or opportunity it faced.
Understanding the definition of knowledge management and its significance in the
business organization must be understood. In a business organization, knowledge
management is a procedure that helps the employee of the organization to share, access, and
improve the business knowledge (Hislop, Bosua and Helms 2018). By implementing the
knowledge management system in the business operation, the management team can get
various benefits like employee awareness, transfer of knowledge, appropriate decision
making, and availability of knowledge (Dalkir 2013). To adopt new organizational changes,
implementing the knowledge management procedure can be beneficial for the business
organization.
Reliance Industries Limited is an Indian multinational business organization.
Headquarter of this organization is located in Mumbai, Maharashtra. In India, this
organization is engaged in telecommunication service, retail industry, textiles industry, and
energy and petrochemicals industry (Ril.com 2018). The management team of this
organization was interested to deliver the necessary information of the functional head’s
meetings, meetings of discipline head, and details of regular safety meetings to the
employees. The management team of this organization was interested to share the learning
from incidents related to business operations to the employee. A huge number of employees
of this company are working in different business divisions across the country. It was a
challenge for this company to manage and monitor knowledge and information from all of
these workers. An internal audit of this company referred that this organization has invested a
huge amount of money to manage the information and data. So it can be said that while
implementing the knowledge management initiatives, this organization faces two types of
problems which are operational issues and conceptual issues.

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In this part, the operational issues and conceptual issues of Reliance industries will be
discussed. Knowledge management procedure for a business organization is time-consuming
because to develop the procedure, the organization has to create, distribute, use, exploit and
maintain knowledge. Implementing the knowledge management initiative is difficult to
implement at the operational level. The number of employees working in this organization
has created a problem to implement the knowledge management procedure. On the other
hand, the conceptual issues have created a barrier for Reliance Industries Ltd (Ril.com 2018).
To implement the initiative this organization had to maintain data management, information
management. It was difficult to transform the mind set-up of the employees.
After implementing the knowledge management initiative successfully through
ordinary resolution, this organization has achieved several benefits. The knowledge
management initiative taken by Reliance Industries Ltd was beneficial for the employees of
this organization as those employees got a common platform for each and every application
of this organization. Through this common platform of this organization, workers of this
organization can avail information, news regarding the company, participate in forums.
Knowledge management initiative of Reliance Industries Ltd saves a lot of productive time
for the employees (Natarajan and Bagwan 2016). This initiative taken by Reliance Industries
Ltd has created a sense of bonding between the employees.
Describe the nature of the Knowledge Management initiative that the
organization implemented including the process by which the initiative was
selected.
The success of Reliance Industries Ltd depends on the information integrity of the
company. To achieve the goal, this organization emphasized on information integrity. E-
commerce and business information warehouse of Reliance Industries Ltd has integrated with

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Enterprise-wide SAP 4.6 system (Natarajan and Bagwan 2016). Implementation of the
knowledge management system and active directory group policy and project code red has
been implemented by this organization to accomplish the goal. For the process monitoring
procedure, the authority of this organization has implemented automated process control and
process information system IP21 (Natarajan and Bagwan 2016). A central counsel named
‘Centre for maintenance and engineering excellence’ has created by this organization. The
objective of this council is to guide the training, development of a knowledge management
system of Reliance Industries Ltd.
To run the business successfully this organization has to develop an efficient system
that will manage the knowledge management of this organization (Becerra-Fernandez and
Sabherwal 2014). To solve this problem, this organization has established a knowledge
capturing and management portal named Reliance KMS. This portal, which is a knowledge
management initiative of Reliance Industries Ltd, has a single sign-on for every central
application. Through this initiative, every employee of this company has to upload the
document, search documents, and selective sharing of images and papers. The Reliance KMS
is supported by Google which ensures stress-free access to the files. This initiative manages
e-learning, travel management procedure, announcements, project management procedures,
email, Wikipedia, internal magazines, SAP worker self-service, opportunities, detail
information of each manufacturing site, and awards.
By implementing the knowledge management procedure this organization was
interested to create knowledge nodes. The details of the functional head’s meeting, the
meeting of discipline head and safety meeting will be shared by this organization through the
knowledge management system. To develop the knowledge management system this
organization has taken a knowledge management initiative for the employee. Learning from
incidence will be shared for the employees through this knowledge management procedure.

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The authority of Reliance Industries Ltd has created three libraries which are PMDI library, R
& D library, and Technical library (Natarajan and Bagwan 2016). The employee of this
company can avail books, magazines, newspaper and journals regarding various issues from
these libraries. The collection of books, magazines of these libraries are helpful for the
employee to gain knowledge. Process safety management and Root cause failure analysis are
managed by the company and information are shared among employee by the authority of
Reliance Industries Ltd.
Explain and analyze any difficulties the organization may have faced in
implementing the system.
Before introducing Reliance KMS, which is a knowledge management initiative of
this organization, except for the mailing system, Reliance Industries Limited did not have any
common platform for the employee. It was a challenging situation for this company to create
a single platform for the employee. Sharing and developing structural capital was a difficult
situation for this organization. This organization has to take a knowledge management
initiative that can be useful for every employee of this organization. The authority was
interested to collect data, information to improve the business operation. As a knowledge
management initiative, this organization created Reliance KMS. It can be said that Reliance
KMS is successful to achieve its vision.
While implementing the knowledge management procedure, Reliance Industries Ltd
has faced two types of barriers which are conceptual issues and operational issues. In this
part, a detailed analysis will be done to get a clear idea about these two issues. This
organization has to manage the conceptual barriers while implementing the knowledge
management procedure. Through the knowledge management procedure, this organization
had to create a culture of sharing. In a competitive business atmosphere, any business

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organization can achieve a competitive advantage through the appropriate use of knowledge
(Meihami and Meihami 2014). The authority of Reliance Industries Ltd had to eliminate the
organizational barriers and cultural barriers for better and appropriate communication by
creating the culture of knowledge sharing. In this organization, the culture of ‘hoarding of
knowledge to gain power’ had to be changed in the culture of ‘sharing of knowledge to gain
power’.
This organization has to manage operational barriers while implementing the
knowledge management procedure. Implementing the knowledge management initiative was
an extra-added responsibility for the executive team of this company. In the beginning, the
implementation of knowledge management was treated as a diversion from the primary goal.
To implement the new initiative, a strong endorsement of the senior management team was
necessary. Implementing a knowledge management procedure is an organizational
transformation procedure that must be guided by the experienced management team of the
business organization. Knowledge management helps the business organization to
accomplish the objectives of the organization. It improves the performance of the workers,
supports the innovation to achieve competitive advantages, and allows knowledge sharing
and overall improvement of collaborative work practices (Tseng and Lee 2014). To
implement knowledge management initiatives and maintain an efficient knowledge system,
the authority has to follow technical improvement and innovation (Santoro et al. 2018). To
simplify the procedure for the employee, this organization has to maintain an expert operation
system. The authority of Reliance Industries Ltd has to follow frequent knowledge
management practices which are a procedure of creation, accumulation, and implication of
knowledge. The experienced senior management team of Reliance Industries Ltd has to
enable communities of practice, and corporate yellow page directories because it will be
beneficial for accessing the key personal and expertise. The senior management team has to

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enable technical developments that allow knowledge bases, document management
procedures, corporate intranets, and extranets, expert systems, content management
procedures, and help desks for the employee of the company.
While implementing the knowledge management system in the business operation of
Reliance Industries Ltd, the authority of this organization has to manage these barriers. The
authority has successful to implement the effective knowledge management procedure.
Provide an assessment of how successful the Knowledge Management
initiative was and a discussion of any success metrics that were used
To monitor the knowledge management initiative of Reliance Industries Ltd multiple
metrics were used like business impact, assisted service, self-service, and product
improvement. The metrics ‘business impact’ analyses ‘five whys’. The answers of why the
organization needs to improve the knowledge quality, why the organization needs to improve
the first contact resolution rate, why the organization needs to curtail the meantime to
resolution, why the organization has to develop productivity, and consumer satisfaction, why
the organization has to maximize the customer loyalty and reduce cost per incident, and why
the organization has to prioritizes maximize profit and increase sales will be identified by this
procedure (Massingham and Massingham 2014). The assisted service metrics will help the
organization to implement the knowledge management procedure by following certain
procedures which are link rate, create rate, reuse rate, and modify rate. This method analyses
the link quality and knowledge quality. The self-service procedure will help the organization
to generate customer satisfaction. Product improvement will help to maximize customer
loyalty and customer satisfaction (Ragab and Arisha 2013). These metrics will be helpful for
the senior executive team of Reliance Industries Ltd to monitor the implementation of the
knowledge management initiative in the operation. The organization has to transform the

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culture of the organization. The culture of sharing knowledge must be prioritized by the
management team of the organization. The use of knowledge will help the organization to
improve product quality. To attain a competitive advantage, this organization not only has to
implement the knowledge management initiative but also monitor the effectiveness of the
new initiative (Geisler and Wickramasinghe 2015).
The knowledge management initiative, taken by Reliance Industries Limited, was
successful. After implementing the knowledge management initiative, the authority of this
organization owns more than 100,000 knowledge documents and acts as references for the
employee (Natarajan and Bagwan 2016). With the help of employee contribution on a daily
basis, the structural capital of this organization is being developed. At present, Reliance KMS
is a single platform, which can be used by the employee of this company can get access to
news, application of this company. By participating in the forum through this knowledge
management platform, workers of this company are saving productive time. More than 7,000
users visited this platform for knowledge management on a regular basis (Natarajan and
Bagwan 2016). This organization is interested to develop the most efficient knowledge
management in the industry. The culture of knowledge sharing has created a strong
relationship among the employees of this organization. For now, employees, this knowledge
management system is beneficial to understand the culture of Reliance Industries Ltd. Before
implementing the knowledge management system, the organization had to conduct training
courses for the new employee. So it can be said that after the successful implementation of
the new initiative, this organization not only saves money but also save the productive time of
the employee. So it can be said that the initiative, taken by Reliance Industries Limited, is
successful.

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Key performance
indicator
Operation efficiency Whether the knowledge management initiative of Reliance is
successful or not can be measured through this part. After
implementing the knowledge management initiative, the business
operation style has improved. Through these initiatives, the
management team of this organization is collecting data regarding
every project. To make an efficient business operation, these data
are being used by the management team of Reliance Industries Ltd.
So it can be said that these initiatives are successful to improve
operational efficiency.
Employee feedback If these initiatives are successful to fulfill the requirements of the
employee then it can be said that those knowledge management
initiatives of Reliance Industries Ltd are successful. More than
7000 employees of this organization are getting benefits from these
initiatives on a regular basis. So it can be said that the knowledge
management initiatives are successful.
Customer service The aim of Reliance Industries Ltd is to provide the best customer
service. This indicator refers that by implementing the knowledge
management initiatives, the management team of this company is
identifying faults in customer service. To rectify those faults,
appropriate data about the business operation is necessary. So it can
be said that implementing these initiatives can help the company to
improve customer service.

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References:
Becerra-Fernandez, I. and Sabherwal, R., 2014. Knowledge management: Systems and
processes. Routledge.
Dalkir, K., 2013. Knowledge management in theory and practice. Routledge.
Geisler, E. and Wickramasinghe, N., 2015. Principles of Knowledge Management: Theory,
Practice, and Cases: Theory, Practice, and Cases. Routledge.
Hislop, D., Bosua, R. and Helms, R., 2018. Knowledge management in organizations: A
critical introduction. Oxford University Press.
Massingham, P.R. and Massingham, R.K., 2014. Does knowledge management produce
practical outcomes?. Journal of Knowledge Management.
Meihami, B. and Meihami, H., 201c4. Knowledge Management a way to gain a competitive
advantage in firms (evidence of manufacturing companies). International letters of social
and humanistic sciences, 3(14), pp.80-91.
Natarajan, G. and Bagwan, S., 2016. Knowledge management adoption in India. Imperial
Journal of Interdisciplinary Research, 2(4), pp.206-211.
Ragab, M.A. and Arisha, A., 2013. Knowledge management and measurement: a critical
review. Journal of knowledge management.
Ril.com (2018). [online] Ril.com. Available at:
https://www.ril.com/DownloadFiles/SustainiabilityReports/RILs%20Sustainability
%20Report%202017-18.pdf [Accessed 29 Jan. 2020].

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Santoro, G., Vrontis, D., Thrassou, A. and Dezi, L., 2018. The Internet of Things: Building a
knowledge management system for open innovation and knowledge management
capacity. Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 136, pp.347-354.
Tseng, S.M. and Lee, P.S., 2014. The effect of knowledge management capability and
dynamic capability on organizational performance. Journal of Enterprise Information
Management.