Introduction
Francisco D’Souza, the President and CEO of Cognizant Technology Solutions quoted “Cognizant 2.0 is our platform for global collaboration, knowledge management, and sharing of best practices.” Knowledge management was always a high priority for Cognizant since the beginning because its global delivery model requires the global sharing of knowledge. Its first tool was called the ‘Knowledge Management Appliance’ but as Web 2.0 tools came into wider use, Rajashree Natarajan evolved KM Appliance into what the company called "Cognizant 2.0" (C2). C2 was created to ensure that the KM Appliance functions for storing documents and participative tools such as blogs and wikis were directed towards supporting business goals. C2 enabled the firm to implement these functionalities with organization focused on core process execution. This required the implementation of a set of organized work process guidelines and tasks for each major type of project performed at the company. Awareness amongst its major clients about C2 led the company into considering if they should turn this into a client-facing service offering itself. As clients became more interested in knowledge management within their own companies, the interest in a C2-based offering could grow. Cognizant executives contemplated over how they would take Cognizant 2.0 to market as a service offering and also continue to expand and refine it for internal use.
1. Discuss the pros (e.g., fostering efficiencies) and cons (e.g., stifling creativity) of the C2 platform requiring project team members to follow a codified process for their projects.
Cognizant 2.0 boasted various attributes.
• It was a common program management and knowledge-sharing platform.
• C2 served as a common platform for collaboration across geographically-distributed project teams across all Cognizant’s extended enterprise.
• It provided quality control over deliveries at a real-time level.
• The tool also provided knowledge in the context of a particular work process and ongoing process guidance.
• C2 provided structured work process guidelines and tasks for each major type of work that Cognizant performed.
C2 platform was adopted rapidly by the project team member. Since there were specific guidelines depicted in the platform to perform required tasks in a project, it was highly codified. Although this codification had enormous number of advantages, there were some reservation which served as drawbacks.
Pros
The knowledge-oriented resources (document repositories and participative tools) were available through KM Appliance. This along with structured work process guidelines would be codified to allow the knowledge to be provided on projects and it would be later accessed in such a way that ensured the effective and productive work of the employees. This would drastically increase the efficiency of the team. Moreover, a dedicated process design group within the Knowledge Management Office (KMO) also developed process workflows with explicit task specifications for three major client services including systems delivery, management and maintenance. Such improvements not only helped to improve the delivery quality but also productivity of information system by supporting human developers and also automating some activities. Hence, dramatically improving the productivity of the employees.
Cons
There are various drawbacks of C2 requiring the team members to follow a codified process. To increase the utilization of the advanced feature of the platform, the KMO offered training sessions to onboard new employees and new users. It was found that employees were used to the participative knowledge tools such as forums, blogs and wikis, but they found the process structure and guidance less familiar. Employees were not very comfortable about the platform dictating the next step they were supposed to take. Hence, codification process using the tool would make the tasks mundane resulting in employees being unsatisfied with their work. Additionally, over usage of the codified process of the platform would hinder the ability of employees to come up with out of the box solutions. This would result in lack of creativity in the work place to find better or faster ways to the solve the problems for the client. That is counterproductive for a company which profits by boasting their technology solutions.
2. Discuss how the C2 platform can be enhanced to handle the more tacit kind of business domain and cultural knowledge that is very important for successful delivery of projects that involve business-oriented domain knowledge.
The importance of domain knowledge in any project cannot be overstated. Knowledge is explicit or obvious to the user, as well as tacit. Explicit knowledge can be easily documented, studied or transferred from one person to another. Contrary to that, tacit knowledge is something that can’t be easily documented, taught or transferred from one individual to another. It includes abstract and cultural attributes such as beliefs, attitudes, skills, capabilities, and expertise that a person uses to complete a task. This knowledge can prove to be difficult to transfer because it is deeply rooted within a specific individual and the way that the he/she performs specific tasks. Hence it is very difficult as well as important to understand this knowledge for a successful delivery of business-oriented domain project.
Cognizant 2.0 facilitated various participative tools such as blogs, wikis, and social tagging. C2 served as a common platform for collaboration across geographically-distributed project teams across all Cognizant’s extended enterprise. The information in such areas have enormous amount of knowledge about people and their culture, which is an area of interest to understand the tacit domain knowledge. It would be immensely productive if they were to modify C2 in such a way that the employees can understand some crucial information from the tool such as:
• Understand who is the customer.
• How exactly is the product sold if any (online, phone, in-person sales).
• How to support the customer. Understand their needs and nature.
• Understand the culture of customer in different geographic location and how it affects the business.
• Which partners to work with to do business and how to manage these relationships.
Studies have found that more often than not communication gaps exist in many projects. Various projects fail because a communications gap exists between customer and developers. Employees at cognizant were found to be extensively involved in blogging. D’Souza had even discussed strategic issues at Cognizant with entry-level employees in online discussion forums and blogs. If this communication gap can be bridged using the versatility of C2 by tweaking some elements, it would increase the success rate of the projects.
3. Do you think the C2 platform will work as effectively within Cognizant client firms as it works within Cognizant? Why or why not?
I am positive that it would be an enormous success if C2 platform went live for Cognizant client firms. C2 could provide greater operational agility, unnecessary cost avoidance, and improved planning capabilities to the client firms, which would increase the efficiency of the firm dramatically. IT solutions is highly competitive market and getting an edge over other firms with C2 platform would ensure the dominance of Cognizant over next few years to come. Additionally, this would also mean a closer relationship between Cognizant and its clients. C2 is a common program management and knowledge-sharing platform allowing the client firm employees to exchange useful knowledge among themselves and with the developers of cognizant. This could also help in reducing the communication gap between employees of the client firm and Cognizant. This would not only mean cost saving and better product for the client firms but also a clear understanding of the requirements for the developers to be more efficient in their work. More importantly C2 serves as a common platform for collaboration across geographically-distributed project teams across all Cognizant’s extended enterprise. This would be immensely helpful for financial organizations who manage business at multiple places over the globe. D’Souza said “We believe that some client processes would be particularly well-suited for this, such as those involving regulation and compliance. Financial services clients see it as helping to deal with regulatory issues across geography.” Clearly Cognizant is confident in capability of C2 platform which would allow a much more distributed process across geography to capture value in the market. Moreover, there is enough evidence that there is a growing demand for cloud computing. C2 can allow the IT services to run through external cloud environment with other processes functioning from a completely different place. These advantages would drastically increase the efficiency of the client firm and in turn would help Cognizant retain a prestigious place in the market.