People's knowledge is a valuable source of growth company. In the modern world every day we are confronted with a huge amount of information. There are always new technologies, knowledge, and processes being developed. In order to understand all this and quickly make right decision, we need ability to quickly access relevant information. This makes possible the knowledge management system.
IT professionals belong to the category of knowledge workers: they are hired for their knowledge, theoretical and analytical, which they possess, for the processing and transformation of knowledge. At the same time, one of the worldwide problems in the industry is lack of personnel – to recruit and retain good professional in IT field difficult enough. Moreover, with the departure of specialist for the company lost all its knowledge and skills. That is why the task of knowledge management for IT companies is vital.
EPAM Systems is a leading company in outsourcing services market. The company executes projects in more than 30 countries. The company works with such clients as Microsoft, Reuters, Samsung America, Colgate Palmolive, Procter & Gamble, Peugeot. EPAM Systems has offices in different countries – Belarus, Russia, Great Britain, Hungary, USA. Number of employees is constantly growing – at the moment it is more than 10 000 employees. Constantly opening and filled new vacancies which often occupied by young employees, graduates of universities. New employees need quickly learn how to apply all theoretical knowledge in real projects. In addition, firm’s management should provide regular training of experienced staff.
The research in this article will be considered under Russian speaking countries: Russia, Ukraine and Belarus.
EPAM Systems uses different IT solutions for management and knowledge sharing. Consider some of them in more detail.
1. Corporate knowledge portals. They are introduced with a complete set of processes adopted by a company – from the process of search and recruitment to corporate training. Information is collected for different groups of employees and depend on their role in the project.
2. The learning portal. EPAM Systems constantly conducts technical trainings and language courses. The learning portal brings together information about activities for staff trainings. After training, all participants evaluate the quality of teaching and training materials. These and other options displays the average of the test scores that allow judging how successfully completed the course, correct and improve the quality.
3. Decision support tools. Those tools help manage tangible and intangible company’s assets, monitor and plan their loading. The system regularly updated profiles of each employee, which indicate their education, skills and experience.
4. Document management system. Such solutions allow post documents and track their versions, organize procedure for checking documents before publishing.
In that way, based on EPAM Systems IT solutions, possible to allocate two main strategies of knowledge management: codification and personalization knowledge.
The codification strategy at Epam systems based on extensive use of IT tools for data search and support of electronic knowledge bases, allowing to accumulate organizational intellectual capital. This approach leaves little place for innovation and employee creativity, but it gives ability to base on reliable ways to solve problems. EPAM Systems business model oriented on improving efficiency and reducing costs, so codification strategy is in good agreement with this. The main economic benefits from introduction of codification strategy is to reduce costs through economies of scale. The implementation of knowledge management systems at Epam systems led to many benefits: reduction time on documentation activities, reducing administrative and customer service costs.
Personalization knowledge strategy focused on developing employee creativity and facilitating exchange of knowledge. The main focus on implementation this strategy based on development of individual employees to find solutions to their problems. In this way Epam systems encourage sharing knowledge between employees.
According to Nonaka, there are four types of «ba» corresponding to the model of knowledge creation SECI (socialization, externalization, combination, internalization), which describes four possible transition of knowledge: implicit to implicit, tacit to explicit, explicit to explicit and explicit to implicit. Under «ba» in this case means platform for the concentration of resources, including knowledge assets, intellectual company capabilities in the framework of knowledge creation process.
Originating «ba» is the basis for the creation of knowledge. It means a personal communication between project team members in the project work process, which used to transfer tacit knowledge between team members.
Interacting «ba» created consciously by the project manager in the process of creation and team development. This includes work in groups on various project tasks. Then the results are recorded that leads to transformation knowledge from implicit to explicit.
After development activities of the project team are done, the project management team can evaluate effectiveness of teamwork project. Effective strategies and operations for team’s development need to increase productivity that contributes to achieve project goals.
Cyber «ba» occurs when use of information technology, for example, corporate project management system or corporate portal. The result is a combining of new explicit knowledge with existing information that systemize explicit knowledge of the organization. Actually, the whole project documentation can be considered as the place of creation new explicit knowledge. One of the basic function this knowledge is ability for the organization to avoid repeating past mistakes.
Excercising «ba» contributes to transformation of explicit knowledge into implicit. This includes targeted training of project team.
Thus use of above-described spiral model knowledge development, allows to see that information technology can be used only in one phase of the four – cyber «ba». This means that none information system, even most perfect, can not fully automate the process of knowledge management in the enterprise. Inasmuch as knowledge management is a complex process, its emergence should occur gradually. At the same time, IT business process development is impossible without use of design approach.
Epam systems has faced difficulties in implementation of KM solutions related to motivation people to fill up the knowledge base and receiving benefits from these solutions. In order to solve these problems, firm used several different approaches.
Consequently, one of the way is to build internal company processes to knowledge sharing became a mandatory practice in some cases. For example, after project completion, all accumulated materials should be formalized and retained – a case study with a work description, technology used, results, technical documentation, customer reviews.
Another way is to stimulate knowledge sharing between employees. Efficiently organized knowledge management system allows the company to retain and accumulate experience in order to effectively use it in offices in different countries.
By the example of Epam Systems, it is possible to conclude that implementation of IT systems to knowledge management provides many benefits: leads to a time reduction on documentation activities, reducing cost of paperwork and telecommunications, reduce transport costs, increase of productivity. Moreover, increase the value of intellectual capital – reduce costs when valuable professionals leave company, improve effectiveness of a training program.
Consequently, design plays a vital role in building a knowledge management system in modern IT company. Moreover, exactly design, which allows expanding communication between company's employees, is a methodological basis of this process. It is necessary but not sufficient component of knowledge management process in the enterprise. There is necessary availability person who is responsible for creation and accumulation of knowledge within the enterprise, the architect of knowledge management system, to efficient business operation. Consequently, design processes in IT organization are the most important basis for establishment of knowledge management system in the enterprise, allowing creating intangible assets and increasing business value.
However, in order to successfully implement a knowledge management system, advanced IT technology is not enough, necessary to create an atmosphere in the team, where knowledge sharing will be encouraged and supported. The company's management has a big
task – creation of knowledge sharing culture. This includes employees motivating who are willing to share information that may be their personal asset, but to constitute a competitive advantage for the company as a whole.