Importance of ICM in the Knowledge Economy
Every organization in the latest business world should follow a strategy of implementing ICT techniques within the business process. The sole factor in today’s time in every business organization depends on the way the business process utilizes the technological advancements as a strategy to ensure benefits to the business. The progress that technological world is making should also works as an advantage to the organizations utilizing them in favour of their business processes. In this case study as well, the focus would be at utilizing ICT system in a business process for smooth progression of the business processes for the benefit of the organization called GPBI, one of the core battery manufacturers in the world. This report would follow the case study where the latest implementation of an ICT methodology is subjected to implement for two GPBI production plants for identifying the knowledge assets and knowledge flows of the VAQMP. This will be done through the ICT implementation of the software STOCKS for knowledge audit methodology. It would be justified in the report by stating the advantages and disadvantages for performing this implementation based on the company overview, the current manufacturing of the product the company has been delivering, the current systems and tools utilized in the organization, the competitive business advantage based on the business process, the problem, benefits and risks of the current systems and the outcomes based on the case study and suggested implementation of the current business process.
The business problems related to the chosen battery manufacturing organisation are the quality of services provided to their clients, equipment’s which are required in the production rooms of this organisation, maintaining a good relation with all the external stakeholders of the business market (Gupta, Kaushal and Shukla 2018). The management of the generated information from different departments of this organisation is the most vital business problem associated with this battery manufacturing organisation. The other different categories of business problems of this organisation are the issues involving the application of the design framework, redesigning of the stocks so that the products can be reused under specific business conditions and protection of essential business data. Time management is the other business problem associated with this organisation along with the lack of systematic approach in implementing the knowledge audits.
The problem factors of this business organisation are the activities of the internal and external stakeholders who play their respective roles in the internal and external activities of the organisation. The different aspects regarding the protection of the essential data of the business organisation such as data analysis, data validation, and identification of IC indicators and construction of IC value trees (Jayakrishna, Vinodh and Anish 2016). The accurate implementation of the latest industrial technologies is the other essential business factors of this business organisation.
Defining Intellectual Capital
The chosen paper gives the readers of this document a brief idea about the background of the company. The selected company GPBI is one of the leading battery manufacturers in the world which provides different types of battery related products all over the world. Enlisted in 1991 in the Singapore Exchange Securities Trading Limited, this organisation is currently a component stock of the Singapore Regional Index. The production unit of this organisation lies in over 16 countries all over Asia, Europe and America. They provide enhanced quality related services to their clients which are one the main reasons behind its acceptance as global battery manufacturing brand. The organisation has dedicated quality assessing squads for evaluating their services as well as the knowledge assets.
The selected organisation in this case study have a very complicated organisation structure and each stakeholder of the organisation is associated to specific tasks which have an impact on the growth and productivity of the organisations (Lennon et al. 2017). The internal and external stakeholders are broadly classified within the two categories of their business structure such as the DGCB Stakeholders and the DGYF stakeholders. The classification of these two categories is based on the following criteria’s such as:
- Common documents such as the critical document which accessed by both the types of stakeholders.
- Use of the focus documents which have a direct impact on the productivity of the organisation.
- Abundant documents which state the data related to the average score of the interviewed participants.
- Normal documents which are used only by the internal stakeholders.
The organisation has a very impressive working environment within their production units as well as the other non-productive units. The organisation maintains a huge balance between both the units to accomplish their desired business objectives (Famiyeh et al. 2018). The documents used by the stakeholders of the organisation are helpful for the identification of the knowledge workers so that the organisation can achieve their anticipated intensions.
The sub structure of the organisation have different categories of quality assessment teams as the internal stakeholders such as the GQA, DGYF QA, GB team, Plant QA, DGYF EG, FTPT, GPBI GO and DGYF PE at the same time this organisation also have a dedicated external company which works effectively with all the retailers and associated sponsor partners (Inkinen 2016).
Currently, the organization of GPBI has been manufacturing batteries as their major product for which the organization has become one of the renowned battery producing organizations in the world (Grover and Froese 2016). It happens to supply a huge amount of their sole product at an extensive range to the original equipment manufacturers or OEMs and the leading battery organizations. Along with that, the organization happens to supply their product to the market directly using their own brand name. GPBI has been listed on the main-board of the Singapore Exchange Securities Trading Limited since 1991 and is currently a component stock of the Singapore Regional Index. Its production facilities are located in 5 cities and countries of Asia, supported by marketing and trading offices in 16 countries and cities in Asia, America and Europe. The GPBI Quality Assurance Departments of both Headquarters and the production plants have wide knowledge and expertise on quality related issues (Hislop, Bosua and Helms 2018).
The Limitations of Top-Down Assessment Tools
Currently, the organization has been utilizing knowledge audit in both its plants, namely, DGCB and DGYF without implementing ICT techniques. The knowledge management is handled in the organization in nine phases in both its plants that happens to manage the knowledge transferred in the entire organization to the entire workforce regarding the manufacturing and supply of the production of the battery (Soto-Acosta and Cegarra-Navarro 2016). The STOCK knowledge assumption in the organization is based on knowledge auditing based on the entire workforce consisting of about 74 staff, 4 corporate functions and 5 departments in two plants, from different work levels in six key processes from each plant.
The software utilized for the ICT implementation of Knowledge Auditing for the organization of GPBI was the knowledge audit tool, Strategic Tools to Capture Critical Knowledge and Skills or STOCKS software using the six keys of VAQMP or Value Added Quality Management Processes. In addition to that, as supplementary software, AutoSTOCKS was used (Massaro, Dumay and Garlatti 2015).
As the technical device, the Intellectual Capital or IC of the organization was selected, which constituted the specific and organized information of the organization (Gagnon et al. 2015). The core business process that was taken into account in this regard has been the Intellectual Capital Management or ICM.
The competitive business advantage that GPBI had over its competitors by implementing these software in the effective knowledge auditing for the organization was manifold and in terms of time and money (Hamoud et al. 2016). There were two plants that had to be taken care of including huge number of sub-processes and even enormous amounts of information generated from different departments. Handling all the information in a single process manually and without the influence of ICT based technologies, it would have been impossible to handle. The ICT implementation is able to limit the usage of capital and wastage of time that manual process implemented.
The IT emerging technologies of handling the knowledge from every department using the knowledge management software STOCKS is essentially effective, saving both the useful time and capital for the benefit of the organization (Santoro et al. 2017). In structured and unstructured business processes nowadays, it is necessary that knowledge audit methodologies be implemented, and the latest advancements of the IT technologies are making it even easier by introducing newer software in the market making the otherwise lengthy process concise.
The only problem in the organization regarding the knowledge auditing for the manufacturing process in the two plants had been the generated information in huge amount from every department in the organization.
The Process-Oriented STOCKS Knowledge Audit Approach
The organization had implemented the technology for knowledge audit of the generated information in the entire business organization for the manufacturing process of the batteries and their supply (Arpaci 2017). The generated information would be taken into account from all the departments of the organization including the two manufacturing plants.
The organization would be at a benefit of managing the information generated in less amount of time saving the wastage of capital that were being done in the manual knowledge auditing process without the implementation of ICT technologies (Shyam and Das 2016).
The organization is at an opportunity of implementing new strategies for the business organization with the saved capital and time.
As every technical implementation has their own advantages and disadvantages, the ICT knowledge management facility also has their pros and cons. There can be noticeable advantages in implementing ICT techniques in knowledge auditing for checking the status of the knowledge management throughout the organization but is not to be neglected that as a matter of fact there can also be potential risks related to the deployed ICT technique. These can be justified as below:
The utility of the entire implementation project can be limited given the fact that the assumptions may or may not reflect the entire situation within the organization. As per the studies made prior to the implementation process, it was found that the intellectual capital recording just focused on the VAQMP key processes, but it failed to recognize the entire business perspective of the organization as a whole. It was also found that the STOCKS knowledge audit that was utilized in the process had been taken up for the automatic processing of the huge amount of data rather than using a manual process to enter the data. The software that had been used as the supplementary software, called the AutoSTOCKS has also been outsourced software from the Hong Kong Polytechnic University for the consolidation of the systematic auditing of data. This could cause problems later as the entire software was not authorized from the original manufacturers. In addition to that, the knowledge auditors used for this process were also not well trained (Del Giudice and Della Peruta 2016). The organization was in need of training the knowledge auditors before extending such research to the whole organization.
Instead of all the shortcomings, the process utilized the approach of bottom up ICT research knowledge management process which helped in identification of the organizational knowledge which was in need of capturing and sharing for the healthy operation and sustainability of the quality management processes in order to prevent quality crises. With all these beneficiary techniques applied, the organization was successful in generating an ICT value tree, an intellectual capital statement for the GQA department (North and Kumta 2018). Along with that, the GQA department could also conduct risk management and set ICT annual targets for continuous quality improvement in the company.
The Potential of Merging iCM and STOCKS
Conclusion and Recommendations
Thus, it can be concluded at the end of this report that with proper utilization and implementation of the VAQMP through STOCKS knowledge audit methodology in ICT for the organization of GPBI in both the production plants would be absolutely beneficial for the organization’s business. This has been established by the report following the case study. This has been justified in the report by stating the advantages and disadvantages for performing this implementation based on the company overview, the current manufacturing of the product the company has been delivering, the current systems and tools utilized in the organization, the competitive business advantage based on the business process, the problem, benefits and risks of the current systems and the outcomes based on the case study and suggested implementation of the current business process.
It can be recommended the ICT technique should not just be implemented but should also follow with a proper monitoring and reporting of the business process prior to the implementation. With proper monitoring and reporting of the working progress of the ICT technique of knowledge management it would be easier to make out the effectiveness of the technique. It would also find if any inconsistency is noticed in the implementation process or if the technique is not being utilized to its full potential. Only then, the implementation process would be justified and successful.
References
Arpaci, I., 2017. Antecedents and consequences of cloud computing adoption in education to achieve knowledge management. Computers in Human Behavior, 70, pp.382-390.
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Famiyeh, S., Adaku, E., Amoako-Gyampah, K., Asante-Darko, D. and Amoatey, C.T., 2018. Environmental management practices, operational competitiveness and environmental performance: Empirical evidence from a developing country. Journal of Manufacturing Technology Management, 29(3), pp.588-607.
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Grover, R. and Froese, T.M., 2016. Knowledge management in construction using a SocioBIM platform: A case study of AYO smart home project. Procedia Engineering, 145, pp.1283-1290.
Gupta, V.K., Kaushal, R.K. and Shukla, S.P., 2018. Multi-stakeholder policy modeling for collection and recycling of spent portable battery waste. Waste Management & Research, p.0734242X18773544.
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Inkinen, H., 2016. Review of empirical research on knowledge management practices and firm performance. Journal of knowledge management, 20(2), pp.230-257.
Jayakrishna, K., Vinodh, S. and Anish, S., 2016. A Graph Theory approach to measure the performance of sustainability enablers in a manufacturing organization. International Journal of Sustainable Engineering, 9(1), pp.47-58.
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Massaro, M., Dumay, J. and Garlatti, A., 2015. Public sector knowledge management: a structured literature review. Journal of Knowledge Management, 19(3), pp.530-558.
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Santoro, G., Vrontis, D., Thrassou, A. and Dezi, L., 2017. The internet of things: building a knowledge management system for open innovation and knowledge management capacity. Technological Forecasting and Social Change.
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Soto-Acosta, P. and Cegarra-Navarro, J.G., 2016. New ICTs for knowledge management in organizations. Journal of Knowledge Management, 20(3), pp.417-422.
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